Is Easter in Germany a Fading Tradition

The Germanic celebration of Easter (Ostern in German) is very much like that in most of the Christian world. It features the same fertility and spring-related icons—eggs, bunnies, flowers—and many of the same Easter customs. The three major German-speaking countries (Austria, Germany, and Switzerland) are predominantly Christian and Easter is an important time for both Catholics and Protestants in the German-speaking lands. The art of decorating hollowed-out eggs (ausgeblasene Eier) for Easter is an Austrian and German tradition. A little bit to the east, in Poland, Easter is a way more relevant holiday than in Germany. The Origins of Easter Go Back to Pre-Christian Times The Easter celebration goes back to the earliest days of the Christian church. But the date of this festival has been controversial from the very beginning. Even the origin of the name of the most important celebration in the Christian calendar is unclear. But there is agreement on the fact that, like several other Christian holidays, most Easter customs can be traced back to pre-Christian, pagan rites and celebrations related to the arrival of spring. It is not by accident that Easter features such symbols of fertility as the egg and the rabbit, aka the Easter bunny (der Osterhase). The Easter celebration (das Osterfest) takes on both religious and secular forms. The Christian religious celebration is the most important day in the church calendar, reflecting Christianitys very beginnings in the Resurrection of Jesus. In the western church, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox (die Tagundnachtgleiche). (Eastern Orthodox Easter follows the same formula, but with the Julian calendar, so the date can fall one, four, or five weeks later.) Because of this movable feast -Ostern ist ein beweglicher Feiertag- depends on phases of the moon (Mondphasen), Easter can be observed between March 22 and April 25.   This lovely calendar page will help you find the Easter date for the coming ten years.   The Origins of the Word Ostern In quite a few languages Easter is called differently. A few examples: French: Pà ¢quesSpanish: PascuasPortuguese: Pà ¡scoaDanish: Pà ¥skeHebrew: Pascha Only a few know that in German, Easter had a similar name coming from Franconian: pÄ sche but through the Anglo-Saxon influence, the word Easter / Ostern became more prominent. The origin of Easter in Old-Germanic is most likely AustrÃ…  Ausro „Morgenrà ¶teâ€Å" (dawn / aurora) hinting for some at the dawn of Jesus resurrection (Auferstehung), for others at pagan traditions. The German word Ostern is a plural form. The Origin of pÄ sche is the Hebrew word Pessach (passover) which is connected to the Lord leading the People of Israel out of Egypt and turned into a tradition to wake the night in honor of the Lord. Childhood Memories of Easter And a few words on Christianism in Germany Born in 1972, I grew up with a Catholic father and a rather atheistic or slightly Protestant mother in a very small Catholic enclave in Lower Saxony. I remember decorating bamboo sticks with fruits and bast fiber for Palm Sunday and a few religious parades through the village. Compared to Christmas, Easter was rather disappointing as the presents were not really worth mentioning. I shared that disappointment with quite a few other kids. I clearly failed to understand the true purpose of Easter. From my experience and better knowledge, Christianism is practiced rather weakly in Germany and those who take religion seriously are considered to be backward thinking. So dont be surprised if you perceive weird looks when you openly state that you are a firm believer in God to a German, especially when you come to Berlin. A few weeks ago I was asked by a tourist where to find a Catholic church and had to send her to the Polish church that I knew from acquaintances of mine as most churches here are Protestant. I found it a rather funny occurrence as Berlin is considered   the atheist capital of Europe. In general, its the people of the South and the West that are more religious than those in the North and East. Your Experience What is your relation to the Easter celebration? How do you deal with the fact, that it mixes Pagan traditions with Christian ones? What memorable Easter experiences would you like to share with your children and childrens children? What to read next Check this page for other interesting Easter FactsExpand your vocabulary with our Easter Glossary in English and German language. ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Hyde FlippoEDITED: 16th of June 2015 by Michael Schmitz

Terrorism Is An Act Of Violent Protest - 1567 Words

Terrorism is an act of violent protesting when a group or country wants to be heard when their opinion goes unnoticed. When hearing the word terrorist one might think of bombings, Osama Bin Laden or even the horrifying, yet famous tragedy of 9/11. The United States has endured the spread of infectious diseases, civil battles, and minor bomb threats and attacks; however, in most citizens’ eyes, nothing compares to the catastrophe of 9/11. From the unjust prejudice gestures of Americans towards Middle Eastern ethnicities to the advancements in security, it can be established that the events of 9/11 have been the result of a major â€Å"terrorist† attack that has had lasting effects on America. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, with no anticipation of landing unsafely at their various destinations, hundreds of people boarded planes while others dropped their kids off at school, and proceeded to their daily working lives not knowing that it would be their last time doing so. Nineteen members of the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, hijacked four planes to carry out suicide attacks. Two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, another plane hit the corner of the Pentagon near the nation’s capital, and the fourth plane’s intended destination was Washington D.C. With the help of the courageous passengers onboard, the hijackers of the fourth plane did not succeed. The plane crashed into an open field in Pennsylvania. Overall theShow MoreRelatedTerrorism The word terrorism seems to be easy to define. It is a word that everyone is1100 Words   |  5 PagesTerrorism The word terrorism seems to be easy to define. It is a word that everyone is familiar with. Terrorism, as used in todays media which covers a wide range of violent acts. 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Does religion cause war free essay sample

War is an organized and often prolonged conflict that is carried out by states or non-state actors. It is generally characterised by extreme violence, social disruption and economic destruction. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence or intervention. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called peace. A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world. We will write a custom essay sample on Does religion cause war or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Today we have invited our special guests of panel to discuss about the topic â€Å"Does Religion Cause War†. To discuss about the Does religion cause war? On this planet Earth, there have been many wars fought over many different things. They can range from freedom, oil, and religion. There were many wars fought over religion. For example, the thirty years war. The thirty years war was one of the major wars fought over religion. It was mostly fought in what’s now Germany. The thirty years war was one of the absolute longest and most destructive, and brutal conflicts in European history. The war was mainly between Protestants and Roman Catholics; although, this eventually turned into a war including most of the European powers. The major effect of The Thirty Years War was destroying entire regions. In Germany, the disease and famine greatly decreases population, while bankrupting most of the combatant powers. Although the regiments within each military were not strictly mercenary in that they were not guns for hire that changed sides from battle to battle, the soldiers that made up the regiments for the most part probably were. Another example of a war fought over religion was the Crusades. The Crusades were some of the most famous wars, and fought over religion. The Crusades were a series of wars blessed by the Pope, and Catholic Church. Their main goal was to regain Christian access to the city of Jerusalem, and holy places around it. The Crusades were actually originally launched to repel the expansion into Anatolia. Several hundred thousand soldiers became Crusaders by taking vows; the Pope granted them plenary indulgence. Their emblem was the cross, â€Å"crusade is derived from the French term for taking up the cross. Many were from France and called themselves Franks, which became the common term used by Muslims. The term crusade is also used to describe religiously motivated campaigns conducted between 1100 and 1600 in territories outside the Levant usually against pagans, heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious, economic, and political In the eyes of many, religion is inherently conflictual, but this is not necessarily so. Therefore, in part, the solution is to promote a heightened awareness of the positive peace building and reconciliatory role religion has played in many conflict situations. More generally, fighting ignorance can go a long way. Interfaith dialogue would be beneficial at all levels of religious hierarchies and across all segments of religious communities. Where silence and misunderstanding are all too common, learning about other religions would be a powerful step forward. Being educated about other religions does not mean conversion but may facilitate understanding and respect for other faiths. Communicating in a spirit of humility and engaging in self-criticism would also be helpful. In recent times further back in history to Hinduism or Judaism along with other religious beliefs. During the same time period there have also been a large number of wars and battles between countries. Many argue that politics are the causes of these wars; however others claim that it is religion which is the main reason. Religion has had a large influence on many conflicts in the past. While some argue that religion is the cause of wars, it is inconclusive whether war would or would not exist if there was no such thing as religion. Some would say The Crusades are a major example of religion causing war. From the 11th century to the 13thcentury Christian states in Europe launched what are sometimes called Holy Wars against Muslims in the East. These wars centred on the city of Jerusalem which held a Holy significance in the Christian world. However when 3000 Christians were massacred, this began the ‘retaliation’ and therefore the beginning of The Crusades to release the Holy City of Jerusalem from the rule of Muslims. In this example, religion has clearly caused The Crusades as there would not have been any war if the city of Jerusalem did not have Christian significance. However, a contrary argument to this would be that it was the massacre of 3000 Christians which caused The Crusades to begin and not because of differing religious beliefs, although it is unquestionable that religion played a major part in the beginning of the Crusades as the massacre may not have taken place without a religious background. As the argument for religion causing war heavily outweighs the opposing argument, in this context it is fair to say that using this example, religion does cause war. The Israel-Arab wars from 1948 to the present day are often seen as wars over religion. In fact, they say, they have been about nationalism, self-defence or the liberation of territory. So why is religion a factor in war at all when all the main faiths have little time for violence and advocate peace? Because, it is suggested, leaders use differences over faith as a way of sowing hatred and mobilising support for political wars. As the American civil war leader Abraham Lincoln put it almost 150 years ago: The will of God prevails. In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, but one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.

Asymmetric Effects Online Consumer Reviews -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Asymmetric Effects Online Consumer Reviews? Answer: Introducation Buyer behaviour can be understood as the systematic approach consumers follow when entering the purchase process and making the buying decisions. This can be seen as four step process which helps to understand the buyer behaviour at a microscopic level. Need recognition is the first step in the consumer buying process; this is a point at which a consumer becomes aware of existence of a functional or an emotional need. Hence, the marketers play an important role in need recognition by stimulating the need awareness in its marketing plan. Information search is conducted Post need recognition, consumer look forward to compare the products against a given set of criteria and also looks forward to evaluate other option. Marketers here have to focus on effective positioning and strong brand development to appear in customer information search (Solomon, 2014). In order to drive purchase and customer experience, customer loyalty and retention are very important to include in the marketing st rategies, when the company is looking for long term relation with the customers. Provide loyalty programs; add on selling efforts etc. help in building loyalty amongst the consumers. Customer arrives at a decision by combining all the information he has collected and evaluated with his need for product, he gets into a decision mode to buy the product. Everyone from his peers, subordinates, word of mouth, internet, blogs, reviews assist him in making the right decision (Khaniwale, 2015) Hence it can be said that Buying behaviour extremely impulsive in nature, but it is more like doing a systematic research on the product, and hence it leaves the current marketers a lot of gaps to fill in with their marketing strategy, one such part of the marketing strategy which influences the buying and purchasing behaviour of consumer is consumer reviews and Blogs. Internet has a global penetration of 46%, which means 3.419 Billion people are connected through Internet out of the total population of 7 Billion. Also the unique Social media users are 2.307 Billion and unique Mobile users add up tune to 3.790, the world can be seen more like a global village where every person is connected with internet. Internet thus opens a lot of avenues for the markets to promote their products and services and influences the customers buying behaviour(Poushter, 2016) Consumer review have a very strong role to play in influencing the buying behaviour of the customers, hence it is very important to learn and understand the impact and attitude of the costumer review on the consumers. According to one of the studies conducted in 2016 it has been shown that as many as 90% of the consumers read online review and an overall majority of 88% trust the online reviews and recommendation. It can be said that online reviews comes in handy to the customers when they are looking forward to buy a product, it helps them in in their purchase decision. Moreover it also makes sense as the customer reviews posted online are the reviews of people who have already used the product, and thus it makes more sense to trust their reviews. As mentioned earlier that the world has slowly but gradually transformed into a global Internet and hence a lot of information is available online which management the customer buying journey easy and filled with utmost certainty. Customer s these days put same or more amount of trust on the customer reviews as much they put it on their peers or closed ones, it has become that important aspect in customer purchase journey (Park Nicolou, 2015). The world today is changing; the buying habits of people are change and also the buying process. The days when people used to go to the malls, speak with the sales representatives, take their word on the product has been replaced by comments posted online by the customers. The shopping is now limited to Internet, thanks to a number of e-commerce sites which have eased the buying process for the consumers. Amazon, Alibaba, Flipkart, E-Bay are the e-commerce sites which work on a marketplace model and facilitates transaction between buyers and seller, they just act as a medium in connecting the buyer to seller and facilitate the journey. Hence, it becomes important for the e-commerce companies to get good quality sellers on the board. It is more likely that a new consumer will buy from the seller who has good review online and people have been appreciating the quality of product he has provided in the past. (Cantallops Salvi, 2014) Positive review in a way gives a relief to the consumers, he knows that the product he is looking to buy is good in quality and will be able to fulfil all the needs that he is looking forward to. At the same time, his faith is restored by the validation been given to him by numerous positive customer reviews. Another important study conducted on the buyer buying behaviour was that customers are more likely to spend 31% more on a business or a product with excellent review, this is most certainly not something astonishing, as it relates to buyers innate nature of getting the excellent product at an affordable price. Customer review not only help in increasing the sale, but it also helps in building a strong brand image in the minds of the consumer, 72% of the consumers believes they trust a brand based on the positive reviews. This leaves a very important space for the marketers, to understand the statistics of the consumers, their faith in the online reviews and hence come up with solutions or products which will make the consumers post positive and great reviews online. Another important trend on Social media these days is the increasing relevancy of consumer generated content (CGC), it is one of the top digital trend currently, it gives user the power to share their views, opinion, feedback, post their concern and grievances online. The utility of this content is that brands these days listen to whatever is being spoken about them online, it is a customer feedback platform for them, and in the market where e-commerce is the thing, social listening becomes important too. Customers are also aware of the importance of their feedback and opinions and hence put their r eal feeling out on the internet, because they know brands do care and brands will listen to their problem. Similarly, the new consumers who are looking to buy some product or service from that particular brand also have access to the customers concern, query and feedback and are thus watching over how the brand reacts once the product has been sold to the customer (Pappas, 2016). A great social listening by a brand helps to absorb more and more consumers online. Web 2.0, where everybody is online, information access has become more and more easy and comfortable and thus it makes more sense to do an online reputation management and understand the importance of the customer reviews on the buying behaviour. Until now it is established that online review have a direct correlation with customer buying behaviour, a positive review leads to affinity of the consumer towards the product and the bad review pulls him away from the product. Online community plays an important role here, buyers in the process of gathering information, become a part of an increasing growing community and start trusting their feedback about the product, thus creating a state of harmony in the digital world. Like the customer review, online blogs also play an important role when it comes to influencing his/her behaviour. It has been shown in a study conducted by Research now that around 9 out of 10 consumers make purchases after reading about a product or service on a Blog. Hence, a lot of businesses use blogs as their promotion material because they know it is a strong influencer for the customers. The Bloggers themselves have earned a lot of followers who follow their writing on the blogs and base their buying decision on their recommendation. This gives bloggers additional responsibilities of being unbiased in their blogs, and provides a correct feedback or information to the customer without having any brand bias (Strauss, 2016). Online marketplace provides almost everything to everything on their portal, ranging from small things like soaps to as big as a virtual garden, hence a variety of bloggers exist based on their expertise and their follower base. Amongst all the millions of p roduct sold on the web, some of the important ones are based on lifestyle, fashion, consumer durable and electronics, these are the product categories where in customer relies heavily on the bloggers content. Professional bloggers and hobbyists write about the brands more often in some way or the other, they either create a highly curated content and post in on their blogs, or go onto Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or even twitter to speak about the brand and its product. And as the internet has found its place in pocket of every consumer in the form of smartphones, they can easily access the information on the go, even at the last minute and change their decision of buying a particular product. Bloggers are increasing their connection day by day with the consumers, the connection builds stronger once the consumer realizes that the feedback is not biased and is some form of paid marketing, in this way consumer loyalty towards the blogger is created, which in turn helps the blogger to expand his civil-engineering with more customer benefitting reviews (Goodrich DeMooji, 2014). Bloggers not only influence the customer in their decision making but they influence their entire journey starting from; information search or discovering about a new product, comparing the product with a competitor brand, deciding on a product, refine the options, seek out for expert advice and in the end inspire purchase in the customer. Bloggers these days use the AIDA model of marketing to influence the customers; A-Attention- Grab the attention of the customer by catch headlines I-Interested- Get them interested into a product by putting in all the relevant information as desired by the consumer D-Desire- Generate a desire to but the product in the customer by showing him ads online and sending him newsletters and recommendation about the product. A-Action to Call- Provide him the info in the form of link on the Blog to make a buy. All these steps contribute towards influencing the buyer behaviour at each step of his buying journey. Blog users have mentioned over and over again that they feel safe and comforted knowing that they are making a purchase decision based on the recommendation of a person who is an expert and have tried the product for himself and thus giving a correct feedback, they trust the opinions of the bloggers. Another interesting insight which puts in blogs more important in a customer buying behaviour is that the customers trust blogs more than the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram etc. when buying a product. A survey conducted found out how Buyers use blogs in their buying journey, 21% decide on a product or service,19% refine choices,19% get support and answers,17% discover product and services,14% get assured,13% inspire a purchase and 7% execute a purchase. All these points mentioned above clearly indicate the prevalence and the usefulness of the blogs in the journey of a buyer. These days another important concept which is teaming up is of influencer marketing; Brands get an influencer/Blogger/A person with good number of followers and ask them to tweet after using the product, buyers on seeing the recommendation coming from their influencer automatically gets attracted towards the product, their brain starts getting stimulated to the stimulation received by the influencer, thus aide them in the purchase. The essay can be concluded by saying, online customer reviews and blogs plays an extremely important role in influencing the customer in making a purchase decision. Growing penetration of Smartphone makes the information accessible, even on the go, and customers do not move away from having an expert opinion on the product or service they are interested in. At the same time, it is a wonderful opportunity for the brHence it can be said that Buying behaviouraign on the premise of its social listening skills. References Solomon, M.R., 2014.Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being(Vol. 10). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Khaniwale, M., 2015. Consumer buying behavior.International Journal of Innovation and Scientific Research,14(2), pp.278-286. Poushter, J., 2016. Smartphone ownership and internet usage continues to climb in emerging economies.Pew Research Center,22. Park, S. and Nicolau, J.L., 2015. Asymmetric effects of online consumer reviews.Annals of Tourism Research,50, pp.67-83. Cantallops, A.S. and Salvi, F., 2014. New consumer behavior: A review of research on eWOM and hotels.International Journal of Hospitality Management,36, pp.41-51. Pappas, N., 2016. Marketing strategies, perceived risks, and consumer trust in online buying behaviour.Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,29, pp.92-103. Strauss, J., 2016.E-marketing. Routledge. Goodrich, K. and De Mooij, M., 2014. How socialare social media? A cross-cultural comparison of online and offline purchase decision influences.Journal of Marketing Communications,20(1-2), pp.103-116.