Mohandas Gandhi

"Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which though easy enough tounderstand is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world."(http://www.sfheart.com/Gandhi.html)

Mohandas Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Gujarat, in North West India, on 2nd October 1869. Gandhi was an Indian nationalist leader, who established his country's freedom through nonviolent revolution. He became a lawyer and returned to India to establish a law practice in Bombay. He then arrived in Durban and found himself treated as a member of an inferior race. He was shocked at the widespread denial of civil liberties and political rights to Indian immigrants. As a lawyer and a political activist he fought discrimination with his principles of truth, nonviolence and courage. What i found that was very interesting he even traveled after his political years, to different areas and taught them about his ways. His acheivement was of him being a hero to his people and not giving up hope on acheiving his goal. I think Gandhi was a very good, true to the heart Hindu. He believed in something and he wanted to teach and have people hear what he has to say. Things do not get done in this world unless people speak up. He did not care about being in jail a couple of times, that was not stopping him. Missing class i was watching the movie on him because i work for blockbuster it is easy for me, anyways watching the movie left me in a maze. I could not believe what this man did and how he did it. For example going on a starvation strike until the violence ended. That was going to the extreme but a person has to do what he or she is going to do to make a point.

Teenville

I was watching Tyra Banks show and she had an episode titled Teenville. It was very interesting because it dealt with real life issues of teens. They picked 10 teens around the United States and there shocking opinions and stereotypes they've already formed. Tyra said that is does not matter if you're a football star or the cutest girl in school, it's tough to be a teen. It is very true, i remember being in High school and i would hang out with the hardcore music group, then went to the nerds, then i also hang out with people who were popular. The set up of this episode was the ten teens were to spend time in a fabricated community talking about race and backgrounds, and here they face with making quick decisions based on their first impressions of each other. They were to assign occupations such as garbage man, mayor, and prostitute.
As you watch the episode and the teens ask each other why do you see me as this & that. On the stage they came out with Tyra and had the chance to explain why and how they came to their decisions and to make peace with each other. One guy i forgot what the statement was but it was about religion and he was from down south area, he made a comment about the southern flag. The one girl was asking him questions about why he would say something like that. His ccomment was basically that he grew up around thinking like that so it is hard for him to think otherwise. This is very true the parents teach us to think one way but society wants us to think a different way. It was very interesting about the whole idea behind the episode, and i would suggest to watch the episode if you can.

Notes

If anyone has notes from the past two classes, on the question for the blog entry number two. write a comment on my blog. THanks guys!

Muslim Influences in India

In the pages of 96 - 103 it explains how Hinduism and Muslim began. One very interesting fact that i read during this chapter was that "there are more Muslims on the Indian subcontinent than there are in any other locale in the world." Muslims are staunchly monotheistic and Hindus tend to be polytheistic. Hindus and Muslims are very different in other ways also. Hindus have richly decorative temples, homes also their cars have images of gods. Muslims sacrifice cattle and other animals in commemoration of the biblical and Quranic account. Hinduism dealt with many reform movements as well. I did not know that Hindu had many different holy days. For example Holi. Holi was a celebration during February and March every year to welcome spring. During November Divali is celebrated to welcome the new year. It is a festive of lights. In october they celebrate Dasehra, which is a celebration in honor of Durga. Durga was a consort of Shiva.

After reading this chapter on Hindu and Muslims i actually learned more today then i did before. That is very strange.

Second Life

This was actually pretty cool project. I have never thought about going on this website. I remember watching the news one day and they were discussing this website. It looked very interesting, which it is. Trying to figure how to move; walk, chat; fly; take pictures, was a little difficult. After you get that all down this website is a breeze. So, the project was to create an avatar, which my avatar is diamond Rivera. Then after getting used to the website interview three people.

I was able to interview two people because when i went on i noticed for some strange reason that so many people that were on were editing their apperance. This kinda made the process harder. The first person i interviewed was very interested in religion. He was also very facinated about the spiritual life's website and how it all works. He has only been on for two days. It was interesting to see two new people trying to talk to each other. HIs response to the first question if he was relgious or spiritual and his response was that he was an avatar. He had strong views of relgion, which we really did not go into because before you knew it he flew away after that question.

Then the second person i walked up to she did not know english. That made the second interview hard.

Finally the third person she did not care for being spiritual or religious and then flew away.

Doing this project was kinda difficult because many people did not care what response they gave me or first agreed to answer a few ? and then did not bother answering them for me.
I was trying to post a snapshot of the first interview but for some reason it was telling me to load a disc. Sorry no snapshot. No names of the avatar because i was not sure if we were supposed to. But i have them if they are needed

George Bernard Shaw quote

"There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it”.

I would agree with the quote but then i do not agree with the quote. I hope this is not to confusing. You basically can see this quote from two perspectives. The first you can see that there is only one religion which can be the major religion that we have in this world, and then following that one religion it brakes down to small ones.

I would also disagree with this quote because each religion is practiced and view in its own way. Jews practice judiasm different than those of Roman Catholics. Yes each one belives in one God but the practice their believs in different ways.

"Belief O Matic" survey

Doing this survey I was really shocked with my results. I scored 100 % mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants and reform Judaism 80%. I think what this survey is telling me is that i am a stronger Christian then a Judaism. I have always thought more strongly to my Jewish side than the Christian side. Another religion that i am near to are Liberal Quakers. I looked online and saw that Liberal Quakers believe in direct reward or punishment toward heaven and hell. God is love, love is eternal. http://selectsmart.com/RELIGION/LQ.html. I think the score is similar to my beliefs. I did not realize until after completing the survey that many religions have similar beliefs. It is strange to see how much similar things can be and when they are all practiced different ways. Also many of these religions i have never heard of, for example: New thought, Neo-Pagen, Bahai Faith, New Age, and so on. But it is very interesting to see other religions that do exist.

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (92%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (89%)
4. New Thought (82%)
5. Reform Judaism (80%)
6. Neo-Pagan (73%)
7. Bahá'í Faith (73%)
8. New Age (73%)
9. Sikhism (69%)
10. Mahayana Buddhism (63%)
11. Scientology (57%)
12. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (56%)
13. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (56%)
14. Orthodox Judaism (55%)
15. Theravada Buddhism (55%)
16. Orthodox Quaker (54%)
17. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (50%)
18. Jehovah's Witness (50%)
19. Hinduism (46%)
20. Eastern Orthodox (46%)
21. Roman Catholic (46%)
22. Islam (42%)
23. Jainism (40%)
24. Secular Humanism (37%)
25. Seventh Day Adventist (32%)
26. Taoism (27%)
27. Nontheist (14%)