cl0006's blog

The article I decided to read was over our beloved country, USA, and the clashing views of how America is exceptional between conservatives and liberals. According to a journalist from CNN, conservatives believe that every country should look up to America as a role model due to our economic status. Moreover, conservatives view our country’s morals and culture superior to other countries; therefore, other countries should accept us and submit to our way of living. Basically, conservatives sees America as the top dog and we are the best the world has ever had; even though they don’t even like our government. As for liberals, they think we are exceptional because of our limited government and constitution. Furthermore, liberals think we should adopt some aspects of foreign countries, well in exchange that they adopt ours, and form a bond.

In the article, it also mentioned both conservatives and liberals’ views towards President Barrack Obama. Conservatives apparently believe that President Obama does not believe our country is exceptional nor is he making it that way. On the other hand, liberals believe he is, and this should sound familiar if you replace conservatives with Republicans and liberals with Democrats. Anyways, Democrats or liberals also believe that we should try to have a tighter bond with the United Nations (UN), such as having the UN decide if the US could use military power to settle something. I personally, like the liberals since I’m a Democrat; however, some of their views I do not like like the permission from the UN, if we are so great why do we need to have permission from others, isn’t that contradictory? I do like the idea of spreading our ideas to other countries, but I would like to have them adapt voluntarily not by coercing them. It’s just unethical to force lesser countries to be like us when they might not want to change.

This weeks discussion was just a closing of goddess religions and pilgrimages, taking last moments to cram in a couple of last notes/thoughts before we begin working on our projects. Goddess religions are a lot more different than Western religions and some Eastern religion, not because it focuses on the female figure majority of the time but it takes nature as it’s god or in this case goddess. Nature to believers of goddess religions such as Dianic Wiccans and other feminists, believe that nature can heal people and connecting with nature would bring peace to the person. One thing I also took notice is that destruction of nature really provokes pagans of the goddess religions, nature is very important to them. Nature is life, and killing nature is killing yourself. When you die, your body returns to nature and gets recycled, I’m not sure if Wiccans and other Pagan feminists believe in rebirth, but everyone goes through the cycle of being born, growing too old, and then returning to Earth, six feet under in fact.

Moving on, Goddess religions are pretty unique, they don’t mind having tourists go on a pilgrimage just to see different sites or sacred centers offered. The believers aren’t even unhappy to just have tourists who go on the long journeys just for sight-seeing instead of religious or spiritual purposes like the rest of them. All are encouraged to go on the pilgrimage no matter their intentions, well good intentions are recommended, and all are accepted.

This week, even though we missed a day due to class sign up we spent our day creating a rubric for the upcoming project presentation for our given prompts. But I could mention about the reading we were assigned over the week, which was over Goddess Pilgrimages. It was a little dry and hard to swallow at first, but I managed to read it and truthfully, I didn’t really understand it much. All I got from the reading was that the goddess pilgrimages weren’t different from other pilgrimages like the one to Mecca. Except, the fact that when on a goddess pilgrimage one can do it out of curiosity or for spiritual reasons. Either way, the pilgrim or tourist is still accepted by the followers of the goddess religion, because in goddess religions the believers want people to make the journey and take in the scenery. I personally like goddess religions because it accepts everyone and doesn’t really have rules and regulations that dictates living standards.

Second Prompt:

Purpose/Audience/Questions: The pilgrimage to Mecca is a great way to demonstrate the values of Islam. The reason why is because it the necessary steps takes people on journeys back into the past and allows them to understand what obstacles their prophets and other important character from the Koran had to go through. A great example would be the running between the two mountains, which symbolizes the mother’s struggle to find water for her son Ishmel. This shows the values of love of a mother to her son and how she dedicated her time and energy to find water for her son to save him from thirst. The parts/actions taken during the pilgrimage can give the audience an overview of what the special characters of the Koran had to experience in order to achieve greatness and insight. The audience can therefore understand why people go on pilgrimages to Mecca, just so they could relive the moments of people like Muhammad, the Last Prophet. Furthermore, to be a step closer to God or in this case Allah and to cleanse oneself of sins. Some may question as to why the pilgrimage to Mecca is considered important and how it shows the values of religion. Well, the reason why the pilgrimage to Mecca is important and demonstrates the values of religion through its actions and readings from their Bible (Koran) explaining why people had to complete the pilgrimage to understand the importance of believing in a special being that guides you through the hardships life throws at you.

This week we went over Hinduism and how it’s not like Western religion. Hinduism isn’t like Western Religions because it is non-linear, once a person dies they get reincarnated and life continues. They continue on because of karma or the deeds you do while alive, but once a person lives their life and done good they could reach a state called Nirvana which is the state of nothingness. That’s what most Hindus and Buddhists want after death, because once you keep being reborn as another person you get tired of it and you just want it all to stop or maybe you just want your existence to end. Anyways, today we talked about GODDESS RELIGIONS! It is so nature-based, and most of the community is made up of feminists (as is said in the article we read the community was mostly made up of lesbian feminists). Before I forget, in Hinduism the Ganges River is very important because it is one HOLY river. It is said that before it hit Earth, the river touched Vishnu’s (the Preserver) awesome feet which made it HOLY and pure because of the female goddess. The river serves not only to dump waste and to drink out of but to also purify one’s body and soul.

Reflection:

I thought this week was interesting, because I actually knew all three main gods in Hinduism. But as for the goddess religion, that was just a little weird because it was believed that this female goddess gave birth to her son in the winter season then married him in spring/summer, finally killing him in fall. It sounded so twisted but I shouldn’t be judging someone’s beliefs, even though to me it sounds very strange.

Not really, I actually didn’t pick Morningside College just because it was a Liberal Arts College. I actually picked this college because it was close to home and wouldn’t take up a lot of gas to get from where I live to college. Furthermore, I don’t have to live in dorms nor pay for boarding fees because I live with parents and that’s free. This is why Morningside was my first choice for college because of distance, otherwise I could’ve chosen a state college like ISU, but that wouldn’t be a great choice because of distance from home and other factors.

However, going to a Liberal Arts school did affect me, I totally love it here at Morningside. I learned so many new things and the school is somewhat diverse in population. I don’t really feel alone… okay I kind of lied because I’m the only foreign looking face in my entire Passport class, but I didn’t feel much difference in the class, everyone was friendly. (Not trying to sound racist or anything I just want to prove a point that Morningside accepts all ethnic groups.) Being at a Liberal Arts school really opened my eyes to many things like Western Religions and tolerance towards differences across gender, race, etc. I have gained more knowledge going to Morningside, I was able to develop, well more like enhance my abilities to think critically, furthermore, coming here or attending Morningside helped me cope with my fear of public speaking. In addition, I feel my weaknesses in high school such as writing now have been strengthened because I attend a Liberal Arts college. I have developed better skills in writing formal papers, creative papers, etc.

This weeks religion blog will be over Hinduism, which is a monistic religion or simply put, a religion that does not have a personal god but an non-personal ultimate reality. In Hinduism, we are everything and everything is interconnected through life, death, and karma. Karma is the deeds done, whether it be good or bad will affect the person and everything else (universe). When one is tainted and then goes through the cycle of life, they will then taint the rest of the ultimate reality and will have to go through many rebirths to fix their mistake and cleanse the ultimate reality.

This week we also went through the three Hindu gods that represented the Ultimate Reality (UR) and other representations. The first god is Brahma, the creator, he represents life and creation of life. The second is Vishnu, the preserver, he is responsible for holding the UR together and maintain balance. The last is Shiva, the destroyer, his purpose is to destroy the person who is suppose to die and bring them back to Brahma to be reborn. Shiva is also known as the god of sex, because sex (usually) causes pregnancy and that means rebirth.

In class we also went over the three points that make Hinduism aka non-western religion different from the Western religions: monistic religion, non-linear, and praxis. As mentioned before, Hinduism and a lot of non-western are not monotheistic or the belief of one personal god, they are monistic or one, non-personal ultimate reality aka higher power. The religion is considered non-linear because it is on going, it follows an eternal cycle unless the person or object reaches Nirvana or the state of nothingness; otherwise everything goes through life, death, and rebirth respectively. Furthermore, reincarnation is another chance to improve one’s karma so the chance of being reborn repeatedly will finally end and they can become nothing. In western religions, people only have one life and when they die they go to heaven. The last key point is praxis, which is similar to the English word practice, is based on what a person/thing does and the many paths they can take.

I don’t know if we have to blog for this week since it was mid-term week, but if we do then here’s my post. This week we haven’t spoke much about anything, we had a speaker though, who came all the way from Texas. He basically glossed over Christianity and talked about the pilgrimages he was on with his students. He also emphasized on unity and friendship. It was fun, he also let people heat popcorn, please note that he only gave them a metal spoon, a lit candle, and a few popcorn kernels. It was a fun week except that we had to take the mid-term today, which wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. It required a lot of thinking and writing, but nothing that nothing that couldn’t be handled.

Today, the entire a.m. religion class went on a pilgrimage, we pretended parts of campus as sacred areas that we had to travel to and reenact moments of the past. Nothing better learned than actually putting yourself into it and doing the actions, is that even the right saying? Anyways, I’m going to give a quick gist of what happened this week, we went over Islam, the religion and talked about Muslim (people). I learned that Muslims are people not the religion which people today still make the same mistake. I also learned that Abraham exiled his wife and she ran between mountains to find water for her son Ishmael. I know this may be off topic but my English teacher in high school named his son Ishmael but his reason wasn’t from Islamic religion but from Moby Dick. Now getting back on topic, we also went over this week that not all Muslims are violent or terrorists, Muslims are still people and not everyone is filled with evil intentions. Furthermore, one of the frequent false assumptions is Muhammad is God. Muhammad is not God and he is not like Jesus, Muhammad is God’s prophet and he is definitely not God’s son. I also learned that there are 5 pillars in the Islamic religion: Shahada, Salat, Sawm, Zakat, and Hajj.

This week in class, we have been going over the five theorists and two models as review. Then, the new material we just learned was Judaism which I’m still struggling with. Judaism is a monotheistic religion (please note that monotheism doesn’t mean the belief in one god but the belief of one personal god). I can’t really understand where they really get these laws and why are they so strict. Some of their laws are reasonable, like not killing or stealing but when there’s laws with consequences like if you argue with your parents you get executed? That’s ridiculous! I mean if you’re arguing your way through about extending your curfew because you want to hang with friends you get punished by death? It’s worst than Draconian laws, I mean it’s wrong to argue with your parents but when you want them to see from your perspective sometimes it’s inevitable. In class, we also discussed about the ten commandments which are found in the Jewish Torah (pentateuch) and also the basis of Christianity and Islam. We also discussed in class who was Yahoweh, which isn’t the proper name of God since the real name is YHWH. We also discussed about the Torah (pentateuch), Neviim (prophet), and Ketuvim(writings). The Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim forms the Tanak or rules that guide how Jewish people live. Hopefully, after this semester that I will understand the concepts of religion and the making of religion. And most of all, I would like to understand all the different religions out there in the world, like Judaism and Christianity.