Term Paper on "Religion? Be Sure to Include Concepts"

Term Paper 3 pages (1143 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

religion? Be sure to include concepts such as beliefs, symbols, rituals, and ethics in your analysis. Illustrate how the religion practiced by the group you visited qualifies or does not qualify as a religion, based on your assessment.

To some degree, religion is a relatively recent social construct of Western society. Westerners, particularly Americans, tend to define religion as a separate, private category that is walled off from public life. But in previous eras, the category of 'religion' was tied to one's loyalty to the state. Every nation and society had their own gods, and often leaders were honored as gods. The Romans demanded that people in their empire worship Roman deities, as a sign of civic loyalty, not out of piety (Rives 2007, p. 45). Today, in Japan, culture and religion are fused in many households: a Japanese person does not feel a need to choose between Shinto (the national religion of nature-worship) or Buddhism (an imported religion from India) (Treat, 2007). Most people practice both religions in Japan, depending upon their personal needs. In other regions of the world, such as Haiti, Zimbabwe and other former colonies, Christianity and native, folk practices and images are fused together (Grundy 2000).

Western Christianity, with its universal focus and creation of a transnational religion that is supposed to be true for all people is unique in the annals of history. But even Christianity varies from region to region, as well as between dominations. The celebration of Christmas in Catholic Ireland will be profoundly different than the celebrations of a Catholic community in Latin America. While it is difficult to generalize a definition of religion, because religious practices vary so widely today and have varied over the course of history, a possible definition is that religion is giving added significance to certain spaces, practices, symbols, and images. Those images may pay tribute to a divine being, as in the case of the image of Christ that I saw when I visited a local Methodist church in my area. Or the rituals of the religion, such as Buddhist meditation, may focus the adherent's mind on finding a philosophical truth and Enlightenment that is transcendent and separate from the norms of everyday life. A religion tells its followers that this day, this space, this way of eating is important and out of the ordinary -- important for spiritual, political, or ethical reasons. The rationale may vary with the religion but the specialness of religious practices is what makes a religion.

Q2. How does religious practice shape individual and group identity? Be sure to discuss the formation of shared meaning developed through religious practice and participative rituals. Illustrate ways you note individual and group identity is shaped by the experiences of the religious group you visited.

Religion is not merely a schema of belief -- in fact, for some religions, following the 'laws' of a faith, or rituals and ways of living in the world, are more important than internal self-examination. Observing certain ritual 'acts' together can create a community. In fact, it could be argued that because it is very difficult to come to an agreement on philosophical abstractions, religions are held together more securely through rituals. Coming together, celebrating Christmas, observing a certain calendar, treating certain spaces as sacred, is part of the lived nature of religion. Also, requiring individuals to serve the community through volunteering, to regulate sexual and dietary practices,… READ MORE

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