Intro to Religion Blog

There are many new things that I now know about Elvis. I knew that he died from drug overdose, but I found out in class that he actually died on the toilet. I found that to be very interesting and quite embarrassing. Something else that I had never known was that Elvis and Eminem are actually very similar. Back in his time, Elvis was seen as a corrupter for young people. He had the nickname, “Elvis pelvis”, and was seen as a bad influence. Today, Eminem is seen the same way.

I thought it was pretty interesting to learn about the Pilgrimage to Graceland. I had never thought of it as being a pilgrimage before discussing it in class. I do think that the concepts are solid enough for it to be considered a pilgrimage. There is travel involved, which is a big part of the Turner model. There is also a limin, metaphorical death, and community as a major component. Along with the Eliade model, there is also potential for sacred space and there is an axis mundi. I think that this is enough to back the fact that it is a pilgrimage, although some may not agree.

On the other hand, I do not really see this pilgrimage as being a religion. We discussed that Elvis and Jesus really do have a lot of things in common and the pilgrimage exemplifies a lot of the religious characteristics we have come up with in class, but I don’t think that it is enough. I just can’t seem to compare Elvis and Jesus even if they do have a lot of similarities. I don’t think Elvis qualifies as an ultimate reality, even if many people do look up to him as such. There are a lot of the concepts of religion that have the potential to be present, but they aren’t fully grasped. For example, I do not see anything involving the pilgrimage to be considered sacred and that is a big component of my definition of religion.

I had never heard of goddess pilgrimage before learning about it in class. After discussing it, I realized that there are a lot of similarities between it and what we already know about other pilgrimages we have gone over so far this semester. It also helped that we could apply some of the pilgrimage models that we already knew about to help us understand some of the concepts of the pilgrimage.

Along with the definitions of pilgrimage that we were already familiar with, we also found others in the reading pertaining to goddess pilgrimage. One of those we found was pilgrimage defined as a means or method for healing. Another was for spiritual rapture and bodily pleasure. These are definitions we were not so familiar with. One that we did find that was similar to previous definitions was that it was a sacred journey to a sacred place with a sacred purpose. We learned a similar definition to this according to the Eliade model which entails that people pilgrimage in order to get away from chaos and to find a more sacred, less profane space.

We found many different elements in the Goddess Pilgrimage that we have already found in other pilgrimages. The elements of the Turner Model that we found were included in Goddess pilgrimages were travel, community, anti-structure, and a limen was also mentioned. Following the Eliade model, we found that there is sacred space, relics, and embodiment of myth included in goddess pilgrimage.

The last thing we looked into was whether goddess pilgrimage was more like western or eastern religions. We found arguments that would work both ways. You can look at it as western because it seems to be monotheistic, having one main female goddess. It can also be seen as more of an eastern religion because there can be multiple gods, and they also have praxis which is a main eastern feature. Discussing this really helped us to learn how to better analyze religions, which is something we need to master for our futures in this class, and in other aspects of our lives.

Last class, we talked about Paganism and related it to the concepts that we have learned so far throughout the semester.  The definition in the reading we were assigned described paganism as “..referring to nature religions that are based upon older or Paleopagan religions; concentrating upon an attempt to retain the humanistic, ecological and creative aspects of these old belief systems while discarding their occasional brutal or repressive developments which are inappropriate.”

I found out by this reading that a lot of feminists turn to this religion because it creates equality between men and women. There is a misconception that all pagans are “man haters”, but that is not necessarily true for all of these pagan feminists. They are able to live their lives without having to depend on men to do so, which is why they are attracted to it.

Something that I found interesting about the reading and the religion is that it is based on the seasons. It talked about how the Goddess, who is the Ultimate Reality, gives birth to the Horned God, her son, in mid-winter, marries him at the beginning or summer, and sacrifices him to herself in autumn. This ensures fertility for the upcoming year. This can also be seen as both a ritual and a myth of the religion.

I didn’t totally understand much else from the reading or the religion and found it to be pretty confusing, but those are the main ideas that I did come up with. This religion was shown to be more different than similar to any of the other religions we have discussed so far in class.

During the past couple of classes, we were introduced to Hindu pilgrimage. We had previously learned that Non-western religions were monistic, nonlinear, and had praxis. Today, we learned more in depth information about Hinduism itself and tied in those concepts to give us a better understanding of how they are incorporated into the different religions.

Hindu Pilgrimages are all circular in shape, which shows how the people view the world and their lives in general.  The pilgrimages are pretty much centered around the Vishreshvara Temple.  We learned that the Temple contains seventy-two shrines, fifty six of which are in the form of Shiva. Shiva is one of the Hindu Gods, and is the God of both destruction and sex. People who worship this God can be pointed out because of the three lines that they have across their foreheads to symbolize it.

Hindus also have a couple of other Gods that we learned about, which shows how they are monistic in their beliefs. This means that they see everything as divine and don’t just have one God that they worship such as in Christianity. The second God we discussed was Vishnu, the preserving God. People show worship, or puja, to this God by having two vertical lines on their face. The third God is Brahma, the creator of the world. Each of the Gods also contains different pieces that represent the ways that they see the world, such as containing something in the shape of a circle.

What I found to be the most interesting thing that we learned in class was about the sand mandala that we were showed. There is this circular representation of the Hindu pilgrimage basically, and it is made by the monks totally by sand. De Vega told us that they even do it a couple of grains of sand at a time, so you can image the time that it takes. Then after a while, they just wipe it all away.  They do this because of their view of the world. Everything good is always destroyed at some point, then re made again. This is how they see life and the world in general.

The first half of this semester, we learned a lot about western religions. I think that those were the religions that most of us were somewhat familiar with at least. This week in class, we began learning about non-western religions and to be honest I had no idea what any of those were before our class discussion. Turns out, non-western religions are those such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Shinto.

After looking at the three basic features of non-western religions in class, we noticed that they were all pretty much opposite of what western religions were like. Firstly, we know that western religions are monotheistic, meaning they believe in one, personal God. Non-western religions believe in one, non-personal Ultimate Reality. This is a lot different because their Ultimate Reality is like a force, and everything is the one thing. Everything is the “same stuff” as we saw with the play-doh example.

The second difference we found was that non-western religions are nonlinear. Western religions are linear which means they see life with a beginning, middle, end, and heaven after death. With this nonlinear view, time is seen as a circle. When someone dies, they return back to the “same stuff” and it starts all over again. In the next life they try to come back without that stain as we talked about in class. They try to keep the bad karma out, and the good karma in, and this can take multiple lifetimes.

The third feature that we discussed was that the non-western religions focus on praxis rather than on beliefs such as the western religions do. This means that they are more focused on the behaviors, and what people do than what people believe. This also ties in with the whole karma aspect of it. What you decide to do now can not only affect your life, but everyone else around you because everyone is the Ultimate Reality and everyone will be affected as a whole.

It was interesting to learn about the different aspects of non-western religions, and hopefully we will be able to apply our prior knowledge about religion and pilgrimage to the new religions we are going to discuss.

This week in class, we learned a lot about Islamic religion. I honestly didn’t really know anything about this religion before discussing it in class. We basically went over the misconceptions that society has toward Muslims, and discussed why they were not true. I know that I have heard many stereotypes about Muslims in general, but I didn’t know how badly misconstrued they really were.

The misconception that I’m sure a majority of the population has heard or even considered to be true themselves, is that Muslims are terrorists. In class, we were shown a few pictures of different terrorist events that have happened in the country done by Christian people. After discussing this, I realized that Christians aren’t all looked at as being terrorists just because of some acts that a few of them committed. This is contradicting because Muslims are all perceived to be terrorists because of 9/11. It is not right or fair to stereotype a whole community of people just by what a few of the people did.

Another thing that I didn’t know about Muslims is that they worship the same God as Christians do. They just use a different name in their language which is Allah. They also have a monotheistic religion, which means that they have only one personal God which is again, the same as Christianity. I never realized how many parallels that other religions had to Christianity.

Something that I thought was pretty cool while learning about Islamic religion, was the story of Muhammad and how he became the last prophet. He was just meditating in a cave, and the angel Gabriel spoke to him and had him repeat a whole bunch of scriptures which turned out to be the Karan. Another misconception that people have that deals with Muhammad, is that people think Muslims see him as divine. Muhammad is not God, and no Muslim believes that he is.

It was nice to be able to learn about Islamic religion, since I didn’t know anything about it before. It is cool to see the parallels that it has to Christianity. I also found it interesting how bad the misconceptions of Muslims are. People should take time to learn about their religion and their way of life before thinking certain things about them.

During class, we are discussing a few of the many definitions of pilgrimage. The definition that I understood the most was that pilgrimage is social re-structuring. The reason that I understood this definition the best was because of the Turner Model. I found this model very helpful in my understanding of a pilgrimage and what it entailed.

Within the Turner model, it is explained that the first step of a pilgrimage is to leave the world of convention. You have to cross a threshold, or a limin, and you are separated from what you know and anti-structure is created. Through this anti-structure, you build a new community. You share experiences with people who you build new relationships with. After this step, you have this metaphorical death where you become your new self. The last step is to return, and throughout the whole process you should go back a new person. Without that change, there wouldn’t really be a pilgrimage.

I believe that I have gone through this Turner Model of pilgrimage when I left high school to go to college. In high school, I did the same things every day and had this sense of familiarity. I had to leave high school to go to college, and during that process I left my world of convention. I left the security of my life and went out into the world. I think the moment I crossed the threshold was when I was all moved in my room, and my parents left. After this point I didn’t really know much about anything. It was a totally new environment for me. There was definitely a lot of anti-structure.

After a while, I did build a lot of close relationships with the people that I met and I shared many experiences with them. I changed a lot as a person in many different ways in just my freshman year of college. My attitude, my priorities, and how I dealt with things all changed in more of a mature way. I think that I really grew up. I think that my metaphorical death came when I got too much into the fun aspect of college in the fall. I realized that that wasn’t what college was all about, so I had to change my ways which is why I changed as a person. When I went back to my regular home life after my first year of college, I was really a new person. I kept all of my good tendencies and carried them with me throughout the whole summer and now onto my sophomore year of college. By the Turner definition, I did go on a pilgrimage such as Kevin did in the Unlikely Disciple.

The Turner Model and being able to relate it to events in my life really helped me understand the concept of pilgrimage. It may not be the same for all of the definitions, but it gave me a good idea of the basic ideas of what a pilgrimage is. I think that I liked this definition the most because it has order and structure which I am really big on for a lot of things in my life.

This week, I decided to reflect on the book, The Unlikely Disciple, and talk about how it relates to something that I went through in my life. The whole purpose of this book was that this college student named Kevin wanted to study abroad at Liberty, an evangelical college, instead of traveling to another country to do research. He attended Brown which was just a normal college with no big religion base. At Liberty, they had a lot of rules and their life was centered on God and the teachings of Christianity. Kevin went into the semester with an open mind, and even started to adapt to some of the teachings and part of the daily life. His family members were Quakers, so he was not use to that type of environment at all.

I can relate this to my life because my family is Catholic and I was baptized but that is where my religion life ended. We never really went to church or anything growing up so I didn’t even know anything about the religion really. I went to public schools pretty much all my life up until my sophomore year of high school. Second semester of that year I transferred to Heelan, the Catholic School in Sioux City. There were so many differences from what I had been used to and this is where I can relate to Kevin’s experience.

The reason that I initially had for transferring was for softball, not to experience the religious feel that Kevin was going for. I did go in with an open mind, because I knew that religion was a big part of the system. First off, we had to attend mass every week. I was not used to that at all since my family really never attended church except on special occasions such as Easter or Christmas. At the beginning of the day, end of the day, and at the beginning of almost every class we had to pray. There was a dress code that we all had to follow including certain clothing, hair, jewelry, shoes and those types of things which were also pretty strict at Liberty. Religion classes were required in the curriculum. It was way different than what I was accustomed to. The rules were also a lot stricter as were the punishments. An example would be if you were tardy only two times, you would get a detention. They weren’t messing around.

Like Kevin, I went into this new situation with an open mind. I was never big on religion. At first, I got sick of all the praying and going to mass but after a while I learned to enjoy it. I actually felt like I was getting something out of it. After I would leave mass, I noticed that my mood was lifted more than it was at the beginning. I felt like it made a difference in my life. The school, like Liberty, felt like a close community. Not everyone was friends with everyone, but there was a family type of feel between the teachers, faculty, and students. There were also those trouble makers, and the uptight students that Liberty had as well. At the end of the day, I really felt like going there did make a big difference in my life, not only athletically and academically, but also religiously. I learned a lot and I wouldn’t doubt the decision I made for a second. Now, like Kevin, I go to Morningside which is not really big on religion. There are opportunities for those who want it, but if you aren’t religious you wouldn’t even see a difference in the day to day life. There is still the party life, no dress code, no rules that boys and girls can’t touch or anything like that.

I am glad that we were assigned this book, because I could really relate to Kevin’s experience. It also allowed me to compare my situations to his, and also allowed me to reflect more on the changes that my life took on. Going to a religious school doesn’t necessarily mean you have to agree with everything that they believe and preach, but it is a good experience. That is probably the thing that Kevin and I had the most in common is that we experienced the ways of their religious lifestyle. Even though we questioned some of the beliefs, the experience is still there and we both carry with us what we learned and want to live our lives by.

This week during religion, we focused on the concept of why people go on pilgrimage. After reading The Sacred and The Profane, I really understood the whole idea of pilgrimage a lot better. After class discussion, we came to the conclusion that people pilgrimage because it makes them feel more order and creates a sense of safety or stability from being closer to a sacred place and farther away from all the chaos. We learned that not all space is the same. Some places are more real or sacred than others which is why they are seen as the ultimate places to be.

In the reading, there was also a lot of talk of being in the center of the world. I didn’t totally understand the importance of this at first, but again after discussion I learned that the center is for the sacred. That is where the more sacred and real things can be found and it is far from all the chaos that threatens from the outside. The center is where the most holy things can be found, so that is where everyone wants to be to feel that security as I mentioned.

With this concept, the world is perceived to be flat and there are places that one can go in order to reach heaven. Those places are known as the axis mundi. This is kind of a ladder that connects earth with the heavens. There are a lot of structures and such that can be viewed as the axis mundi that we went over in class such as mountains, ladders, trees, or church steeples. They are raised up, usually in the center of something, in order to have a clear path to heaven.

I mentioned all of the things I did in my post because I found it all to be very interesting and I never really even thought about any of it before. For example, I always thought that steeples had some sort of meaning, but after reading this I understand their purpose. I realized that they are raised up in order to be closer to heaven. It allows for that connection to heaven from down on earth. I don’t think I have ever looked at it that way before.

We even broke this down to more of an individualistic view in class. In my house for example, I would say that the axis mundi would be in my living room because that is where my family all gathers together. For that reason, I see it as the most important place in the house. Each of our homes is also where we feel the most comfort and safety which is why we perceive them as being the axis mundi compared to the world. That is where we have the most familiarity and the highest feeling of order which also means non-chaos. I am glad that I can now understand the ideas from this reading more clearly, and be able to connect them to my life. A lot of things I never thought about make so much more sense to me after discussing this reading.

The first few readings that we have discussed so far in class were about the theorists Frazer, Durkheim, Freud, and Marx.  Those readings gave us insight on how each of the four theorists viewed religion and how religion reflects us as people.  Although I did not really agree with a lot of the things that any of them had to say, I could see where they were coming from and tried to understand why they believed the things that they did. I have decided to discuss Durkheim and Freud because those are the two theorists that really got to me the most, each for different reasons.

Out of each of the theorists, Durkheim’s definition of religion was the one that I could most relate to. He defined religion as, “A unified system of beliefs and practices that are relative to sacred things.” I can relate most to this definition because it is very similar to how I view religion and to the religion that I practice, which is Christianity. Something that Durkheim was big on was sociology, so his definition kind of branched off of ideas pertaining to society as a whole. He really thought that society knew how to work together and had a lot of common motivation towards the same things.

I have many different practices through my religion and that is something that Durkheim included in his definition. In class we discussed that practices can be things such as worship or praying, and that there are also many rites and rituals that are involved as well. I have had my experiences of praying through hard times, or just to help other people in their times of need. Getting baptized is an example of a rite that I have had and going to church is a good example of a ritual. Durkheim also believes that by going to church, the community can unite in performing these practices which also leads back to the whole societal factor he defined his definition around.

One thing that Durkheim mentioned in the reading is that humans always belong to something such as a higher power. The higher power that I feel I belong to is God. It was also said that if you give life to God, it is returned to you. This is something that really stuck out to me, because it is exactly what I believe. I do believe that there is a God, and I think that if you give up your life to follow Him that He will return the favor to you. I do believe that God hears your prayers, and He helps when He can. On this note, this is why I totally disagree with Freud’s views on religion.

In the reading about Freud, it mentions that he thinks when someone has a disease or is ill and on their death bed that they are helpless and nothing can make them better. I disagree with this because I think that people who are in that situation have a fighting chance and God can help them get through it. I have heard many stories of miracles that have happened that are just indescribable and God is the only explanation I can personally come up with for how those things happened. I do not understand how Freud can think that there is another explanation as to how those things happen.

Something else in his reading that just didn’t sit with me well was the fact that he basically thinks people believe in religion in order to deal with guilt. He thinks that women all wish they were men, but I’m sure a lot of people, especially women, would disagree with that statement including myself. I can see where he is coming from when he says people always want what they can’t have because that seems to be true for a handful of things, but I personally don’t think that statement pertains to sex. I think men and woman are fine with whatever sex they were born as and if they aren’t, there are ways that allow them to change that.

All of these readings have opened my eyes to new ideas and things that I never would have even thought of. It was nice to be able to see what these theorists think of religion, but for the most part I didn’t really agree with them or understand how they could believe those things. Durkheim was really the only one who I could probably see eye to eye with because of his view on religion. Since a goal of this class is to try to understand the different religions, I will just take in everything they have to say and respect their views.