Religious Practices and Ideas - Essay Example

Religious Practices and IdeasReligious practices and ideas have played a crucial role in influencing distinctive human societies through history, and also exercise serious influence to the world of the 21st century. Religious Studies offers students the chance to be involved in the critical study of religion as a universal facet of human culture. There exists a necessity to include religious courses in the Core curriculum in schools. Yet some students think that religion is a matter of personal and subjective opinion and should not be included in an academic course of a university.

To shed light on the same issue, there some common reasons why we study religion. First, for intrinsic concerns. This is to appreciate how particular religious expressions can reinforce their own historical, social settings. The second reason is to consider how it may also encounter our own understandings of the day today world (Brown et al. 73).The Roman Catholic Church and the reality of Catholicism, for instance, remain a massive and appreciated presence into the third millennium of history.

Some of the questions that everyone might be asking him/herself are what are the backgrounds of the Catholic Church? How has it changed diverse cultural influences over the years? In religious events, the Catholic Church is known to speak in one voice. With that as an example then in our case introducing religious studies in our schools would play a good role in strengthening relationships in different nations (O'Collins et al. 84).First, for instance in his book Henrietta Harrison explores the modern background of a single Catholic Cave Gully town in Shanxi by intertwining some of the most important memories and tales of its inhabitants together.

Harrison challenges are leading global antiquities of Christianity. In dissimilarity to storylines that tell a story of a Christian religion that was foreign to Chinese settings and acculturated or adapted in order to reimburse for this incommensurability; instead he shows the important harmonies between Chinese and Christianity religious cultures (Harrison 27). Secondly introduction of religions i.e. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in the schools would allow interaction and borrowing different practices of different cultures.

For a broader view of hopes and aspirations of the Chinese people, it is acknowledged that China has borrowed generously from other neighboring cultures (Hodous 44). Thirdly, a professional student of Buddhism who has undergone professional teaching in school needs to approach religion with a real gratitude of what it aims to do for its people. I don’t think one can come in touch with the best that Buddhism offers without being captivated by its assurance, power and tranquility (Pittman 47).

Among the oldest of the world's four principal monotheistic religions is Judaism. Integration of the entire region will greatly help us as the students to have unity in learning institutions, and it will also play a role in uniting the world at large world (Brown et al. 102). Arguing against the idea of including religious study is that it will create difference (isolation) among the students, based on Henrietta’s book he argues that the dissimilarities between local folk religion and Catholic practice have actually increased in the past.

He describes the opposing forces that led to the creation of this active focus of Chinese Catholicism (O'Collins et al. 31). Both Buddhism and modern Hinduism are post-Vedic religions. Some Hindus believe the Buddha fused and accepted many beliefs of Hinduism in his doctrine; Buddhists however disagree with this belief. Indeed, it absorbed so many Buddhist qualities that it is virtually difficult to differentiate the latter in medieval and later Hinduism (William 17). In conclusion the benefits overweighs the disadvantages of religious studies, I hereby support the government’s initiative to introduce religious studies in the school curriculum as it is among the powerful tools that facilitate globalization.

It is my desire that fresh contribution to the understanding of religion as it is today will be helpful to students everywhere.Works citedBrown, Delwin, and Linell E. Cady. Religious Studies, Theology, and the University:Conflicting Maps, Changing Terrain. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 2002. PrintHarrison, Henrietta. The Missionary's Curse and Other Tales from a Chinese Catholic Village. ,2013. Internet resource.Hodous, Lewis. Buddhism and Buddhists in China. Belle Fourche: NuVision Publications, 2004.

Internet resource.James, William. The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: DoverPublications, 1956. Print.O'Collins, Gerald, and Mario Farrugia. Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.Pittman, Don A. Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu's Reforms. Honolulu: Univ. ofHawai'i Press, 2001. Print