Abrahamic Religion Reflection Paper

Last semester I had a class called Abrahamic Religions. The class consisted of study the three Abrahamic faiths Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. First we learned about Judaism and what they do differently from the Christian church. Then we learned about Christianity and how it has changed over the years from the Protestant Christian church split to the way people worship and view Jesus today. The last of the three Abrahamic faiths we studied was Islam, we learned about their different practices and what they believe God commands them to do. This class taught me not only about religion but a new way to view the world. The first religion we discussed in class was Judaism; we discussed how the religion started and what we already knew about

I had learned just how different Christianity was from the religion hat it sprang from. I had also learned that some traditions did not get passed on to Christianity such as the mandatory number of prayers they had to pray and the Hebrew language not being carried over to Christianity.

The second religion we discussed in class was Christianity were we talked about how the Christian church has hanged to where it is now. The topic of Christians during the Holocaust was also discussed. We talked about the ones that supported the Holocaust and the ones that actually did something to help the Jews as well as discuss what it really meant to us to be Christian. For this subject we took a visit to a Catholic Mass. Which was much different from the protestant services I’ve attended my whole life. During the visit I learned that that Catholic Masses have certain prayers and are prayed differently than how they would be prayed in a protestant church. The prayers were actually sung instead of just talked through. I had expected there to be a lengthy sermon similar to a protestant service but instead there was a short parable, as the most of the buildup of the service was on the Eucharist. The most important thing I learned from this time is class is that people view God differently. It taught me that worship is different for other people and that what they view as important is not the same as what I view as important in how people live as Christians. I also taught me how

Once the service started we had to take off our shoes. That’s when I learned that the Islamic worship space was different from a Christian of Jewish one because there were on seats and everyone sat on the floor. He service started with prayer. The prayers were chanted in Arabic and everyone bowed down in unison during the prayers. After the prayers there was a sermon about how parents should raise righteous children that will obey the laws instead of unrighteous children that would fall into extremism. Once I heard that I had realized that Muslim communities are more scared of extremist groups than anyone else, because of the threat someone from their community joining a terrorist organization. After the service Ashfag and the speaker met with us in a room where we were able to ask question about the Islamic faith. I had learned that they do not believe in the crucifixion but that Jesus rose up to heaven and will return to die a natural death. I had also learned that they believe Abraham sacrificed Ishmael not Isaac and that the Arabian people claim to be offspring of Ishmael. With what I learned about Islam I am able to understand someone else’s point of view as well as how Islam has helped shape the world to where it is today. I also have a new way of looking at the religion not as something violent but as something that has been twisted and construed to better fit the desire of