So, About Religion....

For this first semester of my senior year in high school, I am taking a course called Contemporary World Religions. It seems like it will be incredibly interesting, and I know next to nothing about what some people believe. For this post, I will touch a bit on each of the major eight world religions and what they believe in, followed by a talk on what exactly defines a religion. I'll end it with some of my own beliefs on faith. So without further ado, let's get started!

I'd like to begin by delving into the oldest religion that is still practiced on earth: Hinduism. It is currently the third largest religion on the planet, and it is mainly practiced in India. Now, the Hindus have some crazy things going on. They have roughly 330 million Gods and Goddesses, (that's not a joke) and they structure their beliefs much like the Native Americans did. Their religion is more a way of life than it is a specific part OF their life. Another interesting thing about them is that really, they only have one supreme God who just happens to have 329,999,999 other personalities.

Next, I'd like to touch upon the two major religions in China: Confucianism and Taoism. Both are more philosophy than religion, because neither have deities. It's just two old Asian men telling people how to live. Taoists came about because of Lao-Tzu, and they also have the yin yang as part of their claim to fame. Confucius was obviously the guy who founded Confucianism, and a little fun fact about China is that they blend all of the Far Eastern religions into one kind of master philosophy.

Buddhism is one of the religions that the Chinese put in the blender. Buddhism came about when a sheltered little momma's boy named Siddhartha eventually got out into the world. He didn't like what he saw, and wanted to enlighten himself to find out how to live. This religion doesn't really have a specific God either. Buddhism is currently the fourth most popular religion, right after the Hindus, and it is actually becoming very popular in the U.S.

Before I get into the whole mess that is the Jews, Christians, and Islams, I'd like to touch on the Japanese Shinto religion. This religion is incredibly young, probably the youngest big major world religion out there. Shinto, like Hindu, is a lot like many Native American religions, with a major focus on nature and peace. The Japanese believe that the Shinto gods give power to whichever ruling family is ruling at the time.

Now, as most of you know, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all follow the same one God, although they are all very different religions. When one meshes the three together, they take up more than half of the entire world's population. I will assume, then, that most of you know pretty much all there is to know about these puppies. The main point of this post, after all, was to raise awareness of things that I (we) may not know about.

As to what makes a religion a religion...I think that if it requires faith, it has to be a religion. Religion is based around the fact that you have to believe in something that you can't necessarily see. While this may hold true for some philosophies, faith also includes believing in something that doesn't make sense. Take Mary for example. She was a virgin, yet she gave birth. It doesn't make sense, yet Christians believe it to be true.

Now for my own thoughts on religion. I know that me posting what I believe may be very controversial to some readers, but I can't help who I am. You'd think with all this talk of religion that I'd be a fanatic of at least something, but I'm not. I'm agnostic. World religions simply interest me so much because they are all so similar, yet so different. In my humble opinion, how you live your life matters more than who you're living it for.

Please please please don't mistake me for an immoral person. Just because I believe that God is a lie doesn't mean that I have no morals. I still believe that we humans have a job to be kind to others and to help others achieve their goals, while still working to achieve our own. I'm what my uncle calls a sincere agnostic: I hold the highest respect for any and all other beliefs, and I recognize the values in them, but I JUST DON'T BUY IT. If you have an issue with that, please just keep it to yourself.

Well, that's my controversy-filled post on religion. I may delve deeper into this topic later, but today I just wanted a quick and dirty post to fill some space. With that being said, I'll keep you updated on what I'm doing with my writing when I have anything to update. No YouTube video this time, but maybe next time. Until then...