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)***

Confucianism and Toaism

For the past few days in history class we have been studying Confucianism and Taoism separately. But today we looked at both of them together and compared and contrasted. I will say my thoughts and observations for each of them separately and then compare the two.

My Thoughts and Observations on Confucianism:

Confucius's teachings are regarded mostly in Asia , so China, Vietnam, Japan and Korea. Confucius, who lived in China during a state of turmoil and transition for the country during the Zhou Dynasty, wanted to create teachings to help China get out of a state of warfare and competition between the different feudal states. He tried to get solutions for unity. In passages from "On Humaneness," something called "The Way" is referred to a lot and that this just means the right way to live your life so being humane, respectful, and living your life with liberality, trustworthiness, earnestness and kindness. In the long run, the whole idea of Confucianism is to help others and everything will be okay. It is this idea of unity and everyone working together to make a better place. But the only way to help others is if you help yourself first and then you are worthy of helping others. You want to establish yourself and then help others do the same. Confucius said that the only way to be humane is to recognize yourself in other people. So this also goes with the unity idea and also means that everyone should be treated equally and the way you would want to be treated. Confucianism is kind of black and white. You either are something or your not. You are humane and if you are not humane then you must be the total opposite and you will have a really bad life. It is kind of the idea of Karma, if you are bad and mean to other people then your life is going to be bad. I don't really agree with all of his teachings because, like I said, he seems to black and white to me. I am humane but I am not totally humane, I even lack the knowledge of what the full definition of humane is. I think that not everything is one dimensional and people can have multiple layers to themselves. I think that I am a nice person but that doesn't mean that I am always nice to every single person I know and meet. So that is my perspective of Confucius's philosophy. 

My Thought and Observations on Taoism: 

I think that Taoism is pretty similar to Confucianism on a few things but the over all outlook is really different. Taoism was created by Lao Tzu who was contemporary of Confucius. Taoism started out kind of like the way Christianity started out. It was part of Confucianism but eventually broke off into it's own thing. Tzu, the founder of Taoism, was regarded and honored as almost a god. Tao actually translates to Path or road. Taoism isn't really a religion but more of a way of life. Actually maybe not even a way of life but a thing, an actual thing that is just there. It can't be described or explained it just is. If it were to be described it would be described as a force that flows through everything living. It is kind of like the force in Star Wars and actually Taoism is what the force in Star Wars was modeled after. Tao is what made everything and existed before anything else existed. In a quote that was in the reading, it says that "if you don't listen to me, then I will effect you." That is kind of a scare tactic and goes with the notion of Karma. The thing about Taoism that really makes it different is that it believes in helping only yourself and not others. But by helping only yourself you are actually helping others. Helping yourself is finding Tao and this will give you integrity and that, in turn, will help other people. So this religion is more of an individual religion and you can kind of do things your way and to your understanding of things. 

Differences and Similarities Between Confucianism and Taoism:

I think that the most major difference is the main philosophy of each of them which is the way to make things better. For Confucianism it is to help others and be humane at all costs. For Taoism it is to help yourself and find Tao in order to make the world better. So Confucianism is about unity and Taoism is about independence and self advocation. Similarities (other then the obvious of both being founded and followed in primarily China) are that they both have a kind of karma system. In both of the primary passages that I read explaining Confucianism and Taoism it says that if you don't do the right thing (the thing that each of the different religions are teaching so Humaneness for Confucianism and achieving Tao for Taoism) then your life will be bad. This is a kind of scare tactic and was probably put into place in both of the two religions to gain control into their own religion. Also another similarity is they both believe in achieving a higher goal. For Taoism it is actually finding Tao and for Confucianism it is following The Way and finding humaneness. 

Caste System

In a reading due tomorrow I learned about the Caste System of Hinduism. The caste system looks like this;
Brahmin: preists, teachers, highly educated scholars.
Kshatriyas: Warriors and royalty.
Vaishyas: Traders.
Shudras: Farmers, service providers, artists and laborers.
Untouchables: Not even in the caste system, considered "untouchable" and a disgrace.


To me, it is pretty obvious that a royal leader didn't make this up like usual. It was probably developed my a priest or scholar because they are the ones that are on top of the caste system. This is an example of how people can change history to their benefit using religion as the base. Religion can also be easily adapted to make it look good later on. 


If you were born into a certain caste you had to die in that exact caste so there weren't any cross-caste marriages. This was probably a tactic too keep the working people from gaining too much power and keeping the scholars and priest in charge. This kind of thing has been going on all around the world for pretty much ever. Like even in the early 1900's in America there was a very defined line between the elite, the working class and the lower class. It wasn't illegal for the different socioeconomic groups to mix but it was highly frowned upon and you wouldn't be thought of the same way. This does not have to do with religion like the caste system does but it is still a way for the upper class to remain in charge and keep things in order the way they want it to be.  


The Caste system was also something that motivated people to be and do good in the world. They were told and believed that if you are good you will reincarnate into a higher caste. So this is also a way for whoever is a the top of the caste system to keep the people in control. It prevents rebellion because if there was nothing to believe in and to strive to be, there would be no reason for the citizens not to rebel and make their life better. 


The structure of the caste system is fairly simple. And it has changed over time to become a more legal thing instead of a religious thing (even though it still related and was based off of religion). The reading talks about many little changes here and there over the course of 2000 years makes the world of difference. But overall, even though India was making a lot of advancements, the caste system still remained up until the 20th century. No one questioned the caste system because it had been in existence for so long and was pretty much second nature. The caste system is a good example of evolution. Religion can evolve just like the caste system did.