Week 14: Religion and Global Modernity

First of all, I would like to point out how amazing I think it is that we live in this beautiful country and we all have different religious beliefs. Sometimes those beliefs are not in our favor, and it causes uprisings of other people with different beliefs to believe what they believe, but in the end, we are all still here and the majority of us are existing together, wether we believe what our neighbor believes or not. In this chapter, it talks about the different religions and how they have come to the United States. It says, on page 1155, that "Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam had long functioned as transregional cultures, spreading far beyond their places of region." That's awesome! Those three religions, and I'm sure some others, have been passed person to person and have spread and expanded from their birthplace. By the end of the 20th century, Christianity rose up to 62% of the populations of places like Asia, Africa and Latin America. This chapter also talks about "fundamentalism," which is where people were outraged by the fact that there were scientific approaches to the Bible, such as the Scientific Revolution and Darwinism. Fundamentalists tried to separate themselves from the secular world. The rest of the chapter talks more about religion all over the world and it's effect it has had on the people. I think that it is very cool that we all have different religions and that we all believe in something different. I truly believe that religion and beliefs are what make us, us. We all need something to believe in and give us hope, wether its religion or not. But in this case, I think any type of religion is important to have because it brings all different kinds of people together.