Why Practice?

Fun Intro Video
The Music That I Played for the Video (Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu)

The Hubble Deep Field View of the Universe:
This photo was taken over the course of several days from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995.  It depicts a part of the sky previously thought to be quite empty except for a few faint starts in the Milky Way.  What it depicts, and this surprised astronomers at the time, is that a tiny part of the sky, 1/24,000,000th of the Northern Hemisphere's night sky, or about the size of a tennis ball held out 100m away, actually contains about three thousand of galaxies dating back to a billion years after the big bang.  They took a similar photo of the Southern Hemisphere and discovered that it, too, had 3,000 galaxies supporting the theory that the universe is uniformly populated by galaxies - and the further away they are the older they are.

Why do People Practice Religion?

Most people feel that there is a realm beyond their own physical reality.  Something beyond our five senses.  Because we can't verify what that other reality is we have a need to "verify" that other reality through faith.

FEAR - some are concerned that after they die they might end up somewhere not so nice, so through their belief they believe they'll end up in heaven.  Look up "Pascal's Wager."
One of our natural human tendencies (part of our Human Nature) is to maintain deep seated fears that our ancestors held.  We have insecurities about being alone, death, doing the wrong thing, sickness, disease, sadness and hopelessness.  We fear the power of nature and our small position in it.

WONDER - nature remains quite mysterious for most people.  Many things in nature that are not explainable through our current understanding are called "miracles."  This is used as evidence of the "super" natural.  Is it all random or is it carefully designed by a higher being?  For some people what remains poorly explained by science is explained through spirituality.

QUESTIONING - many people will not accept that their existence is limited to their time on earth.  Few of us want to go through life alone and we certainly do not want to face death alone.  Most of us do not accept that chance rules out lives - rather we want to control our destiny through free will and perhaps with the intervention of a God or higher power.

IDENTIFY - is it enough to be identified with a label that's relevant only here on earth?  Labels like,
student
sibling
friend
athlete
worker
rocker
skater
jock
etc.
For most people something more long-lasting and meaningful is necessary and they find that in spirituality.

INTUITION - many of us feel unfulfilled by our material wealth.  Even though we have dominated the earth we still do not feel fulfilled (U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" for example).  Many religions were founded by inspired leaders who had ideas about a different and improved reality.

BIG QUESTIONS - most people are curious about big questions in life, many of which we have already referred to . . .
Who am I?
What is right and wrong?
Why are we here?
Where did all this come from?
Why is there suffering?  etc.

Your job is to write (in your own notes) what five of YOUR big questions are.

1. Is there life elsewhere in the universe?
2. Are our personalities based more on nature or nurture?
3. Why do we love and feel the need to be loved? (Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs?)
4. Why the paradox of great hate in the world despite the deep need for love?


Next complete, with a partner, the What Dreams May Come and Similarities Between Religions sheet.

DAY 3 The Religious Impulse and What Dreams May Come?

Throughout human history there has been an impulse, very widespread, to worship something.

Features (what does the impulse look like):

·      Belief in the supernatural (“beyond natural”) and spiritual world beyond the material world.

·      Belief in the existence of a soul.

·      Collection of sacred writings (“scriptures”).

·      Strong sense of family and community based on rituals and festivals that celebrate shared beliefs and practices.

·      Set of answers to the most pressing human questions (e.g. meaning of life, meaning of suffering, what happens after you die, etc.)

·      Rules of Conduct – designed to help followers lead honourable lives and to provide purpose to individual and community life.

·      System of ethics guiding morals.

·      Significant founders or inspired leaders who introduced or spurred the development of the faith (usually).

·      Search for salvation, even perfection.

·      A lifestyle of faith and worship.

·      Techniques for focusing one’s awareness.

·      An enriching impact on the lives of adherents.

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In order to get everyone's head really into the course we began watching What Dreams May Come today.  It's a great film that deals with many issues in an enjoyable way.

Some of the issues include:

• The meaning of one's life.
• What happens after you die?
• Is this world full of fate or do we have free will?
• What do you do in troubled times?
• Does what you do in this life affect what happens in the next?

What Dreams May Come

DAY 2 - Believers, Questioners, Non-Believers and some BIG Questions

Have YOU found what you're looking for?  First thing we did was ask some questions through Bono and U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".

We separated ourselves into three floor groups: Believers, Non-Believers and Questioners.  The class was more or less equally split.  The discussion that followed was very enjoyable - everyone had the opportunity to ask and answer questions about their own belief systems and many people offered their personal opinions about why they have (or don't have) whatever belief system they have.

We raised, for the first time, some of the "big questions" that most World Religion grapple with, including:

"What happens after you die?"
"Where and how did all this start?"
"What meaning is there to my life?"
"Where do I turn in times of difficulty?"
"Why do you believe or not believe?"
"Why are there people? [such high level thinkers]"?
"Why is there an urge to believe?"
"What about evolution?"
"What started religions?"
"Do things happen for a reason?"

DAY 1 Stephanie's Ponytail

Welcome to World Religions class!  I love teaching this course for many reasons - primarily you are at an age where you are ready to discuss belief systems, where you probably have a well-established set of beliefs yourself and where you are open to thinking about the way you think about things.

Today we read Stephanie's Ponytail, a children's story by Robert Munsch.  Stephanie's new hairstyles were being copied by her classmates and she didn't like this - in the end she got the last laugh.  This is a story about beliefs, opinions and the right of everyone to have their own.

DAY 83 (Jan 17) Islam

Here is the Presentation on Islam.

The video, Inside Mecca, is available from National Geographic and some of it is on YouTube as well.

DAY 73 (Dec 20) Christianity

Here are some terms that you need to be familiar with.  Many you have heard of:

apostle - Jesus chose 12 men to go out and teach the gospel to the world.

Ascension - the rising of Jesus' body up to heaven after his time here on earth (celebrated 41 days after  Easter).  RESURRECTION - Rising of Jesus from the dead 3 days after his death.

baptism - Sacrament (action) of sprinkling water symbolizing washing away sins and entering the Church community.

confession - Sacrament (action) where a believer confesses their sins and is forgiven by God.

Crucifixion - Roman execution method of hanging (with rope and nails) a person to a large cross - Jesus was killed this way.

disciple - follow of Jesus during his ministry (it includes the 12 apostles)

Easter - the day that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven

gospel - "Good News", the teachings in the bible of the life of Jesus.

Eucharist (Communion) - Sacrament (action) of spiritual communion with God - often in the form of unleavened bread and wine.

Holy Spirit - one of the three persons in God, believed to bestow spiritual gifts upon people.

Judgement Day (Last Judgement) - Day of God's final final judgement at the end of the world - the faithful will go to heaven.

Messiah - The Saviour, the person sent from God to save all people - Christians believe this to be Jesus.

Original Sin - believe of our tendency to sin (Baptism will wash this away).

Purgatory - temporary stage in which souls of the dead are purified from sin.

Papal infallibility - The belief that the Pope (the head of the Catholic Church) cannot be wrong in matters of faith and morals in his role as head of the church.


BASIC BELIEFS
Creation - God created everything in the universe (no particular date, he just did it).

God - derived from Judaism, one god made up of three entities - the Father, The Son, Holy Spirit.

Salvation and Eternal Life - believers will be forgiven for their sins and will enter heaven for eternity.

Morality is derived from the 10 Commandments.

Gender Roles - men are priests (Catholicism), women are nuns.  But in most Christian denominations ministers can be either gender.

DAY 70 (Dec 15) Meaning in Your Life

Today was a very interesting day of discussing the fundamental needs that people have that are address, for some, through religion.

Deontology - comes from the Greek word, "Deon", which means duty.  One of the ways that most of us are comfortable working within a worldview that has rules of things that are acceptable to do and things that are not acceptable to do.  For example, we all agreed that stealing your classmate's pencil is not acceptable and therefore stealing anyone's pencil is not acceptable.  We made a link here to other, more serious issues like, murder.  It's not ok to kill others.

Next we asked where your ideas about it not being acceptable to steal or kill came from.  For some of you it's just what you've been taught by parents, friends, society, school, etc. (i.e. it's the way you have been socialized), and for others such ethical / moral codes from from a religious source, e.g. the Bible.  This is deontological in origin, but it's more than simple that - it's a duty-based outlook that comes from a spiritual or religious source.  This we call, "Divine Command".  In other words, the moral/ethical code has it's root in a god and holy texts.

I made this point with the class because during yesterday's introduction to Christianity there were many questions about how Christians can believe certain things and I did not want the focus to be on the minutiae of that religion, rather I wanted us to focus on the human needs that we all have and how Christianity (and any other religion) addresses those needs.  The need we focused on today was the need to have rules to govern our lives and the need to live a meaningful life.

We listened to Bruce Cockburn's "Shipwrecked at the Stable Door" and examined the meaning of the lyrics to that song.  There are many references to capitalist, materialistic society and there are biblical references too.  We then began to work through Rick Warren's TED Talks lecture on bringing meaning to one's life, something that we'll continue tomorrow (with the few people who are here because of the Grade 11 field trip to the ROM on Friday).