What are the limits of #Religion?

Before this lesson, I did not have an idea of what religion’s limits were and I didn’t know about major or minor religions either. In this lesson, I learned that are primary sources that lead people to see what religion they want to practice or be a part of. Some of the primary sources can be your family, a calendar, or school. The first podcast discussed that we can feel a certain way, but we can’t always act in that way when it comes to free exercise and disestablishment which is something I would have to agree on. The podcast also shared that laws help define what religion is, so this depends on where you are in the world. The second podcast mentioned that there are major religions and minor religions. They talked about imperial and colonial which is when a certain district is noticed by the home state. There are times people ask what your religion is and how some people are probably saying they belong in a certain religion when they don’t.

This shows that some communities can put some pressure on you to be part of a religion. Then, they added that religion can also be talking about power and that the world’s religions are formed as an idea. There are categories of religion that were being formed and it uses race, ethnicity, and gender. The people that weren’t included were native and indigenous people. There have been court cases because of the differences in multiple religions due to certain practices. There’s not a certain way to act in one religion because every single one is different for each person. There are religions that are classified as a minor religion which can leave some people out because of a practice they do that other people don’t do. Subsequently, those who view that practice as abnormal could report them and get those people into trouble. Discussing the popular practices a certain religion has and expecting everyone who belongs to that religion to do the same thing is something negative people also have to deal with. People who think of a certain religion and have assumptions about it leaves out those who don’t practice the same traditions.

At one point, it mentioned how the way you are as a person is all you should worry about, not what other people are saying about the way you’re practicing your religion. When multiple religions are mentioned, there are going to be major and minor ones and they are all about power. From the lesson, they also included that there were certain human behaviors that were studied and religion was discovered. Things are taught such as what we should identify as religious and I would have to agree with that. Most people have this belief that in order to be fit into a religion, you have to act and dress a certain way, or else you’re not a part of that religion. I think everyone should be able to do their own thing unless something is really unacceptable in a certain religion. I also learned about Sikhism and how they only have one God. Anything about religion can differ in books and it isn’t just about the group of beliefs, it's also about what their practices are. They shared that religions are internally diverse, so everyone can look at beliefs and do practices differently. A group of people in the same religion can have their differences, but they also share some similarities.

The new information I learned from this lesson definitely taught me more about what this topic is all about. The podcasts, video, and article gave me more insight into what it is really like when it comes to looking at different religions. Since I didn’t really have knowledge about the topic and what major and minor religions were, my thinking hasn't changed. What fascinated me the most was Sikhism because it’s a religion I have never heard of before. It was interesting to watch and learn about because of the practices they do and how different it is compared to most common religions. An additional example I can think of when it comes to people being “left out” of religions is when the parents aren’t religious, so their children don’t have any knowledge about religion or any religion at all. I wouldn't say it’s a bad thing to be non-religious, but it is an example of how some people can be left out when it comes to the topic of religion.