The end to the semester!

“It can be understood as a belief system comprised generally of mythology/metaphysics, and ethics,” this is the definition that I feel best describes religion. I have learned MANY, many things from this class from pilgrimages and all religions to what are different words that cultures use in their different religions. I would absolutely recommend this class to everyone. This class has given me an interest in maybe clustering in religion classes for when I graduated. I liked being in this class and trying to relate it to experience I have had. Like I can see how I grew after my “pilgrimage” to Europe. Although I went to shop more than to find myself, but God works in mysterious ways! I also feel like I crossed my liminality in college by entering into activities that aren’t very familiar to me. This class has also helped me get back in touch with the God that I worship. I questioned my family but I loved hearing about the different cultures and how some people view their religion as being the nature and how everything is one including themselves like metaphysics. Having neat beliefs like this made me think and I recollected myself back to my church. I loved all the projects we did in this class, and I LOVED having the study guides to go with the tests, this is the only class I had that did this so thank you Jessica! I did feel like I learned a lot, and I was so satisfied when I could go through the study guide and felt confident in the answers I had for the questions. I feel that we were taught well enough to be prepared for the final this week!

Final Project and Elvis Project!

Now that we are at the end of the semester I enjoyed doing our projects both over Elvis and our final projects that we did individually. I had a lot of fun making my photography slide show and thought it was a great practice to study for the final by refreshing my mind with common vocabulary words. I was happy with my final product and enjoyed making it and presenting it to the class. I loved looking up all the vocabulary words in preparation for my project and fitting pictures to go along with the vocabulary words. However, I thought the Elvis project was much harder. Everyone did an excellent job on their projects. Before class I felt like I had a strong power point and was happy with the work I had done. Then I saw everyone else’s project and it bummed me out! Everyone worked together so well as a team, and it made me disappointed in my group. I think it all went wrong when only 4 out of 6 of us met for our group meeting. I was frustrated because we had the meeting so late for some of the people in our group who didn’t come. I felt like Jess, Kathryn and I did a lot of the work. Jess and I made the power point and Kathryn made the crossword. I was disappointed that I didn’t get every else’s slides sent to me, but there was nothing I could do about that. I wish my team worked together better, but with what we had to work with I was happy with how our presentation went. I understand complications with the weather, but I think our group did a good job and all in all I had fun working on it and watching others present!

Modern Pilgrimages

I think that Tuesday’s class discussion was very interesting. The talk on Modern Pilgrimage and Pagan beliefs was very interesting to me. I liked how the Holistic view is that a person is ALL the body, mind, and spirit connected, as opposed to one of the other. I also thought that the Gaia belief was different, because they see the whole earth as one living-being which could be viewed as a woman. They think of a person’s body as their text. What I wish was still true today here in America was the Goddess worship, like the statue of Venus of Malta. What I loved and I’m sure most of my friends love is that they praised women who were not stick figures! All “dream figure” body for a woman now days are pencil thin women. But the Gaia people liked this kind of body figure to symbolize fortuity with big breasts and big hips, because that is what happens during and after child bearing. Also with being a full figured woman it is a sign of power and wealth, because the people can afford to eat more food. I thought these views are rather different then what the spoiled American people look at today.

Kingdom Come

Kingdom Come is a Holy Land Experience located in Orlando, Florida where the same attraction of Disney land is. The attraction is located in Orlando for easier access for people who want to experience sites such as Jerusalem. The Holy Land Experience compares to texts that are related to the Bible and other Gospel stories. The place is a literal reaction of historical events like the crucifixion of Jesus and shows how the Romans acted. The author talked about how every time he went to take a picture the actor would strike a pose even if he took a quick flash. However, this experience tries to persuade Jews to convert to Christianity. In class we talked about how the place forces one idea of the pilgrimage rather than letting one learn and believe what they want to believe. The Holy Land Experience is a narrow understanding of the life of Jesus. The Holy Land Experience is becoming a less popular attraction and is suffering in means of generating a profit.

Malcolm X and his journey to Mecca

Reading about Malcolm X and his journey to his religious holy site re-opened my eyes to racism in America; although this story was written in the ‘60’s it makes me think of how racism still exists in parts of the United States just like how last month in the South with the Jena 6. Malcolm X had always been thought less of by white people back in America, and what surprised me the most in reading this story is how once he landed in Germany and throughout the rest of his trip everyone treated him with great respect since he was a Muslim from America and how they all treated him like a brother.
For Malcolm it seemed that his life was completely different outside of the United States in how all the people acted towards each other. He talked many times about it just being a rainbow of colors with all the different ethnicities there. I am from Sioux City, IA, which is not a small town, but my school and neighborhood is mostly white. This summer I went to Paris, London, and a small town in Germany. I noticed in Paris and London how there was many, many different races, but it seemed like they didn’t judge each other as much as some of the American’s do back in the U.S.
I liked how when Malcolm was in Jedda how everyone was “all together, brothers! All honoring the same God Allah, all in turn giving equal honor to each other,” as said on page 6 in the last paragraph. X talked about how all the men had to wear the same outfits and you couldn’t tell if someone was poor, rich, famous, or anything about their occupation. He was surprised when he found himself sitting next to the brother-in-law of the son of the ruler of Arabia.
I think that this journey that the Muslims must take if they are able to, to go see Mecca would be an amazing experience. I am Lutheran so I will never be able to go there, but I think it would definitely be a life changing experience that one would never forget!

Siddhartha

When I first began reading Siddhartha it was hard for me to get into the book. Now I find it much easier to read and less confusing. I am enjoying Siddhartha’s character and the journey that he is taking. I can see how he took his voyage to go find to see what he thinks his future should entail. I have not finished the book yet, but in what I have read Siddhartha has had many challenges from leaving his village to go find himself to leaving his friend Govinda, because he realized that they must now go on their own paths and become their own persons. I like how Siddhartha does what he thinks is right for him; he didn’t stay with his best friend because he knew that staying at the Perfect One’s village was not for him. I admire Siddhartha for going out and finding himself without the influence of others. I’m not too far into the book quiet yet, but I am excited to see how it is going to end.

Moral Philosophy

I believe in the Divine Command out of all the other different theories of morality. I believe in God being our higher power and I think he does give us morals and rules to abide by. This command has rules that it follows, and I think that is much better than no rules so that way there is order, just like how the Bible has the 10 Commandments.