Religion and Ethnic Diversity Paper
Rebecca Brown
ETH/125
February 22 2015
Loren Butler
Week 4 2
Religion and Ethnic Diversity Paper
I chose Christianity as my topic. Every religion has its own sets of rules and value systems. Christians believe that Jesus is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Sunday is their day to worship, and Wednesday they have Bible study. Christians follow the Ten Commandments, and believe that all followers should donate ten percent of their income. I believe that Christians follow a lot of the same traditions as the Puritans did when they first came to America. They tend to use fear as a tool to get people to join their church. Whenever I have spoken to a Christian about their belief system, the first thing that is mentioned is, if I do not except Jesus Christ into my heart I am going to Hell. There are so many different religions to compare Christianity to. The first one that comes to mind is the Jehovah Witnesses. They believe that Jesus existed, but they do not believe he is God. They also do not believe in Heaven, and have a strong message, if you do not join them you will not reap the benefits of Eternal happiness here on earth. Something different than what the Christians say will happen to you if you do not follow them, is they do not believe in Hell. I am not a Christian, so living in the Bible belt has been very difficult for me. This country was started so that the people would be free to have their own belief system. That is not the case down here. People experience a lot of pressure from the Christians to accept Jesus Christ as the savior. When they refuse, they are accused of being evil. Christianity has played a big part in American culture. It started with the Puritans and went on and divided into different sectors. Though the rules of Christianity are seldom followed, they laid out the path of how we were supposed to behave towards one another. Christians feel that they have been discriminated against because they are no longer allowed to practice any form of prayer in the school systems. The head of the Atheist group’s name was Madelyn Murray O’Hair. She was once dubbed the most hated woman in America, and responsible for removing the Morning Prayer from school. She said that doing this was discriminative against other people’s beliefs. This woman, her son, and daughter in-law, actually turned up missing and are thought to have been killed. What I have learned about this group over the years is that their rules sound great, but few are able to abide by them. I have found few examples of true Christianity.
Asian
The majority of the Asian community practice Buddhism. This religions’ guidelines are very similar to the Christians’ Ten Commandments. Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t have illicit sex, speak divisively, abound ill will, don’t engage in idle chatter, don’t speak abusively, and cultivate right ruled. The city I grew up in, Lowell Massachusetts has the second largest Asian community in the country. I’ve had the good fortune of