While I Fully Believe That It Is Important To Understand

　　There are many books on religion that try to break down each with enough facts to get the reader to understand. Though books are filled fact after fact and at times, slight biases, they sometimes forget to include values and reasons why people follow them. Because of this, students can miss out on a chance to get a deeper understanding of religion and the people that follow it. Huston Smith’s The World's Religion, Revised & Updated is that book that can broaden students’ viewpoint of all religions.

I tend to create stereotypes about people. This class has taught to stop misjudging people. I need to take the time to learn about a person and I have to stop jumping to conclusions.

In his book, A Critical Introduction to the Study of World Religions, Craig Martin aims to introduce undergraduate students to a socio-functional approach in exposing the methods in which religion disrupts class equality. He succeeds by using intelligible explanations, arguments, and examples to skeptically understand how man is shaped by religion.

In the world we live in today, religion is an extremely vibrant factor, not only in the environment surrounding us but with the people we interact with as well. In Ernest J. Gaines' novel, A Lesson Before Dying, it is easy to see how religion impacts the community. In a small community such as this novel depicts, religion is the driving force behind nearly every decision made in the story and can be justified solely on the individual's values.

This class has really opened up my eyes to many new views and opinions toward certain information and assumptions. Before taking this class I did not believe I was racist or had any downward views towards any people or cultural. This soon came to my attention that everyone has a little bit of racist in them no matter how hard you try not to be. I also thought that Columbus discovered America, I found it very interesting and almost common sense when we discussed this issue and how the school curriculum has been lying to students in a sense about the discovery of America. The finial bias I soon came to see was that no matter how much you think you will not face other cultures or other religions in schools that you are not familiar with your chances are very slim. No matter where you plan to teach at their will always be situations that you are unfamiliar with.

Religion and faith play numerous roles in people’s lives. From being a unifying factor to alienating people, and from comforting people to terrifying others, the roles of religion is vast and boundless. In The Crucible and “Upon the Burning of Our House”, it is evident that religion and faith play a subconscious role in the lives of people by acting as an inner conscience and by giving people a spiritual peace of mind.

Providing students to explore one’s religion or spirituality can begin to bridge the separation that exists between faith traditions in institutions. Dr. Casey mentions repeatedly that “the term religion is problematic,” and although this is true, this perspective can change. Religion is so deeply engrained in individuals and this does not have to form a type of “war zone,” but instead, it can provide us with an opportunity to learn about other citizens, rather than creating a sense fear or anxiety within us. Although we may be living in “an age of chaos today,” building understanding amongst global citizens is the prominence of religion in this

Religion plays a vital role in everyone’s life one way or another. Whether it be a small influence for major decisions or influence for even the most mundane tasks. Religion can be used as an excuse for certain actions, whether good or bad, and can spark hate amongst people who do not share their beliefs. Religion is a powerful thing. However, when left open to interpretation can cause a dangerous impact to everyone around.

Thus, Williams asserts that the value and purpose of religion is unique to each individual person, and should therefore not be used as a constrictive force, but as a progressive one, guiding us towards change

Society and religion have a love, hate relationship. Many who have grown up knowing that their religion is superior to all other religions. While others have grown up with their religion but have distanced from the religious sphere and discovered the culture and politics of the environment which they have never had a chance to discover for themselves. A Heightened national focus on social issues suggests politics may still be playing a pivotal role in driving Americans away from religion (Bindley). Many are beginning to feel as if their religion is not an accurate representation of who they are. Leila Ahmed and David Dark both agree that in order to find your own identity, you must first come to terms with your own culture.

This class helped me realize how ignorant I really was about the Asian American culture as well as the Native American culture. I generally believed that I was more culturally sound than I actually am. I believed that I knew more about these cultures than I really did and was shocked to realize that I fed into some of the stereotypes. I knew that Asian Americans did well academically because their parents valued education and had them study more than their peers, however I did not realize that culturally boys were expected to succeed more academically than girls were. I believed that girls were equally held up to a standard as boys were. Watching the film clips related to Asians and Asian Americans was an eye opening experience.

I personally have enjoyed this course. I was very nervous the first few months trying to make sure I didn’t miss any assignments and understood the reading material. I learn a lot about inequality, social injustice, social structure, social identity, and how to view things through a sociological perspective. This course has prepared me to observe various issue in society in a whole different way. We must educate ourselves about our history to know the differences, if not we will become a product of our environment. Therefore, “it’s easy to slide into the belief that things have always been the way we’ve known them to be” (Rosenblum & Travis, 2012, P.503).

In this essay we will discuss the importance of religion in society. We will attempt to explain why societies have religions and what functions their belief system has for them. We will also ask if these functions are now out-dated and if religions have any meaningful function in today's world or are they just stained glass windows into a bygone era? 'Religion' can be defined by two main groupings. 'The inclusive definition' covers all topics and subjects of a persons life including, not only, their belief in a deity but also their belief and belongingness to music, sport and any other interests the person may hold. 'The exclusive definition' refers to just their belief system regarding a 'supra-human' (Browne 2005, p. 311). It is mainly

Religion and spirituality reach into the depths of the human psyche and strongly influence a nation’s way of life.

I have learned many things throughout this course. I knew about most of the topics discussed throughout the class, but I only knew about them to a certain extent. Privilege and oppression were words I knew of but everyone who talked about it had different definitions of the terms. Now, I do know that majority of those peoples definitions were wrong.