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The importance of understanding culture
Understanding one's culture
The importance of understanding culture
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My overall take on this experience was positive. I am grateful that Professor Rodkey had this project in place for the course. It opened my eyes into seeing that there is so much more in a religion. Religion consists of cultures, beliefs, and even a style of clothing. I think that if I haven’t have had this experience, I wouldn’t know what else is out there. I knew that the world had millions of religions but never knew they were practiced as so. All my life I was involved in church. Since the moment my mother gave birth to me, I always attended a Christian/Pentecostal Church. I was shown and taught, since I was a little girl, who the real God and Creator of this earth was. No one can really prove it but it is all based by faith. I can still
Knowing that God is my creator and the One that gave me a purpose to live on this earth means the world to me. At the Christian service, you are immediately welcomed inside the church, as well as the Jewish Temple. Christian congregations are not the only place where people feel welcomed. Many feel accepted in a certain place because of factors like culture. Others feel accepted because they found something they can relate to. At The Potter’s House, words of motivation were always said. It showed me that they not only care about your spiritual life but your physical one as well. Even though at both congregations I felt that there was a sense of love and care, The Potter’s House actually showed this by saying Hello to you when you came in the door or even a random person come up to you and kiss you on the cheek while saying God Bless You. Many believe this is a weird act of showing care or love but for them it was a way to show the visitors that there are people that actually care about
Comparing the two services, I saw that both had faithful followers. Even though their practices were different, both had people that really believed in it and followed it. This project helped me understand the importance of religion in society. It gives hope and even a helping hand to those in struggle. Their actions they took were based on what they believed in. I saw this in both services. At The Potter’s House and at Temple Beth Israel, I saw that everyone was happy and seemed as if they lived a good life. They may have their conflicts or issues internally but externally, you couldn’t tell. This helps society so much. People make the right decisions and tend to be more helpful to the community. Religion helps us in so many different ways. It makes what the United States is all about, the freedom to
...t also with acceptance as one of their own, although I never wore a Tallit or Kippah. This was a very peculiar position since I have never been so accustomed to this sort of kindness. By the end of the Jewish service, not only did I respect and appreciate their faith much more, but, in a way, I began to grow a love for it as well. While I felt no negative feelings towards the service, the most positive aspect would, most definitely, be the warmth I felt from everyone inside the Synagogue and from the presentation of the building itself. At first glance, I was not able to fully appreciate the decorations in the room, but the longer I observed I began to realize each decoration represented something significant. Overall, if I learned anything important this day it is that one thing holds true: I can still appreciate ideas and concepts even if I do not agree with them.
Overall, I enjoyed the experience of learning more about a new culture and participating in their cultural events. My original fear of being an intruder went away when people would be friendly and introduce themselves to me. I was surprised to enter the prayer room and see that people were sitting on the floor because I am used to people having a chair to sit on. I was also nervous about sitting on the floor for a long period of time because my body is not used to it and I am not as youthful as I once was. After about thirty minutes, I started to get really uncomfortable, but I continued to sit because I did not want to be offensive by standing. I was surprised to see volunteers cooking meals for the guest because that is not something that I am used to seeing at a
I vividly remember sitting in my ninth grade world history class, only six short years ago, when my teacher announced that next week we would begin a four week study on world religions. A nervous murmur swept through thirty students, all thinking the
I have attended a Christian church my whole life. While I have attended various denominations, I have always considered myself to be non-denominational, not favoring one over the other. The only other churches I have ever attended were Catholic; I have had other family members practice this faith and so have always been a guest with them if I have gone and had the services feel fairly familiar. When we were given the project to go and attend a different religion’s church I wasn’t sure what to expect. I decided to attend a Jewish church since Judaism and Christianity believe some of the same fundamentals but are still separated, I thought it would be a good way to learn more about the church as well as be able to relate better to anyone I know who practices Judaism. Also this taught me what it feels like for someone who does not have any experience in church.
In conclusion, it is important to study religion off campus as Smart (1994) has said one must “walk a mile in [the] moccasins [of religious people]” in order to gain a real understanding of how belief has an impact on people and how it motivates people to live their lives, this cannot be obtained through textbooks or media reports. It is how Harvey (2013) suggests that belief has to be learnt and is enacted by others through witnessing, speaking, reading, ritualising, congregation and acceptance. Studying off campus does not mean challenging the traditional understanding of religion. Historical and textual books should still be used to provide foundation knowledge but one must go beyond this and engage with living religions in order to obtain a rich first-hand experience.
Religion is “the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship.” (Cambridge Dictionary) Many people believe in something else out of the evidential or scientific view, thinking that good things happen because God says so, or that the universe was not made by the Big Bang. Even though is something that was more present in history years ago, a lot of people still believe and practise a religion. According to Stephen Juan there are about 4,300 religions in the world. About a 75 per cent of the population of the world practises a religion and the two religions most widely spread are the Christianity and the Islam. (2006) They can be divided in believers, adherents or not adherents, agnostics and atheists. People who are believers are the ones who have faith in something great beyond and
In discussions of the world would be a more peaceful place without religions, one controversial issue has been placing blame on one 's own religion when wars or conflict ending in violence has occurred. The question is asked. Does religion play a role in the violence going on around the world? On the one hand, many people may agree with this belief and argues that religion in a way always has played a role in the amount of violence in our society. On the other hand, the public contends that as humans we know what were are doing and our religion has nothing to do with the violence that we create. Others even maintain that we use religion as an excuse or as an answer to why we created so much violence. My own view on this topic is taking away
.... From it we learn not to lose sight of the facts and some of the things we do most of the time come because of our society, “they are only culture products.” It also teaches us to keep an open mind, not everything that unknown to us we most immediately reject it. We should see things through an open mind and not let our feelings and what we have been taught by our culture get in the way of finding the truth. Religion is different in many cultures but we should be open to what others religion is, it might be different but if we don’t take a minute to actually try to understand their way than we are making a mistake. We have to have an open mind because without an open mind we will not see beyond what we already know or think we know. I like one of Rachels sentence and its true what he says, “Then we may be more open to discovering the truth, whatever that might be.”
As I stated before, I grew up in church. In fact, the church I attend today is the one my father started attending when he was only seven months old. I have strong familial ties to my church and that is ultimately where my faith began. I sometimes reminisce back to when my father would sing Amazing Grace with me and my mother would teach me Bible stories. Together, my parents were my Sunday School teachers from third to sixth grade. I loved going to church as a family: my sister, my parents, and myself included. My sister, two cousins, and I even formed a singing group at my church in honor of my grandmother, Minnie (we were called “The Minnie Maberrys”) Needless to say, my family has been an integral part of my faith. I have sought encouragement from them and the wisdom they have instilled in me will remain with me for a lifetime. Another crucial facet of the growing of my faith has been the Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization, or FCA for short.
Religion can be defined as a system of beliefs and worships which includes a code of ethics and a philosophy of life. Well over 90% of the world 's population adheres to some form of religion. The problem is that there are so many different religions. What is the right religion? What is true religion? The two most common ingredients in religions are rules and rituals. Some religions are essentially nothing more than a list of rules, dos and don 'ts, which a person must observe in order to be considered a faithful adherent of that religion, and thereby, right with the God of that religion. Two examples of rules-based religions are Islam and Judaism. Islam has its five pillars that must be observed.
The people there were all extremely nice and would try to help me understand. They understood and accepted the fact that I wasn’t religious, but was showing interest in their faith. There were not as much people there as I had expected, but that might have been because it was a smaller church. It also wasn’t as racially diverse as I had expected. I thought that because it is the world’s biggest religion, that it
Religion is the main source of morals and values today. I feel like many people today are not following the word of God. I think that religion is overlooked, and not taught enough. For example, colleges, high schools, and many other places are not even allowed to pray, teach or preach the word of the bible. I feel like that is a problem in the United States today. It has had the effect of more violence, problems in families, and the non- education of the younger generation. I feel that though religion is choice, it should be introduced, because many don't even get the opportunity to learn about it.
New Testament Survey shaped me into a better person because it helped me understand my faith. I always grew up with my faith, I was never taught to challenge my beliefs and myself. Through this class I learned to ask questions because through questions you can strengthen your own understanding. Doctor Sim is always so caring and so sweet. He genuinely cares about each and every one of his students, I believe that is why I did as well as I did in this class. Doctor Sim made me interested and he made me want to become a better person each and every class. There was never a class when I didn’t walk out in a good mood and ready to put the lessons into practice.
...elieve in, I was still able to keep an open mind to those concepts because there is a larger group of people in this world where those beliefs are preached every day. Even though I have a superficial understanding of the Catholic religion, I learned a lot about how different cultures can take that religion and add their specific beliefs onto it, without making it universally accepted as a practice.
I honestly thought it would be an easy credit and something fun to take. I thought the study of religion was just learning about other religions to see what they were like and why they are different from our own. I guess I thought that studying other religions would help me understand my own better. Now, I understand more and the study of religion is much, much more important than I could have ever thought. Learning about other people’s religions and their cultures helps us become better people in this world. If we can better understand someone’s point of view, then we can respect their decisions and them as a person more. Not understanding a culture or religion can lead to stereotyping and just hatred for others. If everyone in the whole word learned about other people’s culture, religion, and ideas; then the world would be a much better place. I think this class should be mandatory just for that reason alone. I think the reason that my view on the study of religion has changed is because of what we have learned throughout the textbook. Learning about these different religions that have been taken out of context really puts a spin on things in your mid. I mean, take Muslims, a few Muslims did some very bad things, but now people think that all Muslims are terrorists or bad people. Learning about the religion helped me understand that they are vey peaceful people and just a few did