Comparative Religion

COMPARATIVE RELIGION

The Comparative Religion Course gave me a better understanding of the various religions and beliefs practiced by many of diverse cultures in the world and now being practiced here at home In the United States.  Coming myself from a family of mixed religious backgrounds, beliefs and traditions; we lived in a kind of harmony because we each held in our hearts that there is a common thread that binds us as human beings and not just family. We respected each other's beliefs and faith never puffing one belief over the other. This course explained the commonalty that all religions and beliefs have in worship, prayer, how they view life and that all men are spiritual from ancient times to present. In addition, this course has shown that all religions of today have a common source that you will find when one looks far enough. And that each religion has borrowed from the other. I remember talking to my late cousin who was a practicing and ordained follower of Krishna. I remember saying to him “that there are many paths and each in the end leads to what all humans seek that is a union with God “he said “so true.” This course confirms this believe which I have held for long time. Now I feel that I have a working  knowledge base and the confidence that will enable me minister to those who are not of my faith when approached by them for help and through this knowledge base there will be no misunderstanding but understanding between us.

I liked the way the course was setup. Many years ago I took a course similar to this. But it was not the same. I was given a few books to read and told to write a paper and that was that. Here the instructor takes the student from what is known and then brings the student to what was not known. I liked how Rev. Kythera Ann explains the vocabulary that is part of the study of religion. The examples that she used in the discourses such as the flood showed a common thread among the religions used in one example names may have been different but the story was the same, and even the photographs and pictures helped enforce the topic at hand. I liked how each discourse built upon the other keeping with what I said before known to unknown.  The internet activities were great reinforcements to the end of each of the discourses.

There wasn’t anything about the course that I disliked except for the last discourse and then only one section of it. When it came to cults a lot of time was spent on the Baha’i Faith how Islam views it as cult and how Iran is persecuting it followers today. Then it goes to Mormonism with a small paragraph and one small sentence taken from Wikipedia about them, calling Mormonism a cult. The Mormons too were persecuted by main stream Christianity in its beginnings with their leader Joseph Smith being killed with many other of his followers. I am aware that she also said that it was a new religion but using Mormonism as a cult example did not follow the final statement that when the leader dies so does the cult which never happened to both the Baha’I and Mormon religion. However, I was expecting to see The Reunification Church a.k.a MOONIES, Scientology, Christian Science, and The Jehovah Witness mentioned as cults these too being out of the mainstream of recognized religion with Scientology being a newer religion of modern times. Instead The Branch Dravidians, Heaven’s Gate and Aum Shinri-kyo  were mentioned at the beginning  of section as new age cults that had made the news.

I think these discourses could be improved by using the PDF format. This may cut down on how many times a discourse been resent because of being received incomplete.  Also, it would allow for better printing of the discourses. I had one discourse which needed to be reformatted before reprinting because there were no margins in the discourse. 

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