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Is Planet Earth a Religious Planet

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Is Planet Earth A Religious Planet?
Kevin R. Graves
Religion 212
Professor Farnham
Strayer University
02/03/12

Is planet earth a religious planet? On the surface it would appear that it is. There are rituals, ceremonies and traditions that the people of earth follow in accordance with their respective religions. On the other hand, in some religions there is corruption, and misdeeds. Also, there are wars fought in the name of religion, which makes me think that religion is not a good thing. In this report, I will be reporting on five of the earth’s 20 major religions. I will be exploring their customs, practices and functions. Along the way, I will comment on the negative aspects of the religion, if any. The ultimate goal of this report is to determine if earth is a religious planet.
I started my journey in the East, where I studied Christianity. In Christianity, the people attend church every Sunday or chose to worship at home in their own way. Christianity is a monotheistic religion and the people worship a higher power called God. The people of Christianity follow Ten Commandments that states: Thou shall not, steal, kill, lie, worship Idols, use the lord name in vein, commit adultery, covet what your neighbors have, and in addition to that, one should honor thy Parents, and keep the
Sabbath holy. These Commandments are found in the Christian Bible, which is a collect of ancient scriptures, that the Christians hold as the Word of God. Christians hold ceremonies at church, such as, weddings, baptisms, christenings, and funerals. When Christians want to join in union together, they get married and start living together as one. A ceremony called a baptism is held at church; when a person wants to cleansed of their sins they have committed, they get baptized. A funeral is a ceremony to mourn the dead. There are also holidays that Christians use to honor their God, such as, Christmas,
Good Friday and Easter. Christmas is when God was Born, Good Friday is when He was put to death, and
Easter is when He arisen. Christianity has a good premise and the people who follow Christianity do their best to follow God’s word but they are only human and only God was prefect. They are instances of corruption and sexual misconduct within the church according to the earth news, but Christians continue to believe in God.
I am now in the Middle East where the prevalent religion is Islam. The people who follow Islam are called Muslims. The Muslims follow the Koran, which is a collection of ancient, sacred texts. Muslims pray five times a day, in the direction of Mecca. Mecca is a Holy city where the Ka’aba is located. The
Ka’aba was made into a religious shine by the Prophet Muhammed. Muslims from all around the world are urged to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime. The religion of Islam also has a good premise, although there are extremists, on September 11th 2001, some Muslim extremists, hijacked two airplanes and flew them into two of Earth’s greatest buildings called, “The Twin Towers” or “The World
Trade Center”. This was a tough loss for the people of Earth and many lives were changed forever. The actions of a few Muslim extremists made the followers of Christianity and other religions feel that all
Muslims were extremists and that the Muslim religion as a whole was bad. The people of America took vengeance for the actions that took place on September 11th 2001 and war ensued. I noticed that the war is still going on some eleven years later. The extremists want all religions to follow their religion and the people of America want to preserve their religion the way that it is. The religions need to come together in agreement in the name of their God.
In the last part of my journey, I went to the Far East where I studied Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism.
The three religions contain similar elements that give the three religions a common familiarity. In
Buddhism, this religion has no creator or founder and members of this religion worship or pray to a figure called a Buddha, the Ultimate Goal of this religion is to obtain Nirvana. Siddhartha Gautama, meaning wish filler, after achieving enlightenment, is the most important person in the faith and was named Buddha “enlightened one” by his followers. Along the way, Buddhists abide by the Four Noble
Truths which are: 1) Life inevitably involves suffering, dissatisfaction, and distress. 2) Suffering is craving, rooted in ignorance. 3) Suffering will cease when craving ceases. 4) There is a way to realize this state: The Eightfold Path (Fisher 42). The Eightfold path includes: The right understanding, right thought or motivation, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right aspect and right meditation
(Fisher143). Buddhism is a non-theistic religion and members of this religion strive to be good people by following The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
Jainism is similar to Buddhism and followers of this religion are extremists. Not extremists in the sense that I mentioned earlier, but they practice extreme non-violence. Jains do not eat after dark, they wear pieces of cloth over their faces not to breathe in tiny organisms, sweep the path in front of them not to step on tiny creatures and walk barefoot. All these things are necessary to avoid killing creatures by accident. Jains follow a code of non- attachment to the extreme, as well, most Jains wear no clothing and do not own property nor automobiles’.
Hinduism is a polytheistic religion, in which the members of Hinduism worship multiple gods, gods such as, Kali, the protector, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, generosity, beauty and charm and Saraswati, who is associated with the arts, to name a few. The Veda is similar to the Muslim Koran or the
Christian’s bible, in which, the members of the Hindu religion follow a collection of ancient sacred hymns. The Hindus also preform rituals from birth to death, there are sixteen prescribed in the ancient scriptures to purify and sanctify the person in his/her journey through life (Fisher95). There are also numerous festivals in which Hindus worship the deities. The government supports these festivals and followers can leave work to attend. Hindus also make Pilgrimages to holy places and sacred rivers for spiritual purification and elevation. Karma is a very important part of Hinduism, in that, a person’s deeds dictates the caste or form they will occupy in the next life. A Brahman is a Priest or member of the priestly caste and each individual soul (atman) strives to obtain Brahman(The Supreme Reality) very similar to Nirvana in Buddhism.
The religions of planet earth serve a purpose; they bring the people of earth together in a spiritual harmony. The word of God or gods brings inner peace to the people that follow the Word. The planet
Earth would be a different place without Religion; it would be a place without order, even with the government’s laws, I think earth would be a bad place without religion. Religion is not perfect there are several aspects of religion that science can not verify, although the people of earth still follow it on faith.
The clergy is not perfect, they make mistakes, sometimes huge mistakes but they are just men, not a higher power or deity and are expected to make mistakes. I must say that the planet earth is a religious planet and for the most part religion is good for the people of earth!

Bibliography
Fisher, M. P. (2011). Living Religions. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education.

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