Read About It

For my reading, I read a section in the book "Problems of Religion: An Introductory Survey" by Durant Blake. To find this, I simply typed in Google "problems with religion" and went to the books category and found this. The part which I read was actually a chapter titled "Sacrifice and Sin" which I found to be interesting. I was so drawn to this chapter because I feel that it is a darker side of religion that we (as a Westernized culture and in class) have not payed much attention to, despite its importance to some religions.

Blake writes this chapter not specific to a single religion and speaks more generally. He began with a small history of sacrifice and describes the attempted relationship worshipers create with god through sacrifice. He does, however, mention that food offerings are the most common to strike a relationship with a god/s. One part fascinated me because essentially the message was it is more important to obey, not to sacrifice. The chapter goes on to describe more variations of sacrifice and essentially says that these are fairly primitive practices and there are better options.

I do not think I would recommend this book/chapter to others. Obviously, without reading the entire book it is difficult to follow Blake's sporadic writing style. He also does not write this section based on a single religion, which in theory is good, but it simply proves difficult (or impossible) to comprehend sacrifice pertaining to a single religion. It was informative, but also bland and one dimensional.

Nick Frecentese

Here is the link for the article I read:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/wtwtgod/3518221.stm

For my "Read About It" assignment, I read an article that I found on the BBC website titled, "How Religion Defines America." I found this article by scrolling through the large list of religion articles under google news. After scrolling through a few pages of articles, I was immediately drawn to the title of the article that I settled on. I didn't know that religion defined America, so I was obviously curious about how the author thought that it did.

The basis of the article focuses on how important religion truly is in our American society today. It throws out a number of statistics about how much more religious our country is than other countries such as Britain and Canada. After explaining America's deep roots in religiousness and spirituality, the article goes on to explain the effect that our religiousness has on our society. It begins by talking about the effect that spirituality has on the way our country votes. The article also addresses the conservative beliefs of our country and religion in society.

"According to an ICM poll in January 2004, Americans believe in the supernatural (91%), an afterlife (74%), "belief in a God/higher power makes you a better human being" (82%), God or a higher power judged their actions (76%), and perhaps most tellingly "would die for their God/beliefs" (71%)." -from "How Religion Defines America"

After realizing that I hadn't spent enough time reading, I decided to find another article that contrasted with the one I had already read. After a little searching I found an article titled "Americans Get an F in Religion" on USA today's website. Here is the link:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-03-07-teaching-religion-cover_N.htm

Basically, this article accuses America to be "religiously illiterate." It states that Americans do not know nearly enough about all major religions. It also makes an argument that all in the United States should know the basics of the bible as well as the core beliefs, symbols and stories of all other major religions. The article is written by Cathy Lynn Grossman, but focuses on the views of Stephen Prothero (as well as the information he has laid out in his new book "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn't") Prothero believes that the ignorance in America that is born from lack of knowledge of religion is and has been hurting our democracy and global perspective. Lastly, on the left side of the article there is a little quiz that tests your "Religious Literacy" and gives you a score out of 100. I did completely average on the quiz... somewhere in the C range I believe.

Even though the two titles of the articles may seem like they are contradicting each other, I do not think that the articles really are. The first states that religion plays a big part in defining certain parts of our society while the second basically says we are a very ignorant country. I believe that it is possible to have both 1. A strong religious belief as well as 2. ignorance. For example, somebody who is very religious could know every minute detail about their religion, but not a thing about any other religion.

I would definitely recommend these articles to anyone interested, I also think they are very relevant to our class, especially since we are currently studying Christianity and the major religion in America (the country these articles focus on) is Christianity.

For my "Read About It" I read an article on BBC called "Is shinto a religion?" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/shinto/beliefs/religion.shtml). It talked about how Shinto has been the major influence on Japanese culture for over 2,000 years. This took me all the way back to the beginning of this class, when we were discussing what religion actually is. The Article concluded that Shinto isn't a religion because it's centered around ritual, as opposed to belief. Since it's not seen as a religion, there has been no competition between Shinto and Buddhism, but at the same time, Shinto has been a part of every aspect of life, whether it's family life, politics, social structures, and even spiritual life. Buddhist are able to incorporate Shinto in their everyday lives.
Because this reading was so short, I decided to further my research on Shinto influence on Japanese culture. From (http://www.tokyotopia.com/shinto-religion.html), where Shinto was referred to as a religion, I learned that it's polytheistic, and it involves the worshiping of superhuman spirits in nature referred to as "kami." "Kami" is a concept I learned about while I was studying totemism. A kami can be anything, literal, or metaphorical, anything from a rock, to a bear, to a spirit (not necessarily of a person or animal or anything specific), to random objects, to people, to concepts, like strength or fertility. Shinto involves rituals, and worshiping methods towards honoring and bonding with kamis, but it doesn't involve a set of prayers. Although there aren't holy places, there are famous shrines, such as Meiji Jingu, and Yasukuni. I would argue, although it wasn't included in any of the readings I did, that nature is the holy place for Shinto's. According to Shinto's, nature is the most sacred of things in this world, and in order to connect with one's kami, they must become one with nature. Earlier in the year I studied a ritual called the "spirit quest," which served the purpose of connecting to one's kami. The ritual involved sitting in a 10 ft circle for as long as it took to connect with one's kami. This was done whn the kami was needed (a.k.a. before war, during sickness or childbirth etc). This, in my opinion could arguably be defined as prayer. Other important values in Shinto are FAmily, Cleanliness and Matsuri. Matsuri are festivals in Japan dedicated to kami spirits. Obon "the festival of lanterns" is among these. It's celebrated most often in July or August. Most businesses close on this day, and families hang lanterns by their homes and by graves to "welcome and lead the souls home." The idea is to honor and help the souls of the dead. Each lantern represents a soul of the dead. Shinto practices have been going on (or were at least first recorded in/since) the 7th and 8th century. Shinto itself means "way of the Gods."
From my reading I came to the conclusion that Shinto is a "make your own religion" in a sense. Although many people take part in it and there's a traditional way of practicing it, there's no voice reinforcing the proper or improper way of doing things. The people choose what types of kami to worship, and build shrines in their own ways. Shinto doesn't define what a person is or isn't supposed to do, that is instead within a person's own decision. The Shinto "religion" is basically a relationship between human and nature, and can act to reinforce a person's inner strength and belief. It's a side serving of religion. It can combine with any other beliefs, because it's concepts are simple and uncontroversial. In the end, it looks like religion, acts like religion, but the voice behind people's actions doesn't exist. It's something people like to believe in, so they keep believing.

For my independent assignment, "Read About it" I had trouble at the beginning finding a narrow topic to focus on. I saw Gus' entry decided to branch off of it a little. In the book "Problems of Religion: An Introductory Survey" by Durant Blake, I ended up reading a different section. This section is called "CHAPTER XVII. The Interpretation of the Bible" The section goes deep into the concept of everyone understanding the events of the bible, but interpreting in their different ways creates separation. The following quote that jumped out at me: "Our increasing knowledg of nature, of history, of psychology, and of comparative religion, help us reconstruct and understand the various documents that make up the Bible, their dates, authorship, purpose, and meaning." This hit me because it made me realize that the interpretation of the bible will always be changing. At least that is my opinion. Although the rest of the section is thorough is did not get my mind moving as much as the title did.
After the reading I decided to look into some of the groups today that interpret the bible in their own individual ways. While researching I found a few methods of bible interpretation. the first method: interpreting the passages of the Bible literally, the second method: interpreting the passages of the Bible as a historical document, the third method: interpreting the passages of the bible as midrash, and finally the fourth method: interpreting the passages of the Bible as folklore. From here on I decided to focus on the interpretation of the passages of the bible literally because this seems like the most controversial method today. Its so controversial because it does not agree with homosexual activity. "Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin." You can probably see why this is so controversial because gay rights is probably one of the most critically focused topics today. The bible also denies woman of some rights which is something that definitely wouldn't slide today.

I read the book, Letters From A Skeptic, by Dr. Gregory A. Boyd and Edward K. Boyd. The book is about a father and son writing letters back and forth to each other. The son, is a Christian minister and his father was a Christian now athiest. The letters go back and forth between the two as the son tries to reconvert his father to christianity in the hopes that when his aging father dies, that he will go to heaven. The father asks questions to the son and debates it with him. The questions are about God,the Gospels, Jesus, and the Bible. The most interesting thing I found about this book, was that the questions were many questions I asked myself about the religion like: "Why is the world so full of suffering?" or "Does God know the Future?". The answers given by the son had credibility to them but I found them hard to swallow. While the book was beautiful because of the relationship of the son and father, I found that it's main goal being published was a conversion tool. It worked for me to an extent, but then I realized that there is no evidence to back this up. However, the debate questions the father raised were some questions I would have asked as well. Most of it though I felt was a bit repetitive.

I would reccomend this read to others. It was eye opening to see a perspective of a christian with these controversial questions. The son is actually well known for his debates with other religious debaters on his stance of the world based on his religion. Overall, I would reccomend this to anyone who wants to develop a different point of view.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/politics/after-childs-death-a-politician-became-a-cultural-warrior.html?ref=religionandbelief

For this assignment, I search Religion and Beliefs on the New York Times, and I found an article that intrigued me. This article is about Rick Santorum, a current hot candidate for the GOP, coming within a hair of defeating Romney in Iowa. The article shows how Romney became such a staunch conservative and how he instills these beliefs on everyone else. His wife delivered a baby 20 weeks into pregnancy, and the premature baby died 2 hours later. Ever since that point, Santorum was a staunch conservative. He was arguably the biggest opponent of abortion, fighting anyone in congress who was pro-choice. He broke off with President Bush about Stem Cell research, which he was avidly against. He was a huge opponent of same-sex marriage, saying "A child should grow up with a mommy and daddy." I found this article very interesting because it just shows you how a point in a mans life can turn them to be such religious person.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/politics/after-childs-death-a-politician-became-a-cultural-warrior.html?ref=religionandbelief

For this assignment, I search Religion and Beliefs on the New York Times, and I found an article that intrigued me. This article is about Rick Santorum, a current hot candidate for the GOP, coming within a hair of defeating Romney in Iowa. The article shows how Romney became such a staunch conservative and how he instills these beliefs on everyone else. His wife delivered a baby 20 weeks into pregnancy, and the premature baby died 2 hours later. Ever since that point, Santorum was a staunch conservative. He was arguably the biggest opponent of abortion, fighting anyone in congress who was pro-choice. He broke off with President Bush about Stem Cell research, which he was avidly against. He was a huge opponent of same-sex marriage, saying "A child should grow up with a mommy and daddy." I found this article very interesting because it just shows you how a point in a mans life can turn them to be such religious person. I would recommend this article to anyone who wanted to learn more about Rick Santorum and why he is the ultra-conservative he is.

For this assignment I chose to read the article from The New York Times, Tim Tebow's Gospel of Optimism. It was kind of a must considering all the talk about Tebow and how little I know about him. Tim Tebow is known as one of the most religious football players and for good reason. As an evangelical Christian, Fans and critics of Tebow legitimately believe that he is winning games because of his faith in God. While Tebow has the worst form, even worse throws and manages to find a way to complete less than half of his passes, he still wins somehow!!! Before, during and after games you will find Tebow doing the classic "Tebowing" Where he goes to one knee and prays. Tebow somehow finds a way to play his worst 45 minutes when play doesn't matter and his best play in the 15 minutes it does matter. This is believed to be the outcome from a gift usually involving hope, confidence and a special composure. For Tebow that state of mind comes from his particular relationship with his chosen God. When he was made starter after the original starter was benched, he simply ask his teammates to "Believe in me." With this Bronco team showing that skill doesn't have everything to do with

Jerzy Kluger, John Paul’s Jewish Confidant, Dies at 90
By Douglas Martin
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/world/europe/jerzy-kluger-pope-john-paul-iis-jewish-confidant-dies-at-90.html?ref=religionandbelief

For this assignment, i read about the life of a business man named Jerzy Kluger. Kluger was a Jewish man who played a pivotal role in the normalisation of relations between Israel and the Holy See. Kluger and Pope John Paul II grew up together in Poland. They studied together, played soccer together, and grew up together. However the pair lost touch during the Second World War when Kluger and his father were taken by the Russians with other Jews and jailed in a gulag. They were the lucky ones: the rest of the Kluger family was wiped out in the Holocaust. After the war the Klugers moved to England, where Jerzy took an Engineering degree at Nottingham University and worked in that field before moving to Rome to work in the import-export trade in the late 1950s. He wrote to Wojtyla, (Pope) who was staying at the Vatican, and for the next 13 years they corresponded regularly. When the Bishop of Kraków became Pope in 1978, he reserved his first private audience for Kluger and his family. The two men remained in close touch, and in 1981 the Pope asked Kluger to help him begin the process of rapprochement that ended with the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel. Kluger was said to have played a key role in the process behind the scenes. Kluger lost his life On December 31st, 2011.

Skrikava12
For my reading, I read the chapter "The Primal Religions" (Ch. 9) in Huston Smith's book, The World Religions. It focused on the primal religions of the world, the religions of native tribes around the world and explained the differences between the primal religions and the "historical religions." Huston explained that emphasis on orality, the difference of place, time, space. Most, if not all primal religions, have more of a spiritual view of the earth; that the earth and each animal, plant, or substance has some sort of spirit. There isn't one God, rather an "unknown" power that rules over.
I would recommend this chapter because it gives insight and thought into smaller religions, and I would say, "original" religions. It was brief, but educational and probably my favorite chapter I've read in this book. These religions are different. I thought what John Collier said summed up what the primal religions are all about:

"The had what the world has lost; the ancient, lost reverence and passion for human personality joined with the ancient, lost reverend and passion for the earth and its web of life. SInce before the STone Age they have tend that passion as a central, sacred fire. It should be our long hope to renew in us all." (pg. 382)

* What did you read? (Be specific enough so that someone else could find it if they also wanted to read it.)
* Please provide a brief overview of what you read. (I mean something like a paragraph or two.)
* Would you recommend this reading to others? Why or why not?

I read a piece from the Religion News Blog that was titled "UK: Cult infromation charity faces Charity Commission curb, reportedly after Scientology complaint"

The article was about a claim made on an educational center and place of teaching that its teaching of neutral education wasn't so "neutral" and that it was more so seen as "campaigning" or "political organisation". It states in the article what the exact problem is in the very first paragraph that was said by a spokeswoman: "The problem is that the CIC’s education work seems to be coming from a pre-conceived standpoint whereas, when we granted charitable status, we specified that any educational work needs to be objective and factual. There has been ongoing correspondence, and the charity’s trustees have offered to conduct a review into the charity’s work and practices.”
It goes on to talk about the information revolving around cults and new religious movments and what not.
I probably wouldn't just because it was kind of boring and it didn't seem like an article that would really benifit someone on a religious standpoint.