World Scholar's Cup: Special Area
Mythology - Answer- - variously to the collected myths of a group of people or to the
study of such myths. Myths are the stories people tell to explain nature, history and
customs.
Cosmology - Answer- - the study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the
universe.
-the scholarly and scientific study of the origin, large-scale structures and dynamics,
and ultimate fate of the universe, as well as the scientific laws that govern these
realities.
Creed (article of faith) - Answer- -a statement of the shared beliefs of a religious
community in the form of a fixed formula summarizing core tenets.
-Muslims declare the shahada, or testimony: "I bear witness that there is no god but
(the One) God (Allah), and I bear witness that Muhammad is God's messenger."
Oral tradition - Answer- -oral lore, is a form of human communication where in
knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and transmitted
orally from one generation to another.
Comparative Mythology - Answer- -the comparison of myths from different cultures in
an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology
has served a variety of academic purposes.
National myth - Answer- -an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past.
Such myths often serve as an important national symbol and affirm a set of national
values. A national myth may sometimes take the form of a national epic or be
incorporated into a civil religion.
-National myths often exist only for the purpose of state-sponsored propaganda.
- a dictator might tell stories of his ivinity or greatness to increase popularity
Pseudoscience - Answer- -consists of claims, beliefs, or practices presented as
being plausible scientifically, but which are not justifiable by the scientific method.
-Examples of pseudoscience concepts, proposed as scientific though they are not,
include acupuncture, alchemy, ancient astronauts, applied kinesiology, astrology,
Ayurvedic medicine, biorhythms, brain types, cellular memory, homeopathy.
Monomyth - Answer- -In narratology and comparative mythology, the monomyth, or
the hero's journey, is the common template of a broad category of tales that involve
a hero who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crisis wins a victory, and then
comes home changed or transformed.
Mythomoteur - Answer- - the constitutive myth that gives an ethnic group its sense of
purpose.
Miracle - Answer- -A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws
, -"Miracle" in the Quran can be defined as a supernatural intervention in the life of
human beings - Islam
Underdog - Answer- -A person or group in a competition, usually in sports and
creative works, who is popularly expected to lose. The party, team, or individual
expected to win is called the favorite or top dog. In the case where an underdog
wins, the outcome is an upset. An "underdog bet" is a bet on the underdog or
outsider for which the odds are generally higher.
Noble lie - Answer- In politics, a noble lie is a myth or untruth, often, but not
invariably, of a religious nature, knowingly propagated by an elite to maintain social
harmony or to advance an agenda. The noble lie is a concept originated by Plato as
described in the Republic.
Alternative fact - Answer- A phrase used by U.S. Counselor to the President
Kellyanne Conway during a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017, in which
she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's false statement about the
attendance at Donald Trump's inauguration as President of the United States. When
pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why Spicer "utter[ed] a
provable falsehood", Conway stated that Spicer was giving "alternative facts." Todd
responded, "Look, alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."
Skepticism - Answer- -Generally any questioning attitude or doubt towards one or
more items of putative knowledge or belief. It is often directed at domains, such as
morality (moral skepticism), religion (skepticism about the existence of God), or the
nature of knowledge (skepticism of knowledge).
Cosmic Egg - Answer- -the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe
or some primordial being comes into existence by "hatching" from the egg,
sometimes lain on the primordial waters of the Earth.
The concept was resurrected by modern science in the 1930s and explored by
theoreticians during the following two decades. The idea comes from a perceived
need to reconcile Edwin Hubble's observation of an expanding universe (which was
also predicted from Einstein's equations of general relativity by Alexander
Friedmann) with the notion that the universe must be eternally old. Current
cosmological models maintain that 13.8 billion years ago, the entire mass of the
universe was compressed into a gravitational singularity, the so-called cosmic egg,
from which it expanded to its current state (following the Big Bang).
Gaia - Answer- -In Greek mythology is the personification of the Earth and one of the
Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life: the primal Mother
Earth goddess. She is the immediate parent of Uranus (the sky), from whose sexual
union she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods) and
the Giants, and of Pontus (the sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea
gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.
Barton Cylinder - Answer- -a Sumerian creation myth, written on a clay cylinder in
the mid to late 3rd millennium BC. Barton's original translation and commentary
suggested a primitive sense of religion where "chief among these spirits were gods,
who, however capricious, were the givers of vegetation and life." He discusses the
