Diaz 1

Nathaly Diaz
REL 2300
World Religions
As we start a new semester we face the big question; What class
should I choose this time? Do we want to learn something meaningful or do
we just want to get over with the required general education and move on to
what is next? It could possibly be that we need an easy class to raise our
GPA, since that last math class was not so nice to us. This semester, being
my last full-time semester at Salt Lake Community College.
I decided to choose the last one of my general education required
classes to be something fun and important. I told a few a friends about my
plans and most of their answers were: Oh World Religions is an easy one,
or Thats not a real class, and also Why do you want that class, do you
even need it. I went ahead and kept the class.
The semester started and the material seemed a bit intimidating, so
much to learn. I had to idea there were so many religions out there, but I
decided to learn as much as I could.
Now that the semester is over, I realized how important this class really
is. I have learned so much about all the different religions and cultures
around the world. The fact that we were trying to understand all of them and
not trying to prove them wrong or right kept me at a neutral point of view.
As I continued studying the different religions around the world I
started becoming more comfortable with the different ideas people have

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about God, their prophets, their saviors, saints, and the connection to a
heavenly father figure all religions seem to want.
But for now I would like to make a talk about three of my favorite, and
the most eye-opening religions throughout the semester: Buddhism,
Christianity, and Sikhism.
For example as we were introduced to the Buddhism chapter I thought I had
a pretty good idea about what this religion was. Growing up with the idea
that the overweight Buddha was their only and true God, and that the only
reason they saw him as a god was because he was bigger than any other
average human being. To my surprise I was completely wrong my whole life.
One of the most interesting facts I learned about this religion was that this
particular Buddha hasnt even existed in this life, that he is the one to come
in the future, and that they dont worship their deities as gods, they dont
even consider The Buddha as a god, and that The Buddha who has lived in
this Earth was a rich prince who gave everything up to find his own peace
and reached enlighment without the need of materialistic things which is
Nirvana, a word I had no idea it had a true meaning. This religion believes
that once we find peace within is when we are finally happy, freed from our
own demons and fears. We all go through desire, ignorance, suffering,
visions, we find knowledge, and finally reach peace. Their basics of behaving
properly are not much different as of other religions beliefs: Dont lie, dont
steal, no sexual misconduct, no intoxicants, nor harm or injury to leaving
creatures. Even when this religion seemed confusing to me at the beginning,

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it started to make sense as I learned more about it. The different deities, and
images they have about gods and goddesses are at the end of the road,
representing one deity, for them is just a different representation of one main
God and do not put too much effort or energy to believe in just one god as
Christians and Sikhs do. But it is similar in a way, due to the fact that they
believe in paying attention and following pretty closet the teachings their
prophet left for them. I learned that this culture. After this religion we started
with Christianity, a religion with a long history and one of the largest
institutions yet one of the most confusing to understand in my own opinions,
even with all the information available about this religion, there are still
plenty of secrets, and unanswered questions. You just have to have faith,
that is the basis of this religion, and the answered to some of the most
complicated questions we have about Christianity. But as the class explained
what this religion really means I realized how little I knew about this religion
that I felt I knew about the most. I learned how Jesus was actually a Jew that
had a different way of understanding the Torah, and that instead of trying to
make people believe that he was the King to be his mission, he instead
wanted to show people that love is the main way to reach happiness and to
be in peace with God, that in order to reach heaven we must love our
neighbor as we love ourselves and never wish evil to others. Here I realized
how this religion has some very similar ideas to Buddhism, even when these
two are completely different, different regions, and culture, they still share
the same idea of being in peace with each other, and to love others. This

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religion believes that we should not have evil thoughts, and in order to reach
salvation we should pray to the one God. Christianity also have a prophet;
Jesus Christ, he also in some way was a prince and left everything to come
down to Earth, and take on a human body to spread the message and the
word of God, that we have to listen to the message Jesus Christ left us. This
prophet also having everything he could wish for living in heaven as a God,
he renounced to everything to show us how to leave a peaceful life, and how
love is the answer to most of our questions. We should look for answers in
the Bible and look for peace within to also be finally free from ourselves.
The last of one I would like to talk about is Sikhism a religion I didnt
know about its existence until now. As a child, when I heard someone
mention India, the first thing that I picture was the colorful outfits the women
wear, the nice jewelry, and all the decorations they use on their faces and
hands, like henna. As for the men I always picture them as Arabs with
different style of covering their heads. It was not until last week that I
learned so much about this religion that I have never heard of, even though I
had seen in before. I never took to the time to educate myself about this
culture. I was under the impression that India was just about Hinduism, and
to my surprise, once again being required to take a humanities class for
general studies in college has proven me that there is so much more to learn
about our communities, the world, the people. Even though I was upset
about taking another general education class, learning about Sikhism has
been a very pleasant experience. I learned the most about this religion by

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visiting their temple, when I was there, looking around, I notice a passage
from their scriptures; Oh mortal meditate to the One God. Here, one more
time I notice how most religions are praying to this almighty God, the divine,
and unique. I also paid attention the their Basic Cardinal Principles; honest
earning, sharing with others, reciting hymns in praise of the Almighty Lord,
and remembering God, which now is the third religion repeating the same
basic ideas of an ethical human being.
I learned that, for men, wearing the turban is some type of spiritual
crown, it is part of the religious attire, as a symbol of showing respect to God,
and also that this religion believe in equal rights for no matter the sex,
ethnicity, color, etc. I did notice this as they asked me to join them for lunch
while I was at their temple, and always making us feel welcomed at their
temple, even though they were aware of us being just visitors. I also learned
about their jewelry and the meaning of a bracelet Sikhs wear, which is a
symbol of an unbroken love for God. All this little things and ideas I had
about Sikhs were inaccurate, they dont wear jewelry to look fancy or try to
impress others, each one of the pieces of their attire symbolizes something,
and usually if not always related to God. Their religion also has their own
prophets, The Ten Gurus, it is a little different from the other religions, which
is usually one single guy, but at the end it is always the same message,
about love, about loving your neighbor, and always love for God. Their
ceremony felt as a big gathering for the members of their community, almost
as a very close family party, which was much different from the other

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religions, my experience with Christianity and Buddhism temple visits were
always very formal.
PERSONAL STATEMENT
In conclusion, even if some religions seemed a bit strange or different
from what we are accustomed to, if we look a bit further, they are pretty
much the same concept. They all want to reach peace within, to become a
better person, to work hard for what we want, and to always try to help
others, wishing the best for our neighbors, and respecting others, just as
much as we respect our own family. They can seem a bit different, maybe in
the way we dress, or talk, the way we performed our worshiping to one or
plenty Gods or even some of our rituals can be intimidating to other
members of different religions, but if we stop of ourselves and start
practicing what our prophets have left for us we can see that we are all the
same, no one is above or below any other group of people because of their
beliefs or religion association. Maybe if we stop letting stereotypes blind us,
maybe if we stop letting media, and the misconceptions we have about
others, impose wrong knowledge about others and get out there and learn
about our neighbor just as our old prophets recommended, maybe then we
can all be a peaceful world, where we all can get along with each other and
respect each others ideas about our Gods, because at the end of the day it
seems to me that we are all praying to the same one.