Religion Toolkit Response By John Morreall And Tamara Sonn

Students revisit how the world and our country have developed over time in regards to religious beliefs and traditions vs. scientific discoveries and achievements. They trace how individuals have come together or been torn apart by differences in customs, practices, and teachings. They study this at the personal, school, community, national, and international levels. They compare and contrast actions and reactions taken over time and draw conclusions about people from them.

However, Dianne draws two different point of views in two groups or how she called it two camps. The first camp suggests that there is only one true religion, and it is unified in nature: religious, scientific, and historical truths, and those tell us about how things actually are. The second stands for you can believe in whatever you want as well as me, and everything will be ok while we do not discuss over it. In addition to that, Oliver affirms that these two camps do not hold the complexity presented by truth-claims. Also, she uses a metaphor of a telescope by P. Knitter, a noted religion scholar to facilitate us understand the issues surrounding religious truth, which are good and bad news; good news is that we see through the telescope, and bad ones is that we cannot see everything through that, in other words truth claims always manifest different point of views of people. The author in the chapter posted on Blackboard refers that generally truth-claims are associated with the beliefs of a religious

Stephen Prothero’s “God Is Not One” is a survey of world religions, comprising vital information on a vast array of different sets of belief. As someone who has never studied religion before, nor belongs to a particular faith, the variability within these religions is staggering. One might be satisfied to define religion as “how a person goes about believing in God,” but soon finds that even that definition has its holes. Thankfully, “God Is Not One” does an amazing job of cluing its reader into the nuances that are sometimes forgotten about the religions it approaches.

Rue also mentions in this article his belief that none of the three main religions (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) can fully unify today’s world. He argues that because these religions share stories of specific individuals, time periods, and places, they aren’t universal enough to tell the stories of all of humanity. At first, I initially disagreed with Rue because, as a religious person myself, I do believe that Christianity is a universal religion and can explain many aspects of my life. However, upon deeper thinking, I see Rue’s point of view. The Bible, for example, was written so long ago that most of its cultural and traditional context is lost among current culture. Also, there are some cultural aspects of today that aren’t addressed in the Bible, including the introduction of new technology and the increase in women’s rights. Therefore, Rue makes a good point that no current main religion is all-encompassing because every sacred and Holy record we have is somewhat

On occasion, authors approach cultural subjects as historians. However, Huston Smith limits the historical facts to stay focus on the values of the religions (Smith 10,12). Having an history filled book can cause readers to lose interests in his discussion. To keep the numbers down, Smith picks the religions that most people acknowledge and would share the most common themes in their life (11). He is passionate about his studies, and he wants the audience to find their own appreciation for religion. To accomplish this, Smith simply states that,”This is a book about values”(12). Some books describe a certain faith’s good and bad qualities and can sometimes put more emphasis on the bad if the

Throughout the course of history there have been numerous conversations and debates addressing religion, myth, and one’s ability to reason with both of them. The notion of one’s ability to reason with religion and myth has left openings in the conversations of moderations and the various interpretations within the two mediums. Many theorists have been a part of this conversation. Among these theorists are Sam Harris, Rudolf Bultman and Karen Armstrong. Initially when one first enters these conversations about religion and reason many resort to arranging these theorists in a way that would depict that they have conflicting views. An example of this method would be Benedict Farrell in his Call for papers version one. Farrell throughout his paper

Because of the diversity amongst the university’s student population, some of the information obtained can be interpreted historically or religiously. For example, in the Introduction to Religious Studies and Theology class, students focus on strictly secular viewpoints of Judaism and Islam. According to William Portier, they learn about the groundbreaking events for each religion, such as “the Passover meal, the eucharist, [and] the pilgrimage to Mecca” (Portier 53). The text “What Do Our Neighbors Believe?” discusses the origins, significant events, and key people of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It discusses these religions from a historical viewpoint, such as the “major turning point [in] 1492 with the expulsion of Jews from Christian Spain” (Greenstein et al. 3) for Judaism and for Islam, when “a voice spoke to [Muhammad] and commanded ‘Recite!’” (Greenstein et al. 5). Document can provide a historical illustration of the world while certain religions were emerging. William Portier discusses Ninian Smart’s tactic for studying

Bruilly, E., O'Brien, J., Palmer and Palmer, M. (1997) Religions of the World, Great Britain: Macdonald Young.

Thursday Class Schedule • January 13, 20, 27 – John Graham, M.D., 3week study entitled, “Religion

What expert and professional sources have you found in these first three weeks that aid your efforts in this Religious Quest? The internet has served as a great help in performing research for this class. Since the beginning of this course, not a single day has gone by, that I have not used the internet as a source or reference for a posting or a class assignment. The book used in the course of our study, The Sacred Quest: An Invitation to the study of Religion, has been the most valuable book reference during this first half of the course. With its insight and user friendly approach, it is a book that tends to make the challenging task of religion not such a difficult quest to endure.

Religion has existed for countless centuries. Christianity is one of the major religions in this world, which had people be criticized, battle in wars, and killed for, but it still survived to this day. The purpose of this paper is to study the source of the religion, recognize the teachings, observe its spread throughout the world, and to identify how it stands among people today. Approaching this paper by a factual report I will explain these major points and why we need to know about this religion and other religions that existed before our generation.

Religion is a global significance, and this type of degree is best suited to those individuals wishing to study it in a deep and academic setting. It enables students to explore the meaning of religion, and to investigate the validity of religious approaches to the historical and cultural context of the world.

One of the greatest controversies occurring today holds prominently in religion. These issues lies mainly with tradition, politics, gender, multiculturalism, violence, and sex. Religion is continuously evolving and so is society. With all this change controversy is inevitable. Problems with religion surround us: in the workplace, at school, in society, and politics. Religion is a very broad topic and according to Wikipedia, there are an estimated 4,200 religions in the world. It would be nearly impossible to discuss all of these religions and the issues that interfere with it today. For this research paper, I decided to discuss the top two religions in the world: Christianity and Islam. As a country we have overcame many battles. But even to

People tend to shy away from in-depth discussions of religion these days; it brings to mind heated dialogues and unanswered questions. In today’s diverse world, everyone has his or her own stance of what it means to be religious regarding each faith. John Caputo, the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, attempts to dispel any ill will towards the subject in his exploration On Religion Thinking in Action. Instead of defining religion so concretely, he explains that the concept is, “too uncontainably diverse for us to fit it all under one roof… too many to count, too many to master, in too many languages to learn” (Caputo 1). Later, he mentions, “the religious sense of life would never mean just one thing for everybody” (9). Instead of becoming bogged down in the differences and similarities of each religion, Caputo focuses on how religion guides people in living their lives.

When most religious studies students think of religion they think of people that are very passionate about their particular god, but most people do not understand why people act the way they do in religions. In religious studies they examine how different categories of religion help people of that religion conduct a structured way of life. There are many categories, that once are utilized, will help religious studies students obtain a deeper understanding of people in religions. The categories that will inform a student of Religious Studies about a tradition are myths, rituals, Gods, and systems of purity.