# data[].attributes.body
Overall, I learned a lot about different religions. We talked a lot about what makes up a religion, different aspects of each religion and what similarities they hold. We talked about symbols, language, and rituals. We talked about different types of truth and if we were able to separate our perspective and experience from conversations with others. We all had different backgrounds and I was able to learn about other perspectives during discussions that we had during class. I also learned a lot from the readings that we did and even learned from making friends and talking with others about our experiences.

If I had more electives to take or I needed to take more courses I would definitely look to dive a little deeper into the study of religion. Before college, I definitely considered studying religion. But I don't need to so I am going to focus on studying business and how I can use this course to be empathic towards others I will encounter in my career. Being a flight attendant I will meet tons of people and experience many different cultures. Understanding what some of these traditions believe will allow me to understand and respect their culture.

# data[].attributes.body
Judaism is one of the abrahamic religions. A lot of these cultures and traditions are similar but also different. Jews were considered the holy people that were meant to live in Israel. They honor the sabbath and use that as their day of rest. It starts Friday evening and ends Saturday night. When boys are 13, they have a bar mitzvah is a celebration and a coming of age where they gain responsibility in the community. He is now able to participate in religious ceremonies and reads from the Torah. After reading from the Torah, the family throws a party for them.

I resonate with judiasm the most because it is the most closely related to christianity. Jesus was a jew who founded christianity by teaching a different style of law. Jews believe that they are waiting for a messiah. Whereas, christians believe that the messiah already came and died for our sins and that we are to share the gospel until he comes again.

# data[].attributes.body
Buddhism is similar in some ways to hinduism. They believe in the prophet Buddha which revolves around the four noble truths. They are that life involves suffering, suffering is caused by desire and attachment, suffering can be overcome and the path to overcoming suffering the eight fold path. The eight fold path is a set of guidelines that help to end suffering and attain peace.

Sid Hartha Gautama, Buddha is the main prophet for buddhism. He renounced himself as a prince and pushed himself to seek enlightenment. It was under a Bodha tree in Bodhgaya, India. He meditated for forty-nine days in order to become Buddha.

# data[].attributes.body
Hinduism is a religion that holds a subset of religious beliefs. They can stem from the same set of core beliefs but there are many different traditions honored within. It is considered like the oldest religion. They believe in many Gods. They believe in the concept of reincarnation and have a whole bunch of sacred religious texts they they honor. They also have a ton of vibrant festivities. They honor karma and that you get what you put into the world. I honestly like a lot of these concepts because it pushes the idea of zen and feeling at peace. I like that they believe in non-violence because I am sad seeing all of the violence in our world today.

In the video that we watched in class, one festival stuck out to me. Diwali festival is super vibrant celebration. It is known as the festival of lights which symbolizes good over evil. Families come together to exchange gifts, they have fireworks and lots of other fun traditions. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and prosperity who is commonly celebrated during the festival of lights. I like how happy and celebratory it is.

# data[].attributes.body
When I was younger, my favorite Disney princess was Pocahontas. I knew every word to every song and I loved how in tune she seemed with others and the world. A lot of the history behind the character and the plot of the movie encouraged me to further understand indigenous religions that we talked about in class. Most indigenous religions believe that everything has life. water, animals and land. They also believe in many gods. These religions are the ancestral traditions of people who are native to a particular landscape.

While finishing my paper, I came across a lot of interesting facts. Most of society is completely okay with euthanasia; whether it is active or passive. I am amazed that with most religions believing that life is precious and ending it prematurely is wrong that the majority is still okay with it. Its not the point of my paper to judge or even persuade. I just want to analyze both ways and how they differ.

# data[].attributes.body
In class today, Dr. Lopez asked a single question. What is the relationship between science and religion? Personally, I believe that they simply compliment each other. Growing up in my house, my Mom showed us a lot of creation videos. We studied creationists at our church too. In the car we even listened to a fictional audiobook about creationists and their adventures. This has obviously given me a little bias toward the idea that both religion and science can coexist.

We learned about the enlightenment and how it pushed religion to the private sector of our lives and pushed reason and science to the front. This encouraged everyone to study true meaning and science over believing their religions. I enjoy having my religion in the private sector because it allows me to have my beliefs and not to judged for them but it also limits how much I can spread the gospel without getting ridiculed for it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
“Religion and science have the same roots.” - Sabine Hossenfelder #shorts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sabine Hossenfelder is a physicist, author, and creator of “Science Without the Gobbledygook”. She currently works at the Munich Center for Mathematical Phil…

# data[].attributes.body
Symbols can be many things with regards to religions. In buddhism, the wheel of Dharma is sacred symbol. it represents teachings and path to enlightenment. Another symbol is the star of david which represents the jewish people and their connection to God. In hinduism, they use Om which represents the essence of reality and the universe and conscientiousness.

I didn't truly know how important symbols were to each religion until this course. I know that communion is a huge symbol for us as remembrance that Jesus died for our sins and we are forgiven but I didn't know how strongly others felt about their symbols. This week gave me a new perspective on religious traditions and how sacred they truly are.

# data[].attributes.body
This week in class we talked about truth. What truth is real. Is there an absolute truth. what is relative truth. When discussing religion its really important to understand that everyone has different perspectives and everyone strongly believes that they are correct and some people believe that there is no absolute truth.

Relative truth is defined as conditional, subjective, varying and contradictory; so it is capable of changing over time. However, absolute truth is defined as consistent and eternal; its meaning is universal and never changing. Dr. Lopez often refers to absolute truth as truth with a capital T. Personally, I believe that there is an absolute truth. I believe that the holy bible is correct and Jesus will come again.

# data[].attributes.body
When I was younger I really wanted to be a speech therapist. I thought the idea of helping others to learn to speak was so cool; honestly I still do. Language is so important to our everyday lives because it gives us the ability to communicate our experiences and feelings to others. Language is ever-changing and we have the ability to adapt. There is so much culture tied into language. Using language and our connected culture we are able to make connections with people within our language and outside of it. Language is also very important because it allows us to pass on knowledge to others.

In my business communications class we talk a lot about low-context verses high-context cultures. A low context culture takes words literally and thats all that someone will use to decipher what you are saying to them. However, in a high context culture like United States, we use context clues, status, outward appearance to take in what someone is saying to us. I just think it is cool that even without language, we can use the environment to understand others.

# data[].attributes.body
This week we were focusing on culture and the impact that religion has on culture and vice versa. I believe that it is a fluid relationship and that they compliment each other heavily. You cannot have one without the other. Culture is a result of our experiences and what we taught through school, home life, work and relationships. In bigger groups then culture itself can even be affected by religion. Since religion is such a large part of everyone's life then it directly and indirectly affects every aspect of our lives.

Religion is our set of beliefs that guide our lifestyle. Since it largely affects our everyday lives it commonly affects the relationships that we have, how we perceive things in school and overall perception of experiences. It can influence cultural practices, provides moral guidance and contributes to the organization of communities. Many christians spend a lot of time in their communities with other christians. I know that my family spends a lot of time going to bible studies and having dinner with other families from our church.

# data[].attributes.body
This week I started to brainstorm and write a rough draft of my critical thinking paper. I decided to write about euthanasia and how religions discuss this ethical dilemma. I was planning on focusing on how christianity believes we should approach this issue and what is believed that God and the bible says about euthanasia. I found a lot of information in the bible about suicide but euthanasia is something different. A similarity that I found is that it is the voluntarily ending of someone's life. I'm hoping to find some more text to give a clear idea of expectations.

While writing my paper I kind of changed my stance from before. I came into brainstorming with the idea that any type of euthanasia was unethical and against what the bible says. But as I read and researched more, I came to understand that if I want to die naturally by refusing life-saving care then it is not voluntarily ending of my life. It is more of a way to die naturally. This was definitely a new way of thinking for me because I came from a very traditional family. I am hoping to continue to gain new perspective throughout the rest of the semester.

# data[].attributes.body
In this weeks reading we learned a lot about the appearance of the sacred in religions. The word sacred can be defined as, it which is "set apart", different from the ordinary. It has become a synonym for holy. The idea of sacred things, people and places is used in every religion. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are characterized as religions of the transcendence. This means that that they present notions of sacred reality as "going beyond" or "standing over" ordinary existence. Whereas Hinduism, Buddhism and religions of China and Japan are described as religions of immanence meaning notions of sacred reality. This, in turn, means that there is less of a divide between sacred and the natural world.

In class we learned about the enlightenment and how it changed our range of thinking. The enlightenment is known as the age of reason. This was a cultural, intellectual and philosophical movement that emerged in Europe in the late 17/18th centuries. It paved the way for era that we currently live in; the age of post-modernity. It also led to the way modern emancipated thinking and democratic society. Modernity set up a set of rigid oppositions; such as objective/subjective, scientific/non-scientific, rational/irrational, public/private. Pure reason became the new absolute. These separations created an opposition between faith and reason. This pushed religion into the private sector of people's lives.

# data[].attributes.body
Today, we got into a slightly heated discussion. Dr. Lopez asked us if it was possible to speak outside of our bias beliefs. We were supposed to write a little bit about it and then discuss it as a group and then the class. I thought about how everything is based on our emotions and it is impossible to pull that emotion and beliefs out of anything. Like if I am comforting a friend that that lost a close friend then I would comfort them using my experience and beliefs. Especially when it pertains to religion. Some others in class didn't agree because they said it is possible.

We also discussed the idea of interpretation. Personally, I believe that everything is up to interpretation because of our previous biases and beliefs. An example of this is Christianity. There are so many differences between each denomination. The Bible is pretty much up to interpretation. Tattoos comes up a lot in the older style of christianity verses the newer progressive style. Many believe that tattoos are against God because in the Bible it talks about marking your skin. But, I believe that when Jesus came to the Earth he kind of threw out the rules given in the Old Testament. But again, this is all up to the interpretation of the text and my personal beliefs. I have tattoos and I have always wanted them so it could've clouded my perception of the text.

# data[].attributes.body
This religion class is going to give me a diverse perspective of other cultures and traditions. When I become a flight attendant, I will need to be able to adapt and respect other's cultures. I want to gain more knowledge about these traditions so that I can become more empathetic, open-minded and understanding of their experiences and lifestyles. I mean that I want others to respect my lifestyle so why can't I try to understand theirs?

This week in class, we learned about the different categories of religions. I found out that there are a lot of different perspectives in this class. I'm excited to learn more and expand my understanding of my own religion as well. We also talked about how religion is kind of a part of our DNA. This means that in the base of our being; we are drawn to a tradition. I like this because I heard a paster once say that we are meant to be followers. This theory is encouraged when we learn about christians being referred to as sheep in the bible. Especially when God says that he is the shepherd and will leave the 99 other sheep in order to chase down the 1.