Religion.Religion.Religion.
Are all religions different? Or do they fundamentally follow the same rules and principles? Of course, I'm not going to say that there are no differences at all between religions, but it amazes me at the similarites which one can find between them. Divine rules such as 'thou shall not kill,' are rules which are found in many religious text. Religions often stem from the same relgious text, and so they follow similar precedences, they have simply changed overtime due to becoming more widespread.
I look at the concept of God, and realise that the concept of what 'God' is remains the same in more or less all religions. God is often seen as a transcendent being, creator of all, and ruler of all. Different religions can be catergorised into two sections; polytheistic and monotheistic. The first follows the concept of many Gods, the latter simply one. In many polytheistic religions, the Gods are representative of different things in the world. such as life, or fire (yes, those examples are a little crappy, but they're off of the top of my head:)).
Does this seem like a good proposal?
In my eyes, there are too many similarities between different religions, and not enough differences to propose that religion may have stemmed from one placed, and globalised itself over time. The simple prospect that religion even exists, and not only in one place but all over the world, shows that this could be true. It cannot be known how it became widespread, possibly through travelling to countries such as China for trade and becoming open to new experiences, and the colonisation of other countries such as Africa and America. America especially, as the protestants who went over were often regarded as fundamentalists, they wanted to revert back to the very traditions of Christianity and believed in a far more literal interpretation of the Holy Bible. Anyhow, the more globalised religion has become, it appears the more it has been altered to suit the needs of the people in societies. I do think that all religions are different, as they all have different beliefs, follow different texts, and simply have different namses. But this does not mean that they cannot have derived from one place, when the many similarities between different religions are taken into consideration.
Are all religions different? Or do they fundamentally follow the same rules and principles? Of course, I'm not going to say that there are no differences at all between religions, but it amazes me at the similarites which one can find between them. Divine rules such as 'thou shall not kill,' are rules which are found in many religious text. Religions often stem from the same relgious text, and so they follow similar precedences, they have simply changed overtime due to becoming more widespread.
I look at the concept of God, and realise that the concept of what 'God' is remains the same in more or less all religions. God is often seen as a transcendent being, creator of all, and ruler of all. Different religions can be catergorised into two sections; polytheistic and monotheistic. The first follows the concept of many Gods, the latter simply one. In many polytheistic religions, the Gods are representative of different things in the world. such as life, or fire (yes, those examples are a little crappy, but they're off of the top of my head:)).
Does this seem like a good proposal?
In my eyes, there are too many similarities between different religions, and not enough differences to propose that religion may have stemmed from one placed, and globalised itself over time. The simple prospect that religion even exists, and not only in one place but all over the world, shows that this could be true. It cannot be known how it became widespread, possibly through travelling to countries such as China for trade and becoming open to new experiences, and the colonisation of other countries such as Africa and America. America especially, as the protestants who went over were often regarded as fundamentalists, they wanted to revert back to the very traditions of Christianity and believed in a far more literal interpretation of the Holy Bible. Anyhow, the more globalised religion has become, it appears the more it has been altered to suit the needs of the people in societies. I do think that all religions are different, as they all have different beliefs, follow different texts, and simply have different namses. But this does not mean that they cannot have derived from one place, when the many similarities between different religions are taken into consideration.
Really interesting post Tan-bom-ban!
ReplyDeleteWhat I've found really mind-blowing recently is how culturally relevant each religion makes itself to the place it ends up in. There are thousands of little quirks within each religion from place to place. Most people think that each religion has one set way of being mediated to its followers but this is soooo not true!!
Each religion is massively diverse, yet there can be so many similarities between each. That's why I love this course, shame there's not enough time to do more on it!
Liv x