• Jehovah’s witnesses differ from other religious groups by their belief in the leader in the church or religion. Jehovah’s witnesses have no human leader. They have a high value on moral living. Also, they do not take part in gambling, anal sex, oral sex, over drinking, abortions, and wars for they believe it is part of sin. Jehovah’s witnesses believe in the bible like many other religious groups.
Christians found it difficult to play a full part in Roman society because of many factors, even those who tried to be a “normal Roman” knew they never could be as much of Roman morality was conflicting with the morals of the Christian faith. One of the most obvious ways that Christians were different is that they did not worship the pantheon of Roman gods as most Romans did and therefore they were classed, ironically, as atheists. It is very obvious why they did not allow Christ to become another god equal to the others in the pantheon, in their eyes he was the one true God and they did not tolerate polytheism. Romans on the other hand could not tolerate monotheism! Christians however did try to be normal, everyday Romans by being good neighbours to those who weren’t Christians, they showed that they had integrity in what they believed and so earned the respect of many Romans.
In Christianity people worship God. In the Buddhist religion they do not really have a God that they worship. Some of the Buddhist members worship the Buddha even though that is not what the Buddha wanted them to do. He really wanted them to follow his teachings to reach a life of no suffering. This religion is also different from Christianity because in services there is a minister and deacons that lead the service.
Both believe in one ruler over all, both believe in a good place (heaven) and bad place (hell) after death, and both believe in guidance through spiritual leaders(prophets), to name a few. Another reason I believe Natives practices have not been abandon is because their culture is inextricably linked and connected with Mother Earth. The land, the plants, the animals, and all around contain their culture, spirit, and identity; all working together to create a balance of harmony (Page 68). How can a culture’s spiritual identity gets lost when it is rooted into everything living and non-living? Lastly, spirituality was designed without written rules to be edited and manipulated, without limits and boundaries, without segregation and prejudice.
I interpreted this to mean that no matter what kind of diets the Indians had or what kind of climate they lived in the Spanish would always look at them as inferior and in some cases not even human. The Indians could be converted to Christianity and European traditions, but they could never truly be Spaniards in the eyes of the Spanish, just like maize bread could never truly be the bread of Christ. With that being said after reading this article one gets the sense that if you weren’t Spanish or of Spanish descent then you weren’t considered to be much of anything to the
This is probably why Christopher thinks the way he does because you can not really see god, and probably doesn’t see the logic in religion either. It’s ones faith that drives someone to believe in him, while Christopher would not be able to have faith and believe because there would be no solid evidence that God exists and he mostly only believes in what he sees, something that is concrete. To Christopher God might be just another fairytale. “People believe in God because the world is very complicated and they think it is very unlikely that anything as complicated as a flying squirrel or the human eye or a brain could happen by chance. But they should think logically and if they thought logically they would see that they can only ask this question because it had already happened and they exist.
Fearing change, conservative Romans looked suspiciously at any religious advancement (Sherman 114). Romans feared converting to Christianity because Christians included the poor, slaves, and women as equals in their congregations, which violated the traditional Roman social order (Sherman 115). Traditional Romans also did not want to upset the Gods that they had previously been worshipping; they found rejection of their old gods difficult, leaving Romans hesitant of switching religions to Christianity (Sherman 115). Many authorities chose to harass Christians, while others simply just ignored the new religion (Sherman 115). In the late fourth century Theodosius I
They came to take control the Native Americans’ land. In my opinion, it was not so much about religion with the native Americans and more about their land and way of life being threatened that encouraged conflict and violence. In fact, the Native Americans worshiped sun gods, corn gods and nature spirits of birds, bears and wolves. However, Europeans were educated to believe the God, and the Christian Europeans saw Native Americans as 'heathen savages' who practiced evil magic and
American’s had little disease at this time because isolation did not allow for contact with the other people to contract their diseases and they did not have domestic animals. The lack of trade and domestic animals made the Americans not as infectious as the Europeans, which eventually ended in their downfall. Next, strategy played a very important role in the conquest over the empires of America. The Aztecs, Mayans, and even the Incans had no formal written language. Europe, however, had the printing press and books.
From are class discussions and readings I have a understanding of what the Europeans thought about the native Americans but not so much what the native Americans thought of the Europeans. In the eyes of the arrogant Europeans the Indians were uncivilized savages with no ethics or morals, not even human in nature and especially weren’t to be treated as humans. They thought they could to do whatever they wanted because they were much superior to them and they were just animals living on that land. That is probably why they treated them so badly and did horrendous things and believed they could do anything and it was countable. Native Americans were in awe at first seeing the technology the Europeans possessed such as steel weapons, guns, mirrors, and the one that I can only envision certainly took their breath away a sea vessel full of Europeans crashing into their sand.