The thing is many neofobia

"In our time, the novelty is a slogan that sells. Formerly, on the contrary, it was scary." This phrase of French historian Jean Delumeau summarized perfectly in the past how certain developments could cause waves neofobia causing violent reactions collective.

One example is the reaction of the French peasants in the seventeenth century when it set new rates recaudatorias in the area of the Perigord. Logically, that taxes will go up causing neofobia to anyone, but the problem was that rates were accompanied "the organization of the perception that people were not accustomed," says Delumeau in his book The fear in the West. The imposition of the papers stamped was flatly rejected by some people who were mostly illiterate.

All processes of religious XVI and XVII can be interpreted as a collective phenomenon of neofobia: Although Protestants and Calvinists were seen by many Catholics as dangerous innovators, the truth is that their intention was the opposite: to return to the purity of the Church primitive, fleeing the pollution thrown by the developments and innovations.

Religious conflicts brought about other changes that were not well received, as the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, which resulted in violent riots in Rome in 1582. In the twentieth century have not missed events that have provoked reactions neofóbicas, and the economy has had much to do in some of them, like the crack of Wall Street in 1929, or the collapse of the German mark in 1923.

Outside the business world, undoubtedly the biggest reaction was the epicenter of New York City on September 11, 2001, when the largest terrorist attack in history attracted millions of people the realization that the world as we knew it , Was completed and inaugurated a new era in which it was not easy to predict the course of events, a feeling of insecurity that still promises to accompany us for many years.

Customs pagan

Old as background, in the fourth century, the Church turned into the main building of its structure and this mythical, of course, impinged on all their celebrations. The council of Nicea (325), Emperor Constantine, decreed follows the feast of Easter should be held on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring eguinoccio.

Thus, the Christian Easter fell to unite and represent the pagan traditions, in all the usual pre-Christian cultures gue around eguinoccio spring, celebrating the resurrection of a young sun god, a symbol of the rebirth of life in Nature after death and decay winter.

Shortly thereafter, between the years 354 and 360, was set as the date of the birth of Jesus on the night of 24 to December 25, the day the gue Romans celebrated the Natalis Invicti Solis, the birth of the invincible sun-worship very popular and widespread , Often custom in the god Mithras, the gue Christians were unable to overcome or outlaw until then and, of course, the same date in the contemporary gue people celebrate the arrival of winter solstice.

With this maneuver is to transfer all the attributes mythical Jesus Christ gue had characterized Mitra and, earlier, Dionysos and other young gods. The saturnales, as already mentioned, were the model festive gue gave birth to Christmas.

The various funeral rites

Many end their existence buried, or cremated embalsamados, with tears, a party or their ashes scattered in space. The funeral customs reflect our interpretation of life and death. Here, we offer the different rites of this area.

Man is the only creature that buries its dead, and in all societies have existed beliefs about souls, spirits and life after death, so the rites farewell present very different forms throughout the world and across all times.

Funeral rites can be grouped into two classes, according to the sense that each community gives to death. On the one hand, there are companies who believe that the body loses an essential part of the person, for another, convinced that the soul is earlier than our life in this world and survives bodily death.

In the first, to be mummified corpses and filled the graves of personal belongings, food and offerings to anticipate the resurrection in the future and help the soul on its journey to another life: Jews, Vikings, Jews, Arabs, Christians and However, Egyptians did it. Those who believe in reincarnation of the soul, as Hindus and Buddhists, preferring other approaches, such as cremation.

The first known tombs dating from the Stone Age, around the year 3000 BC. In them, the corpses are lying to one side and shrinkage, and along with them there is food, tools and ornaments. As far back as ancient Mesopotamia is believed that those who were buried could cause bad misfortune. The Cretans registered addresses for another life in the graves of their dead, and Greeks and Romans provided them with money to the gods and even cakes for cancerbero, the watchdog of the gates of beyond.

But those who carried farther worship funeral were Egyptians. At the time of the pharaohs, keep the body was thought necessary to access another life, and for this purpose and noble kings did preserve his remains and equipment luxuriously their graves waiting for the day of his resurrection. Once dead, their viscera were kept in so-called "glasses CANopen" (equivalent to the relics of saints among Christians and Arabs), embalming the rest with special compounds, some funerals are held dances that could include mortuary and athletic competitions, is deposited the bodies in developed niches and wooden and stone sarcophagi, and pyramids were built luxuriously ornadas and inaccessible to the living to accommodate them.