World Religions

World Religions was perhaps my favorite class in college. I feel that everyone should see the alternative to their own beliefs and understand where they are. We covered Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

An example of the benefit of hearing the other side (or rather, disadvantage of not hearing) is the avoidance of stereotyping. One excellent example of a debate in which one person (who shall remain unnamed) seemed to be uneducated as to the other side was in Sunday School. He refused to learn about the Muslim because all he needed was his Christian way of life and insisted that Islam was a radical cult that must be destroyed. I don't subscribe to this in any way. Because of extremists, some people may assume that all of Islam is a threatening force, bent on 'jihad'. This has been mistranslated as "holy war", when it is the "struggle against the lower self. It is the internal fight between wrong and right, error and truth, selfishness and selflessness, hardness of heart and all-embracing love" (Fisher 388).

Another of the great parts of studying world religions is understanding what they mean to you. I believe that Buddhism is a great set of principles and truths. Theravada Buddhism is fitting for me, and I know that dukkha, suffering, exists. When you know that it exists and why is exists it is much easier to live without the suffering caused by desire. So I will try, plugging in an Eightfold Path to my monotheistic beliefs.

If raised a Christian with no understanding of any other beliefs, how do you know you're hearing what you need to hear? When hearing the same message repeated over and over, one assumes that it is correct, and my philosophy is that by hearing several, it will either crush your faith, or strengthen it further than it would have gone before.