World Religion HW

Ahmed Khoshaim

01/19/2017

RELS 3345.ONL

Dr. Joseph DeLeon

Why creating one universal definition of religion is so difficult? Comment by Dr. Joseph DeLeon: This is a statement, not a question. In American English, questions usually begin with a verb, in the case of your title, if you wanted to frame the title as a question, you should have written it as: “Why is creating one universal definition of the notion of religion so difficult? Notice that I highlighted the verb “is” to show its location at the beginning of the sentence. If you have issues with writing in English, I would highly recommend visiting the Writing Center. There you will find a wonderful group of individuals who are very good at helping students do well with their writing assignments so that they can earn the high grades that they may deserve.

Religion is the most difficult word to define it meaning primarily to various individuals from diverse communities. Every community views the word religion in a clear manner, making it believe the real meaning of the word. The term is usually utilized globally by various individuals asserting own meaning according to their belief. It is an argument that the religion power has to bind a person to a community, course of action in their daily life, culture ideology among other activities that the community undertakes believing that they are religious. Besides this argument, there are different individuals with their arguments that try to elaborate religion, making it difficult to understand the real meaning of the word. Religion is a word with no data or environment that tries to prove its purpose, making it is considered as the creation of many scholar’s study search as Rudolf Otto, James Martineau, Antony Wallace, and James Frazer among others. Comment by Dr. Joseph DeLeon: Your sentence should have been written so that it would read something like this: Religion is a difficult term to define because it has a different meaning to different individuals around the world. Comment by Dr. Joseph DeLeon: Again, your sentence should have read: Most communities interpret the term “religion” from their own particular point of view and sincerely believe that their perspective is the most valid. It would also help if you had identified your source of information regarding this statement. Supporting your opinions and assertions is a requirement in this class. Comment by Dr. Joseph DeLeon: You’ve already asserted this – you are merely repeating yourself. Comment by Dr. Joseph DeLeon: This is not English and I would recommend that you have someone review your entire paper and help you re-write it. I will allow you to have a one-time opportunity to resubmit this MOD ONE assignment. However, all of your other assignments will be checked to make sure that your submissions the University’s college level quality standards and will be graded accordingly.

These individuals have used their life experiences and thoughts to explain the real meaning of religion, making the word to become more complicated. It is usually true that varies societies does not have a clear link between their culture and what researchers call religion. Although there is no precise definition of worship, the fact does not mean that it does not exist (Champion, Selwyn G, and Dorothy Short 2003). It is essential for individuals to keep in attention that even if we think we know what religion is, we may be misleading ourselves since we are not able to differentiate the real meaning of worship and our culture. Culture is believed to be the way of life for individuals or in other terms the morals, values, laws and beliefs of people. According to Kant who argued that religion is “the recognition of all duties as divine command” and claimed that true religion is the one that approves the laws which are considered to be community culture, it is right individuals does not know the definition of worship but asserts their ideas and thought.

Various challenges tend to hinder the religion definition. When people believe that the definition of religion is “believing in in ever living God” according to James Martineau, it significantly excludes atheistic beliefs and polytheistic religion while eliminating theist who never believes in religious belief structure. Various individuals have their belief in their religion, making it difficult to define what religion rely is. It is usually a vague explanation of religion tendency to be made worldview since various individuals have their own, belief especially theists (Lippy, Charles H 1994). Through the definition of religion that is to believe in God, it reveals that while gods can have an important part, they are usually not vital to religion. Communities search as Buddhism and Hinduisms are theists who never believe in God meaning that the definition of religion by James is not the appropriate meaning. Considering these factors, it is clear that religion involves various beliefs that exist among individuals, leading to the unappropriated definition of religion.

Involving sociological, historical and psychological factors while allowing larger gray areas in the idea of religion is important since it never discriminates nor include any particular community or individual in defining religion is important (Swidler, Leonard J, and Paul Mojzes 2000). This kind of definition tries to prove that there is the existence of religion in range, with other forms of belief systems like proving there are individuals who are not religious, while some are close to religion and other are completely in religion. Through search a definition, it can be elaborated that religion is diverse based on individualism. It is significantly important to remain concrete on individual beliefs since every person has to follow the heart instinct towards what they like to follow since there is no precise definition of what religion is defined to as.

References

Champion, Selwyn G, and Dorothy Short. The World's Great Religions: An Anthology of Sacred Texts. Mineola, N.Y. By: Dover Publications, 2003. Print.

Lippy, Charles H. Being Religious, American Style: “A History of Popular Religiosity in the United States”. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1994. Print.

Swidler, Leonard J, and Paul Mojzes. “The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue”. Philadelphia: Temple University Press Release, 2000. Print.