Do vs. Do Not

So how did "Do Not" become "Do" over the course of history and what does that even mean. When I hear it, I think of the parenting tactic my dad always used on my brother and I. It's like when a child is say kicking the wall and you would really like for this child to stop. Instead of saying to the child "Do not do that, stop it right now," you would instead say "Hey, you should come over here and color." Instead of telling them they can't do something, give them an alternative thing to do. This does two things and helps you in two ways. First, it distracts them from what they are doing and second, it prevents them from getting angry with you fro telling them to stop what they are doing. The only down side to this is, it would only work about half of the time because when you are not strict with the child they won't be afraid to say that they would rather kick the wall then color in a coloring book. This leaves you in a rather difficult situation where you have to decide whether or not you are going to get mad at the child and tell them they need to stop or if you are just going to let them keep kicking the wall. 

The reading assigned a couple of days ago talks a lot about Gandhi and his teachings. Ahimsa, the concept meaning non-violence, is something that I actually hear a lot about in yoga. But I never actually knew what it came from so it was interesting to learn that the belief came from Gandhi. Because Gandhi is also someone that I hear a lot about. So Gandhi used non-violence to protest against the British imperialists, which is very similar to what Martin Luther King did to gain civil rights for the African Americans. The idea of "Do" instead of "Do Not" came into play when Gandhi developed his new beliefs. ""Do" instead of "Do Not" in religion is the difference between following a set of given laws and taking action to make things right. It is really interesting to learn about how that shift was made because it makes you realize that this society is "Do Not" society instead a "Do" society. And I say that meaning the laws. But I guess our government does take action about certain things, but only if our national security is at risk. But with that, not everything is peaceful so our society is a very non-teaching-of-Gandhi type of society. 

Religion Enhances Your Morality?

Religion Enhances Your Morality?


The class was split up into groups and each group read a different reading about ethic and religion. One was about how religion has everything to do with morality and ethics, another argued that ethics and morality have nothing to do with religion. My reading, argued that religion can "enrich" morality. It says that you can be a good person and still be atheist or agnostic but you just don't have the added bonus of being religiously moral. it says pretty much that one can not fully understand how to have morality unless they are religious in which case they can do moral things in the name of religion. In most religions, there lives the idea of "you will get everything you deserve based on the things you have done." In Hinduism it is Karma, in Christianity, it is heaven and hell. That kind of goes with the whole moral thing and in the reading it says that if you are a person of good will then god will be good to us and give you what you deserve. It also doesn't really state whether or not the author believes in god. "If God Exists,...." and "If God Created Us...." The author isn't really helping his cause saying that god might not actually be real.  Question that is brought up in the reading is "Why should I be moral, when I can get away with being immoral?" I think to answer this in the terms of the reading goes back to the idea of everyone will get what they deserve, they will be punished for the immoral things they do and rewarded for the moral things they do. Even though this reading is supposed to be about how religion can help you with being moral, I do not really think that it talks very much about people being immoral. The author kind of already assumes that everyone who would be reading this is religious.


 Now, do I agree with this argument? Not really. By not being a really religious person, it does not really apply to me, even though it is semi-directed at people like me. But if you do not believe in god then when someone tells you god will be mad at you, it means nothing because to you there is no god. I am not saying that I do not believe in god, I am just saying that for people who don't. I don't really know if I believe in god, so I guess I would have to figure that out before I say whether or not I believe this. But if there is a god, then isn't god supposed to love all people? I mean, the reading talked about that  but if god loved all people then all people would be rewarded no matter what. I feel like people just like to make up their own rules and beliefs about religion. They believe some things but do not believe other things, Kind of like selective hearing but not actual hearing more like selective learning. Is that a thing? But back to religion. People just do what they want and what fits in their religious agenda. And they believe what they want to believe in religion but yet they still call themselves religious. I don't really get that. That is why I don't consider myself religious, I don't believe everything that religion tells me I should believe. 

The Agent of the Powerless

After we have been learning, for a few weeks now, about how religion can be used to aid the powerful, we have transitioned into learning about how it helps the powerless. An example of how it helped the powerful were how Pope Urban said that everyone had to fight in order to be accepted in the religious community and to go to heaven. He basically said that is people fight in the Crusade then all of there sins will be canceled out and they will have an automatic ticket to heaven. He used his power to get the word out about this and he used religion as the platform for a political issue. People such as Martin Luther King Jr., people who were not very powerful, used religion to help them, hence "religion as an agent to the powerless." He used religion as his platform as well but he was also a pastor at a baptist church so that helped to get the word out about his intentions on civil rights. 
Now, how did religion shift from being an agent to the powerful to being an agent to the powerless? Well, it all started with Martin Luther, the man who started the protestant church. They were the rebels against the Catholic Church. 
"In your opinion, does religion have an inherent “goodness” or “badness” or is it simply a medium that can be manipulated in every way?"
To answer this question in short, badness. I am Christian but kind of not. I celebrate Christmas but that is because Jesus was a good person who did pretty amazing things and also I like getting presents. But really, like I have said maybe ten thousand times before, religion is used as an excuse to do things. Like terrorists, who don't like Americans, bombed New York and said that they were doing it for religious reasons, or even just saying you can't attend something because of "religious purposes" I have heard that one plenty of times. Put plainly, religion is just used to keep and/or gain power. I don't want to go into an entire rant about this because I could write for hours but seriously, back to the question at hand. I could see religion as a medium that can be manipulated because not all people use religion to gain power or as an excuse for certain things. Some people use it to give themselves hope and reason to live life with a positive attitude and I would never want to argue that that is not true. I just think that if religion is "put into the wrong hands" then it can be used for bad. So I guess that is just religion being manipulated.

Inquisition

Today we talked about Inquisition and what inquisition is. Last night we were split up into groups and each group read two different readings. We were all put into our groups and we talked about the reading about Inquisition and we came up with a few main points. The system of Inquisition was basically a way to identify heresy or other things that could pose as a threat to their religion or, more importantly their judicial system. They used religion as an excuse (yet again) to question people and get them back on the same page as the government. Inquisitors, we found, were rather similar to missionaries except instead of trying to get people to convert they were, essentially,  trying to get people to agree with them. They were like more specialized missionaries, in a way. Inquisition seems like it was a lot like interrogation and actually another comparison that we found was between the Inquisitors and the Stasi. Like the Stasi, inquisitors chose who they were going to interrogate based on superstition about this person and their beliefs, and that was what the Stasi did. People who were suspected of not following the primary religious fold and found guilty were then apprehended and changed if not killed. Sometimes these people were tortured in order to either get them to confess to believing differently them the main religious fold or to force the main ideas of the religious fold upon them. Either way this gave the government and the inquisitors power because they are forcing people to believe in what they want them to believe in.

Missionaries

Last night we read a reading about missionaries and how for different religions, missionaries' tactics were different. Then later in class we discussed the motive, method and difference for each of the different religions' missionaries. Even the basic motive for Christianity, Islam and Buddhism was to recruit and get people to convert to there religion. But the way each of these religions did this is what varied.
Christianity: The Christian missionaries truly thought that they were doing something good for the world and for the people they are having convert. They believed that if people were not Christian, then they would die and go to hell. So basically they were saying convert or die.
Islam: They pretty much used force to get people to convert to Islam. They wanted more followers to get stung and forcing people was the only way.
Buddhism: They just wanted everyone and everything to be peaceful and live in tandem with each other. They used peaceful, non-violent methods to teach people about Buddhism and try to get them to convert. They believed in diversity which is a more polytheistic notion and this helped to attract people to this religion.
Some of the main methods that all missionaries used were to go to different places, such as Africa and Asia to help spread the word about their religion. The government also sometimes played a role in getting people to convert. The government often times played such a large role in this process because they sometimes wanted people to convert to their religion because of political reasons and to gain political power.  Even though missionaries weren't all violent, they led the people that are trying to convert to think that their religion that they are promoting is the only religion that god will approve of. So basically to sum things up, all three of these religions used different tactics to gain followers and to get people to convert to their religion. Islam used a more violent and forceful way to get people to convert. Christianity wasn't always forceful but would threat the people they are trying to get to convert and use scare tactics. Buddhists were the most peaceful of all missionaries and they just wanted people to know about Buddhism so they could then convert if they so choose.

Crusades

The Crusades where something that I guess I will never fully understand. I know that the Christians were fighting to gain back their holy land, Jerusalem but religion wasn't really the underlying reason for the attack with led to wars. But if it wasn't for religion, then what was it for? The Pope's power? His need to be successful? The location of Jerusalem? Or maybe just to beat Islam. What ever the reason, I am going to try to figure it out using facts and maybe a few educated assumptions. I think that it basically all happened when Islam was growing but Christianity was not doing too well. But, as Christianity started gaining some strength, and after what happened with the battle of Tours, they decided that Islam was becoming a huge threat and they had to do something about it. So maybe the reason they attacked Islam was because they felt threatened. But really, it all had to do with the Pope, Pope Urban. He was not just powerful, he was a powerful religious figure, with added a whole extra bonus for him. And most importantly, he was trusted. So really the question I should be asking myself as I write this blog post is What were the origins of the Crusades and how did the leaders of the religions help push the conflict? That is one of the prompts that we were given so don't think that I thought of that question on my own (unless this is Mr.Moran, who is probably the only one reading this anyway). 
So for the first part of the question, which I kind of previously touched on, the Crusades' origins were basically Christianity feeling tension building up and assuming that Islam was going to attack. Since Christianity wanted to be the first to attack, they Crusades happened in their own anticipation. No one can say that Islam was even going to attack, but then again, no one can say that they weren't. But also, there was already lingering tension from the Battle of Tours and Christianity just did not want to take any risks with Islam.
For the second part of the question about how leaders pushed the conflict, it was basically all Pope Urban. Back then, in Church people had to rely very strongly on the monks and other religious figures because they couldn't read. It required a lot of trust so the religious people already were pretty good at that by the time Pope Urban said it was time to get Jerusalem. On top of Urban being trusted, he used god to attract the people. He said that if you attack Jerusalem then you will go to heaven and god will disregard your sins. This is something that sinful people would want to do and most people were probably sinful back then based on the throng of people ready to fight. 

ISLAM

While learning about Mohammad Ibn Adbullah, the man who pretty much founded Islam, I found out that we was a pretty chill kind of guy. He married a wealthy woman and he became a merchant. I learned that he had some sort of withdrawal in his life and meditated a lot, he wasn't always a happy person. This makes me think that maybe he might have had some sort of mental illness or maybe, because he was meditating so long, he went a little crazy. He was meditating when he got a message from god that told him that we needed to be the messenger of Allah. I have two theories about this none of which include anything religious. The first is that he was crazy. I know that is my theory for every religion founder, but its because I don't really believe in god or at least that god can actually talk to people. But  this theory means that Mohammad actually thought that he got a message. So it would have been like hallucination in a  sense. The other theory is that Mohammad wanted power. Also a theory that say for other people like Mohammad. But to me, religion is purely propaganda, but I don't think I should get into that argument because I will get so off base with what this post is actually supposed to be about. But I will say that what most people want is power. What better way to get power then to create a religion, say you were visited by god and use that to gain followers. Maybe I am way off about all of this but I just can't believe that Mohammad was visited by god and told to be a messenger, but I guess it would be hard for someone that doesn't believe in god to think Mohammad was visited by god. But, I will say, that I think Christianity and Judaism have a lot more less believable stories, like Jesus dying and then coming back to life or Sarah having a child at the age of 90. I am really sorry, but I would argue that neither of those things ever happened. And has anyone ever thought about how those kinds of things only happened a really long time ago? People don't come back to life nowadays so how is it that so many more supernatural things happened back then instead of now. It's because people know that they can't make something up like because of all of the modern technology and media, and also just the amount of people around. That is just something to think about.

But back to Islam, in particular the Islam Movie. Something that I found interesting about the movie was the fact that it was mostly about the Islamic Empire, not the actual religion. It mostly talked about how Islam was pretty much a platform for that culture to develop and gain land/ prominence. As Islam got more and more followers it, obviously, grew and so this made the leaders stronger and then they were harder to defeat. Islam is the biggest religion in the world (second biggest?) but it is also one of the newer religions, meaning it came after Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism (etc.). It seems so crazy to me that Islam could have grown to the size it is now in that short of a time. But it seemed like it was just in the right place at the right time. It was started to get big at a perfect time where Europe wasn't really doing so well so this gave Islam opportunities to expand and conquer new lands. 

Islam: My Thoughts Before Very Much Knowledge

Islam is a religion that I know very little about. The first thing that pops into my head when I think of Islam is terrorists. I know that is terrible because Islam is probably not all about extremists or killing people in the name of Allah. But because of what happened on 9/11, terrorists have put on a bad name for Islam which I think is kind of unfair because the terrorists are most likely using religion as their excuse to hate and kill Americans. On a side note, I want to talk a little bit about how religion is (in my view on things) often times used as an excuse. Like terrorists is one example of religion being used as a reason for things that would normally be bad. Another example is (this is something that we are learning about in Health class so I am kind of making the connection) hate crimes against gay people. In health class we are learning about what happened to Matthew Shepard, I don't know very much about him yet because we just started learning about him, but we are also talking about hate crimes against gay people in general. Some homophobic people use their religion as an excuse to hate gay people. They say that they are just following the Bible and that being gay is a sin. But really, god is what made all people (or so religious people think and that is who this applies to anyway) and put all people on this earth so saying that being gay is a sin is basically saying that god made a terrible mistake, that god made a sin. And that is something that I don't think would ever come out of a religious person's mouth.

Sorry, got a little off track there, but to sum up what I know about Islam is not very much. I know about some of the major events that helped shape Islam but the religion itself I know very little about except that it was founded by someone named Mohammad.


***Written on Sunday night before starting the readings (I somehow lost track of this post in my "drafts" section)***