World Religion: An Overview

While I do not consider myself a very religious person, religion is something that has always fascinated and intrigued me. Over 80% of the world's population considers themselves religious, religion is a big part of most people's lives. With estimates of over 4,000 different religions in the world it can be a confusing topic. It can also be a confusing topic when it comes to what religions came first and when they started.

Here is a video of the spread the first religions throughout the world. http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.html

Even though tribal people had different types of religious practices and spiritual rituals, Hinduism is the world's oldest organized religion, with Judaism following. Then Christianity and Islam were born from Judaism. These are still the main religions today. Among the other larger religions are: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Jainism.
For information on the different types of religions and a comparison go to: http://www.religionfacts.com/big_religion_chart.htm

Different religions practice different things but they can be broken down into different sub-groups.
There is monotheism which is the belief in one God, polytheism which is the belief in many Gods, and pantheism which is a belief that all is God.
http://www.allaboutreligion.org/origin-of-religion.htm

The "Big Four" religions are all very similar and different at the same time. Hinduism has no known founder or year of origin, but it is known that it was developed in India. Hindu is not just a religion it is a cultural system too. The Vedas is the oldest book of Hindu and lays out the foundation of it. Judaism was originated in 1300 B.C.E. by Abraham, who was the first Hebrew. The Tanakh or Torah is the religious book of Hindu. Christianity comes from Judaism and the holy book is the Bible. Christianity is broken down into many smaller groups such as: Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, to name a few. Islam also originated from Judaism; the Qur'an is the holy book. Muhammad is known as the prophet of Islam he was not just a religious leader, he was also a political and military leader.

Alexander the Great--- or not so great?

Alexander the Great is known all around then world, but are people really aware of what he actually did and the characteristics he possessed? Alexander the Great lived a very short but yet very fulfilled life. Alexander was only thirty-two when he died and much of his life was spent in battles. There were three major battles that Alexander and his army were able to win. The first battle he won was the Battle of Granicus, the second was the Battle of Issus, and the third major battle was the Battle of Gaugamela. During these battles many lives were lost and Alexander still wanted to continue on his expedition. Although Alexander the Great was a very powerful and determined king it is debatable whether or not Alexander the Great was really all that Great. Alexander the Great's theory was that he wanted to conquer the entire world. And who really wants a ruler with those intentions?

Once Alexander conquered a city, many of those cities were named after Alexander the Great himself. It seems to me that he wanted every ounce of power he was able to get a hold of and his armies following him did not really mean that much to Alexander. In the latter battles his armies finally convinces Alexander the Great that their many conquers were enough and that it was time to head back to the beginning of their expedition. If this were to not have happened Alexander the Great may have actually conquered the entire world, just as he had planned to. If he would have in fact conquered the entire world he would have an extreme amount of power. Probably too much power for one person to possess. Having one ruler with too much power would also lead to many other issues, such as, trying to overthrow him as a ruler, and Alexander trying to control every aspect of every ones lives. Too much power is not always a good thing, and I do not think Alexander realized how much power he would really receive.

Personally, I feel that even though he may have led on that he wanted to continue and would not stop until he had rule over all that nations, this may not be entirely true. After the many battles Alexander later died. His body was growing tired from too many battles, and during the end of the battles I think he was ready to be done even though he did not allow anyone to know that.

Alexander was a strong-willed man and he did achieve some of his many goals he had set. He may not be as great as many people say he is, though. With some more knowledge about the details of his life I think many will re-think his ever so popular name.

"Double Extra Large World History!"

Have you ever considered what people are actually referring to when the term "history" is used? Is it the history of a certain nation, person, or culture? Or even the history of our world? It seems as though most of the time, "history" is not including all that it can. We overlook and forget about tremendous events that are all a significant part of how we have came to the point we are at today. You see, we divide history into several periods and often only consider the latest of these. For example, what is known as Small World History only encompasses the last 5000 years, the start of civilization, or the invention of writing. However, I'd like to reflect on the big picture, all the way back to the beginning of the universe. The following include events from over the last 13 billion years, what is called Big History.

The Big Bang
Visit this interactive time line to explore the origins of the universe. The effects of a single event happening over 13 billion years ago are still occurring today. Out of an extremely hot explosion, expanding faster than the speed of light from the size of an atom came the beginning of time, space, matter, and energy. Continue exploring the time line for a chronicle of Big History.
http://www.johnkyrk.com/evolution.html

The Beginning of the Earth
Dig deeper! What actually allowed our world to exist? How did the Solar System fall into place? Over millions of years, the survivors of the millions of collisions occurring beforehand settled into their orbits. Presently, the planets maintain respective distances from our center star, leading to the reasoning behind Bode's Law, for all of you scientists.
http://novan.com/solar.htm

The Great Permian Extinction
Learn about the Earth's most severe extinction event. Over 90% of every living thing disappears, but what caused this catastrophe? How did we go on to recover from this loss?
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dinosaurs-permian-extinction-death-and-life.html

The Super-Continent
Imagine the earth as one large land mass surrounded by one vast sea. This is the case hundreds of millions of years ago. The land mass is known ad Pangaea, with Panthalassa as the resulting enormous sea. Explore how the continents arrive in their present location over time.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/antarctica/ideas/gondwana2.html

Put it into Perspective
A key concept to understanding Big History is realizing the vast time periods that it includes. Furthermore, examining the lengths of these periods relative to more familiar times can be quite astonishing. Look at the history of the universe in a one-year calendar representation in order to get a sense of how long ago these events happened. What is the most shocking to you?
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/universe/itsawesome/cosmiccalendar/page2.html

These events throughout the past billions of years have clearly helped determine our present state. Can you think of any other significant elements of Big History?

Ancient India: Religion

Religion has always been a part of my life in one form or another. After this week’s discussion on Ancient India, I found that the religion aspect was interesting and did further research.
India, unlike many ancient societies, connected their people through an elaborate cultural system which includes religion. Religiously, Indians followed The Varna which translates to the colors. This is a good description because within The Varna there are four divisions: the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra. Each of these divisions acted as a social class as well as religious class. The Brahmin consisted of people such as priests. Those who were leaders and warriors were considered Kshatriya. The Vaishya consisted of merchants and farmers, and the Sudras were the laborers. Another main aspect of this religion is reincarnation. In this case, an individual will be reincarnated into the next caste system (social class) if his life consisted of good deeds. However, I have always questioned the fact of reincarnation because people typically do not remember a life prior to their current one. On the other hand, there have been instances where a “reincarnated person” has an interest on the items in the prior life. This also raises the issue of chance. What if by chance this person happens to have the same interests? I have also pondered the thought of souls. In this case, the soul must pass Brahmin to achieve “eternal rest” (nirvana). Is nirvana like heaven? Is this life truly better than life on earth? Does a soul have to wait after a death to find a new body? Unfortunately, these questions and many others still do not have an answer. With every religion there are questionable beliefs to them such as the questions I have presented. However, Ancient India, built mainly on this religion instead of education and government like other societies, kept their society strong for years. For this reason, I think religion should be important in every culture.

Hammurabi's Code

My goal after graduating from GVSU is to go to law school and become a lawyer, I am of course interested in anything that has to do with law and politics. I am always interested in learning new things about our laws, but I have never really thought the laws of the past. When I read the section, in the Reilly text, about Hammurabi’s code I was very interested. It is amazing to think that almost four thousand years ago the first laws were being written, but it is not surprising because the first cities where emerging then too. When there are large populations of people living close together there is a need for structure and leadership. Hammurabi lead his people by creating the first laws and keep a relative amount of peace.

Some of Hammurabi’s laws are fairly obvious for example, “If a man has taken a wife and has not executed a marriage contract, that woman is not a wife.” That same idea is still a law today and makes sense still. There is a law in the Code that says if you break into a house you will be put to death and buried in front of that house. Well, that law does not make one sense to me and is thankfully not a law today. If someone were to break into my house, I do not think they deserve to die for it and I certainly do not want them buried in front of my house either. Then there are a lot of Hammurabi’s law that are irrelevant today, for example the laws about slaves.

It is crazy to think that some of the laws that govern our everyday lives were written thousands of years ago. It shows how important laws are for our society to function civilly. It shows that the past, history, still impacts our lives greatly. Even history from thousands of years ago still can teach us a lot

Greek Religion

In our discussions about ancient Greece during class, I find that I am very interested in this culture. I am particularly drawn to the religious aspect of the culture more than anything else. I have always been interested in religions other than my own, so I always want to learn more.
As humans, we are always seeking something more, something bigger than what we have. This can be seen all the way back to the ancient Greeks. As one of the earlier civilizations, they had sense that there is more to life than what can be seen easily. They filled in what they did not know with their gods.
The Greeks built temples for their gods and goddesses; one of the most well known temples, Delphi, was built in honor of Apollo. Pericles built a temple for the goddess Athena, goddess of wisdom and war. These temples, along with others, were places for the ancient Greeks to go to perform sacrifices, ask for guide, and places of celebration.
So much of the life of the Greeks revolved around the gods and goddesses and their dichotomy. For the god Apollo, there was his brother Dionysus. Apollo represented rationality, amongst other things, where Dionysus was the god of irrationality. For everything in their world, there was an opposite. Everything had balance, and everything was important. The athletic ceremonies of the Greeks heavily involved a religious aspect. The competitions involved sacrifices with great praises to the gods. Winners of the competitions wore laurel on their heads. Laurel comes from Daphne, a human who was pursued by Apollo. She was intimidated by the god since she was only human, and wanted a way out. Daphne asked Zeus for a way to disappear, so he turned her into a laurel tree. It is myths like this that find their way into the daily lives of the Greeks.
Gods played such a huge role not only in private lives, but in politics as well. When citizens were thought to not believe in the gods, or to dishonor them, often they were put to death. Considering that the Greeks had the first democracy, it seems off that religion would play a role in the politics at all. In our world now there is a clear separation of religion and state, which works. I think that the only reason that the Greeks could depend heavily on their gods in politics is that the entire Greek population shared the same religion. If we tried to lean on religion now, there would be chaos due to the myriad of religions we have in this country.
Over time, the Greek gods and goddesses have been turned into myths and central roles for Disney movies. Something that was so important in the lives of the citizens of ancient Greece has now been turned into a means of entertainment in our modern lives.

Ancient Greek Influence on Modern-Day American Politics

To this day there is one civilization in world history that has been more influential to American politics than all of the rest. The Direct Democratic system developed by the Ancient Greeks had a huge influence on the government style that America uses today. I thought it was very interesting to learn about the type of politics that Ancient Greece practiced and how some aspects are still practiced today. Unlike the centralized rule that the Persian Empire used, the Ancient Greek Empire was made up of city states that relied heavily on citizen participation in politics.

The idea of citizenship was an entirely new way of governing an empire at the time. Many non-Greeks during this period could not understand why there was a need for the common people to have a say in how government issues were handled. Ancient Greece paved the way for the representative democratic style of government that is practiced by many countries today, including America. Much like how voting rights started out in America, originally only the wealthy land owners were allowed to vote and call themselves citizens, but soon all men were allowed to have a vote and a voice in their city-state's politics.

In the Greek city-state of Athens they employed the use of an Assembly where all citizens could freely participate in the political proceedings of the city-state. Eventually all members of the Greek Assembly were elected to their positions by the citizens that they represented and were paid for their work in the public office, the same way that we elect public officials today.

The Greek system of direct democracy was an entirely new concept when it was created, and a brilliant one as indicated by its continued presence in politics today. I cannot imagine what America's government would be like without the influence of the Ancient Greek's Direct Democracy.