Midterm - Religious Studies 302i - Fall 2007

1- Couldn't post any items due to my job.

2- Never missed any class and never late.

3- http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=737449959867270721&hl=en

4- I read the book Not A Genuine Black Man from front to back and enjoyed the real honest opinions of a contemporary black man who no longer has that raging anger or feeling of revolution as some of his predecessors. It is a book about someone who has rediscovered himself through pursuing his own ways, his own thing, and not really participating in the collective racial movement among blacks across the country. This author is trying to understand himself as an independent, original person who doesn’t want to be judged by skin color but has to be and there is nothing he can do about that immutable characteristic. Yet, he finds fulfillment in his original visions and finding success in his own way and not being concerned with the angry, revolutionary voices of the blacks in some places and in some groups around the nation. He is wanting to live a life where he can enjoy it and find things that he finds fulfilling as an individual independent from his racial identity.
The required readings from the Reader were learning experiences for me that are truly unforgettable as an international student with limited knowledge and understanding about Indian Americans or African Americans in regards to their struggles and conflicts with the white Europeans. The required readings from this Reader are insightful and very important for me to understand that these people from these different cultures were unable to challenge the dominant, vicious, and brutal white European overseers and rulers who took over their lives, destroyed their former lifestyles, and demanded and forced assimilation on them of the Christian religion and the white ways of life. These two groups suffered immensely from the European contact and interaction as evident in the readings from both the African American and Native American sections. The Native Americans were wiped out, pushed out of the way, and exterminated in military fashion when necessary to crush their native cultural and religious traditions. The white Europeans were here to supplant this old culture with the new culture and the Native Americans were expected to obey, accept, and go along with the orders. In resistance, the Indians did put up a fight and they refused most of all to give up their native religious traditions and rituals that they cherished as interconnected to the geographic features and environmental sources of the North American continent. It was learned in this class that unlike the African Americans’ experiences with changing towards Christianity after being separated from their African homeland and native religious traditions, the Native Americans kept their religious traditions and beliefs out of everything else. For instance, you go over to Hopi or Navajo country in Arizona and New Mexico, then you can really understand that Native American religious traditions, rituals, and practices are very much alive In contrast, in the American South, there will be few places found with the native African religious rituals, traditions, and beliefs being practiced by the descendants of the African slaves. This genealogical disassociation with the African homeland over a long period of time causes this complete break from the native religious traditions and adaptation of the new religious traditions and beliefs, as well as figures and narratives, as evident in the African American readings. Unlike the Native Americans who had their religious rituals tied to their environmental settings, the African Americans were in a new place enslaved in brutal circumstances and forced to make up a new religion among themselves which they did through adapting Christianity to African style dancing, music, and preaching in loud, stirring fashion. The African American religious traditions were clearly found to have involved the adapting of the Christian religion to the African style approach to religious practice and ritual. Today, in the Southern states, black churches can be found to have a celebrative atmosphere with music, dancing, and hand clapping as they praise the Lord God and the savior Jesus Christ. The Christian beliefs are believed in a distinctive, new African American context unlike African religions and unlike white Christian religious services.

5- The consilience approach means looking at a religion from the following dimensions: Theological, Sociological, Psychological, and Biological. Taking my religious worship practice as a Muslim of praying five times per day, this approach would first examine the theological significance. Why do I pray five times per day? To remain close to Allah at all times. I am trying to become one with Allah. I am trying to be in harmony with Allah’s Will. What about the sociological significance? My praying five times per day is always done with fellow Muslim friends and relatives here studying with me in the United States. I am usually doing it with my cousin or room mate when we are together at these appointed prayer times. We bond as Muslims, friends, and members of this same community of God’s good souls. We are bonded with Allah, and moving in this life as one within his Will, and trying to be moral, honorable young men. Psychologically, this prayer ritual I do everyday five times is also an important calming influence on my stressed out mind. I am able to relax and separate my consciousness from my activities as a student and think about Allah’s beauty, knowledge, and oneness with humanity. I think about Allah’s greatness. This five times a day praying is also causing a biological response in me and calming me down, lowering my blood pressure, relaxing me, and making me feel content and harmonious physically as soon as I am finished. That is the best time for me when I am right after the prayer feeling all blissful and good.

6- The theory of memetics can help explain the popularity of some religions in the USA. Richard Dawkins defines the meme as “the cultural information transferable from one mind to another.” The difference of a meme from the gene is that a meme involves the spread of ideas through customs, beliefs, practices and behaviors done by families and communities. These practices have religious rituals, ceremonies, and events enmeshed in them. These memes are very important sources of why some religions in the USA are much more popular than others. The Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses are two rapidly growing and very popular American religions right now because of their aggressive styles of gaining new converts through face to face meetings and knocking on doors. The Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses are bringing their memes to the people’s door steps and coming back again and again to transfer the cultural information to the people and through this persuasive technique of preaching some people convert to the religious group. The transfer of their religious beliefs are taking place more rapidly than the more traditional Lutheran or Roman Catholic religions because their representatives are functioning like door to door sales people who spread their memes and come back to reinforce the memes through repeat visits until conversion and membership is chosen by the interested people

7- Evolutionary theory and the field of evolutionary psychology helps explain the impact of human migration on the development of today’s diverse cultures scattered across the continents and islands of the world. The migration of people was driven by natural selection. The bigger, stronger organisms of the human race in the original inhabitants in Africa pushed out the others to go find another place to live and go find other resources. The migration waves continued again and again whenever the natural selection force would make one particular group of humans superior and stronger than the rest. People would become sick and tired of being ruled and look for free land, free space, and free time to think on their own and make their own group away from the stronger, bullying types from the original group. The psychology behind this is that people couldn’t take the authoritarian rule or treatment and got out of that place.

8- The notion of race biologically is obsolete. Humans are humans and we are all built biologically the same and even connected to the same original parents and family tree when studying the microbiological origins of our selves. We are all human beings no different biologically and racial theories have all been proven wrong and false. They have no scientific backing and support today. Yet, culturally, this notion of race remains so powerful and viable in the USA in some places more so than others. The racial distinctions between people can now be traced from the migration patterns of ancient, ancient ancestors who established themselves in new places and settled into new lives where conditions and environmental forces helped shape and change their genetic compositions somewhat to bring about the different racial distinctions today. These things were caused by evolutionary and biological forces interacting with the different racial groups’ environments and these genetic pools distinguished and separated from one another over long periods of time. This course made me understand that we are all one human race ultimately because we are biologically proven to be so. We are culturally, socially, politically, and religiously still immensely embroiled, however, in racial tensions, conflict, and violence all over the world. The racial superiority theories of the white Europeans have not died out rapidly but are held onto in many places by many white people. Despite scientific evidence, culturally, socially, economically, and religiously the white people want to pretend that they are a superior race to the darker skinned races. These racial characteristics are still vitally important to white people in the white European countries as well as in white dominated North America. These racial characteristics are upheld as distinctions of superiority and that they are what makes the white people culturally, socially, politically, economically, and militarily superior to the other races for the last hundreds and hundreds of years.

9- religious idea gets transformed when it comes to American soil and that ritual or tradition changes during its course of time practiced here on American soil. The ritual that African people often participated in when back in Africa before being captured as slaves and brought to America were musical-based, dance-oriented religious ceremonies. In Africa tribal religious ceremonies all around the continent, the use of drums, musical instruments, singing, dancing, clapping, and the like are very obvious anywhere. Major religious events and ceremonies in these African traditional religions have music, dancing, and drama involved in them. When suddenly taken away from the African continent, these native African people here in the North American continent as slaves were forced to innovate their own religious traditions and rituals in their slave quarters. At first, they were probably very much replicating their native African ceremonial dances and events that were meaningful but applied to their slave community contest. These early African American slaves were still very much knowledgably about their ancient people’s religious rituals and practices and eager to use them with their fellow slaves who were from their same tribe and clan. However, over time, once slavery increased the numbers of different kinds of Africans and the mixture of different religious traditions was no longer possible, the adaptation of the Christian religion became clearly established by most of the second and third generation African Americans. This adaptation of Christianity and Jesus as the personal savior of the African American slaves was integrated into their dancing, singing, and hand clapping gatherings in the slave quarters of their big plantations. The religious events and ceremonies were being adapted to the Christian calendar also because the whites were taking this time off for these Christian holidays and rituals. The African American slaves were naturally going to start adapting this religious calendar and began to also adapt the religious rituals, beliefs, and ceremonies to their style and context. The singing, dancing, music, and hand clapping of the African traditional religions was kept but now they were celebrating Jesus and the Christian narratives. They were transferring their collective consciousness to this Christian belief system and believing in the stories, the principal figures, and doing the rituals but they were done in the community context that was fit for their group of slaves. They were going to make Christianity fit in with their religious practices, customs, and behavior patterns replicated from their African ancestors. Gospel music was innovated from this assimilation and integration of Christianity into African American social and cultural customs and behaviors at religious events and rituals. Now, gospel music is sang in white churches and Asian churches and all kinds of different ethnic groups’ Christian churches because of the beauty and grace of these African American songs. These are songs that reach for the heart and they are beloved now by all Christians of all races because they were created from the integration of Christianity with African religious behavior patterns replicated from ancient African ancestors in regards to be singing, dancing, and clapping at religious ceremonies.

10- Peter Berger’s concept of the heretical imperative holds that people have three options when looking at a new religion. The deductive approach refers to the way people retreat back to their fundamental beliefs and uphold these beliefs as truth. The reductive approach is when people reject new religious ideas or any new movement because it conflicts with the set and established ways. The inductive approach is when people are tolerant and open to new religious ideas and practices. Religious pluralism in the USA is evident because of the inductive approach being tradition and emphasized since the beginning of this country’s history. Religious freedom was guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution when the new national government promised to never make a national religion. There would always be a separation between church and state. In contrast, in my country, there is very little religious pluralism because of our geographic separation from most of the world through the long history of humanity. We have a reductive and deductive approach to new religious belief systems. My people either retreat back to their fundamental Islamic beliefs and uphold these beliefs regardless of the arguments of the new religious teachers and reject them outright. Very little progress has been made in the Muslim countries as far as converting them to Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism since the globalization trend. The reason is seen in Berger’s heretical imperative concept.

13 - The one religious movement in recent history that developed in the USA and influenced its African American segment is the Nation of Islam. This was a black separatist religious movement. Its leader, Prophet Elijah Muhammad, called out for black Americans to reject their white controlled lives and reject their history with the white race in America to find their true black heritage and origins as African people. He taught the Nation of Islam members that a time would come for the African people to restore their heritage, legacy, and greatness on the planet and that would come when they formed their own black nation. This is the only time when the American blacks, according to Prophet Elijah Muhammad, could find peace and prosperity when totally separated from the evil-minded white people. The Nation of Islam was a relatively small movement in Detroit and Chicago until the arrival of Malcolm X in the late 1950s. Malcolm X was the public face of the Nation of Islam through the 1950s and early 1960s until having a falling out with the Prophet Elijah Muhammad over his growing popularity and recognition as the true leader of the movement. During this time, when Malcolm X was traveling around and recruiting poor, urban black people to join the Nation of Islam, the black people had something to believe in again and hope for a better, prouder future as self-reliant, self-sufficient people unified in a black nation together as brothers and sisters. This black brotherhood goal of the Nation of Islam was something that Malcolm X really pushed and persuaded black people to pursue and many black people in the worst ghettos of American cities cleaned up their lives and became honorable, moral Muslims in this movement.

14 - In this class, the death of God to Nietzsche is about coming to an awareness that never was no God in the first place. He believes that humans as a species had finally matured to the point of recognizing this fact. In his philosophy, Nietzsche claims that there never was no God nor gods, goddesses, or any other deities in any spirit world of any kind. All that is lies. Science and biological facts disprove all these false notions of God, Heaven, Hell, and Devil from Nietzsche’s perspective. Modern humans therefore have the responsibility of making the new religions. The greatest drawback, of course, is that the humans will reject the old time religious moral standards and criteria along with the gods, goddesses, and mythologies of the past. As a result, the fear is that humans will develop a more sinister, evil standard for what is known as morality that will make the new religions evil instead of good. The other challenge is that human beings have to be responsible for the inventing of this new morality and that the moral standards have to surpass the old ones in Nietzsche’s view so that the human race can advance past the old ways and old limitations. If humans rise up to take responsibility and make a new morality and new religions to aspire to it, then people can advance into a new age without these myths, gods, goddesses, and God from the past. The moral supermen in Nietzsche’s vision will be able to do away with the failings, weaknesses, and flaws of the old systems. These new moral pillars of belief will advance the human race and start a whole new direction for the race to become much greater and more advanced creatures.

15 - Wolfram argues that simplicity is at the core of every complexity. Wolfram argues that this simplicity of anything can be traced backwards through the historical evolution process of any given creation. This is very closely aligned with Gould’s concept of spandrels or unintended consequences and complexities. Gould also asserts that everything in nature, regardless of its complexity, has the same simplistic root origin and core within its biological make up. The most complex organisms are made from the DNA-RNA molecules and they are very simple structurally and they engage in these processes that permit the building blocks of molecules and atoms to take place at these tremendously complex levels. And the living creatures of the Earth are very complex in their biological compositions from the birds to the sea creatures to human beings. The systems that make up biological living creatures are extremely complex and they came about according to Gould by unintended consequences or spandrels. As these systems and complexities came into being, these systems spawned other systems that were then making organisms that became completely new species and distinguished from the old species of the same kind. For human beings, the complexity of the physical make up has been under experimentation and change for tens of thousands of years, some say three hundred thousand years and running, and this means that the complexity has become replicated and reproduced through so many generations. And this makes us realize that we did come around through unintended consequences when hominids began having human beings as children because of some genetic mutation in either a male or female that caused the different physical make up.

16 - Religious diversity always starts with its founder. The Christian religion has thousands of diverse offshoots and they are all claiming to be the right Christian way and that Jesus Christ would favor their sect if he was here on Earth now. The Judaism religion has so many diverse sects and groups that have diversified from the same founder: Moses. The Islamic faith diversifies into different groups everyday from its original founder, Prophet Muhammad. These three figures are the role models for all believers as the honest, humble, pious, and God chosen leader and this leadership is revered in every aspect and way. All three religions have so many diverse groups because they view and consider this founder in certain distinctive ways and approach this founder’s teachings in unique, original, and creative ways which spawn a new sect or group that is different from the original group of followers. Sometimes groups try to retreat back to the original followers’ mentality and try to be the new twelve apostles of Jesus or the new Companions of the Prophet. Groups diversify from the founder because of the simple misunderstandings, misperceptions, and different conclusions made after the founder dies and forever is gone fro the scene. These religions diversify by the pressures, tensions and conflicts that explode after this leader is dead. The religions always break apart and new groups start from the original followers because of disagreements, conflicts, and even blood feuds over the proper leader after the founder dies.

17 - The tipping point in Brian Copeland’s life which prompted him to want to commit suicide was his despair over not fitting in, never fitting in, and being ostracized by the color of his skin in his community. The despair over this fate as a permanent ostracized member of the community is something that Copeland makes clear to me in his story. He is able to demonstrate this despair is so deep that suicide is a possible better answer than life because of the amount of hatred, conflict, tension, and resentment built up. In this racist community, Copeland can never feel comfortable. He can feel like he fits in and is well loved by others just because of his skin and race. The stereotyping by whites is obvious for him and he despises it. This racial stereotyping is obvious and evident in everything that happens to Copeland when he is interacting with whites. He is very much resentful of this feeling that he is inferior and has lesser status than whites automatically because of his skin color. This type of racism is something that drives him to the tipping point and makes him ponder suicide as a way out of the continuous feeling of despair.

18 - Negative facial expressions, negative body language, and racist stares are all subtle forms of racism that Brian Copeland perceives on an everyday basis. These subtle forms of racism get him down every time. He doesn’t like the discomfort level. He doesn’t like that sense of white people distrusting him and disliking him over a skin color issue. This drives him really into despair because he is permanently marked for this negative stare down every time he sees someone white in this community of San Leandro. The assumptions made by the whites in Brian Copeland’s interactions with them are always negative about the black race. Whites when looking at Brian Copeland through a lens of racism only perceive the negative traits, possibilities, and outcomes.

19 - Copeland’s experience with racism in his community dovetails with the experiences of Malcolm X. Copeland feels he is marginalized in this community. He is an outcast and can’t ever become an accepted member like a white person. He is not trusted. He is given subtle racist glances, stares, and maltreatment in the interactions with the whites there. Copeland can’t feel comfortable one day of his life. As a consequence, he begins to grow angry like Malcolm X that he has to live in a racist society and be an outcast. He doesn’t want this role as outcast and be ostracized. Copeland wants to be just an ordinary community guy who does everything like anyone else and doesn’t have to take any special attention from anyone. Yet, because he is black, Copeland has take on this automatic role as outcast because of racial characteristics. He has to put up with racist glances and treatment from racist whites everyday in this community. Malcolm X always said in his speeches that white people were unable to treat black people with honor and respect. White people were racist, evil bigots who wanted to keep black people miserable and down and out in their economic ghettoes of poverty in the big cities. Malcolm X gave speech after speech that the blacks had to become members of the Nation of Islam so that they could become sober, clean, and productive black people in a black community separated from whites in all ways as possible. Copeland could certainly see the practical logic in Malcolm X’s separatist doctrine of the white and black races. Copeland would have definitely moved to this all black nation envisioned by the Nation of Islam for American blacks. Copeland had to deal with racism and white racists but not at the level Malcolm X did nor did Copeland endure the kind of racist violence Malcolm X did as a little child in Lansing, Michigan. In his autobiography, we find out that his own father was murdered by a white racist hate group and his family was broke up over it. Malcolm X was also sentenced to a long prison sentence because of a white racist judge and jury who were disgusted over his having a white girlfriend involving in his criminal activity and sleeping with her as well. Because of his sleeping with a white woman, Malcolm X was given a much stiffer prison term than any white man would have received. Copeland’s racial problems and racist situations were on a much less intense level than Malcolm’s.

20 - Some North American Indian religions absorbed and integrated Christianity into their own ideals and beliefs based on the readings in the Reader. The North American Indian religions saw in Jesus Christ a revered, holy shaman who had clearly been able to achieve what the Indians would recognize as perfect harmony with the Great Spirit of the whole universe. Jesus Christ was that holy shaman who had come to teach some truer insights into human nature and human destiny. In the Gospel, the North American Indians see a teaching of trying to harmonize with the universal supernatural force of moral goodness; the Great Spirit. This Christian principle of unconditional love is seen by the North American Indian tribes as simply another interpretation of their belief in harmony with the all pervading Great Spirit force. This is the spiritual force of the Great Spirit that bonds together all the human beings together with all living forms and non living forms in the universe at large. The stars and galaxies are all interconnected and held together with this same supernatural force as human beings and all living things on earth are and therefore the Native Americans saw Jesus Christ as that human holy shaman able to join and teach from this higher plane of existence and higher state of inner consciousness.

21 - Laverne Jacobs found the best path to try to reconcile his Native American religious beliefs with his newfound Christian beliefs was to recognize that they were paths to the same great place; the Great Spirit’s origin source. Jacobs saw in this Native American rituals as customs and practices that were all about trying to be a good, honest person and getting more intimate and closer to the spiritual force of all forces; the Great Spirit. And this is the highest level of moral integrity in the Native American beliefs, this was the peak level because of the harmony obtained with the Great Spirit at this level. In his belief in Jesus Christ as savior of humankind, Jacobs is discovering that this was simply confirming his Native American religious belief of the all bonding force of unconditional love. Jacobs knows that Jesus is the Christ personifying these traits and qualities conveying this sense of total, perfect harmony with the Great Spirit, the Sky Father, the Creator of all things, this same universal spiritual force that American Indians recognize and revere. It is the same source of everything and Jacobs can begin to reconcile his two faiths with his knowledge that they are stemming from the same original place. It is knowledge that has evolved through the tie in that Jacobs sees between the deepest Native American beliefs about the Great Spirit and the belief of God conveyed by Jesus Christ in his Gospel.

22 - Peyote is a ritual of the Native American Church of Jesus Christ that has become a national debate on religious freedom and the use of a hallucinogenic drug. The Church developed when the peyote rituals were developed by some of the southwestern Indian tribes in the late nineteenth century to help them obtain vision quests in the local mountains. The vision quest is the important coming of age ritual for many Native American religions. It is a ritual that intensifies when using peyote which is taken from a certain kind of southwestern cactus. This Church recognizes Jesus Christ as the holiest of shamans who had taught the basic principles of the Great Spirit in his gospel and that the Great Spirit can be found and the perfect harmony be obtained when following the way of this holiest of shamans. Jesus Christ is the role model to find the intimate knowledge and harmony of the universal spiritual force known by the Native Americans as the Great Spirit but called God the Father b y the Christians. The Native American Church of Jesus Christ advocates the use of peyote in vision quests to discover and unify into this same harmony as found by Jesus Christ and resonate in the same vibrations of his goodness and unconditional love found in his teachings.

23 - Frederick Douglass’s critique of slavery via his autobiography is eye opening for me as an international student with limited historical knowledge about American slavery and the times and lives of American slaves back in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in this country across the American South. This is a critique that exposes the brutality, the degrading nature, and the dehumanization processes that are used by the white masters to take total physical control over their slaves. The beatings, the whippings, and the raping actions of the white masters and white overseers are chronicled by Douglass to expose slavery for what it was at the bottom level. The whites were brutalizing and dehumanizing the blacks within the context of a racist institution of slavery that had the whites in superior, dominant physical position and the blacks in an inferior, submissive position. The critique made me aware that these white slave owners were sure to beat, whip, and rape slaves to make sure these slaves understood their inferior, submissive, and powerless positions. In a real sense, this is a critique of the white religion of Christianity that the slave owners and their families were following. These religious groups in the South were justifying, accepting, and embracing the slavery institution as right and blessed by God Himself and approved by Jesus Christ as well. The white Southerners were able to use their Christianity as a cover for the brutal and degrading nature of the slavery institution. The justifications taken from the bible were wrong in Douglass’s view and these biblical justifications only made it more of a socially constructed prison around all the black slaves. They were doomed biblically to be permanent slaves to the whites.

24 - There are some distinctive differences between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. as evident in their approaches to liberating blacks from oppression. King wanted blacks to stand arm in arm peacefully in civil disobedience of all racist institutions and conventions in white racist society. King wanted to confront the white racists on a higher moral ground based on the Christian principles from the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus Christ. King wanted the blacks to unify and peacefully protest, confront, and take on the white racists so that they could avoid blood shed, violence, and setbacks. King wanted to the public, the press, and the U.S. president to witness the masses of blacks holding the higher moral ground and refusing to get violent so they could gain their rights and freedoms in the legal, just manner. Malcolm X said that peace and love were principles that the whites would laugh at and that they mocked Dr. King’s attempt to rally the blacks around the principles of Jesus and said that the white racist authorities would degrade, humiliate, and murder black people without second guessing themselves. The only way to confront white racism in Malcolm X’s view was black racism. The separatism doctrines of the Nation of Islam were promoted and preached by him throughout the urban ghettos of America in the early 1960s. He was the public face of the black separatist movement in general. He was viewing the black solution as being separated from the whites in a complete fashion with all interaction kept to the bare minimum in all areas of life.

25 - The genealogical disassociation is a key factor in understanding of the emergence of new religions in America. Once the migrants to America separated from their old continents, their families, and their old ways of life, they were going to never practice these old ways and customs the same manner again. In fact, most of the religious groups coming to the early settlements in America were escaping persecution from the Church of England. Religious pluralism was an early reality in the American colonies as different religious groups were settling in their own spaces and enjoying freedom of religious persecutions. They could believe the way they wanted and they could develop their own doctrines, dogmas, and belief systems as time went on. In the case of the African slaves, they were forced to integrate their old time African religious beliefs into these new Christian beliefs that their white masters were promoting and practicing. The African slaves were obviously working as slaves according to the Christian calendar so they were bound to begin integrating these Christian beliefs and holidays into their lives and they were adapting their African approaches and religious customs to the Christian beliefs and narratives. These religions emerging in America were diverse and different from the way the religions were organized on their home continents. This separation physically was a critical aspect of this change of evolution and development for every religious belief system brought here to America.

EXTRA CREDIT

26 - The arc of the African American experience provided in the readings was an interesting and informative challenge for me. My knowledge has increased tremendously about the African American religious evolution and how these African Americans were able to synthesize their African customs, traditions, and habits in religious practices with the Christian belief system context. The slave quarters on Christian holidays were filled with musical, dancing, and hand clapping celebrations that the white Christians were simply not doing at all during this period of time. Christianity was basically put to music and dance African style in the slave quarters and this is how the Christianity religion became made and crafted into an African American innovation. The African American slaves were able to make Christianity a vehicle to protest their conditions and circumstances as slaves. For example, Moses was a revered figure among the African American slaves because of the fact that Moses led the slaves out of Egypt. He was an important personality for the African American slaves to turn to and get inspiration from as the slavery conditions worsened and brought only misery to slaves everywhere.
The overall theme in the African American readings is that the people endured through the trials of the enslavement horror and synthesized this Christian religion into something wholly new and novel compared to white Christian religions. The African American Christian religion was more celebratory, musically lively, and featuring more emotional, dramatic preaching involving the whole audience. The African American musical genre that evolved from the slavery period, of course, is gospel music. In most white churches today, gospel music from the African Americans is sung and performed all the time. Gospel music originally developed in the African American slave camps and then in the African American churches. The African American people endured through slavery and the horrible era of white racism known as Jim Crow and they were still able to overcome through their faith and devotion to the basic Christian principles and their ties with one another.

27 - The two readings selected for analysis from the American Indian section and African American section is important selections for me to understand the historical as well as religious experiences of these two different, distinctive peoples in the United States past. These two races were distinguished and clarified by the United States government to target for discriminatory and racist treatment and policies. The Indian race was targeted several times for extermination by the U.S. government. The Indian race was considered savages by the white Europeans whose time in the Americas had come to an end forever. These American Indians were religiously distinctive from the white Europeans because of their beliefs in the supernatural, all unifying force, the Great Spirit, that made everything and everyone on the planet as the Great Creator. The land was not something that human beings could privately own. The land was God’s land and that was free land for the creatures of the earth and sky, including human beings, to enjoy and learn how to be in harmony with the cycles and nature of its seasonal changes. The religious elements in the American Indian experience are that the natural environment is one with the human family, clan, and tribe. People must respect nature and the natural forces through paying homage to their spiritual essence, this supernatural force, which the American Indians believed was the origin and source of everything. Religiously, the American Indians were attached to their ancestral beliefs, traditions, and customs. They were bounded to their rituals and ways of life that were very much tied into the seasonal cycles and the wildlife around them that were used as food sources.
In contrast, the African Americans’ religious experience was distinguished from the American Indian by disconnection and disassociation from the African homeland. This disconnection and disassociation was very consequential on the African Americans’ religious development in the slavery period. The African customs and rituals were kept in some respects, especially the singing and dancing, but the Christian religious figures, stories, and beliefs replaced their African religious beliefs as time went on. Through the birth of several new generations, African Americans were a Christian people but very distinctive Christians on Sundays when celebrating their religious beliefs. The southern whites were gathered in their Christian churches and did their formal rituals for celebrating their religious beliefs, while the African Americans held their religious gatherings often outside in their slave camps near the fire pit where they would dance, sing, and clap as their African ancestors did performing religious ceremonies back in Africa. This carry over of the dancing, singing, and clapping elements at their religious celebrations was an important and fundamental difference between the African American Christians and the white Christians of the slavery period.

Final Exam

#1 Majed Mohammed M Alarji
#2 majed_s55
#3 one class missed and never been late.
#4 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=737449959867270721&hl=en
#5 Not A Genuine Black Man, and god loves you
#6 "A"
#7 "A" because i worked hard in my Mid-term, and Final also i come to class.


#9 - Autobiography
I am a Sunni Muslim born and raised in Damman, Saudi Arabia. It is located on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is right on the gulf. Because of its long history of being a commerce and trading hub on the gulf, my home city has more religious diversity than most of Saudi Arabia. There are many different Muslim sects in my city as well as some Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu religious groups. However, the majority of my city is clearly like me - Sunni Muslims.
It is important for me to consider my religion of Islam in regards to how it influences my ethnic identity, my cultural heritage, and my religious beliefs. Islam is a religion founded in the 7th century by Prophet Muhammad who received his call to prophet hood from Allah (God) at age forty while meditating and praying in the hills near Mecca which is now part of Saudi Arabia. Prophet Muhammad, who was illiterate, began to receive the Holy Quran via the Angel Gabriel reciting it to him. Us Muslims view this as a divine book written by Allah in Heaven and recited to Prophet Muhammad over the course of his life as Prophet. From the earliest revelations, five major themes emerge that form the doctrinal basis for Islam which I have practiced since I was seven years old: (1) God’s goodness and power; (2) The need to return to God for judgment; (3) Gratitude and worship in response to God’s goodness and pending judgment; (4) Generosity toward one’s own human beings; and (5) Muhammad’s own vocation as prophet to proclaim the message of goodness and judgment.
Prophet Muhammad died around 630 with Mecca and Medina under his leadership and he left behind a legacy of leadership and organization for Islamic communities of the future, including mine. Most important, the Holy Quran was underscored by Prophet Muhammad as the cornerstone of Islamic faith because it was a divine book written by Allah himself. The five pillars of Islam are derived from this holy book. All of us Muslims recognize them. They are: (1) Proclaiming the creed that there is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet; (2) Ritual prayers five times per day; (3) Fasting during the lunar month of Ramadan; (4) Almsgiving to the poor; and, (5) Pilgrimage to Mecca if one can afford to do so.
These five pillars of Islam can be applied to Muslims all over the world. These are the connecting interfaces of all Muslims worldwide from one corner to the next. Muslims here in America and Muslims in my home city are doing the same things. All Muslims are obeying the five pillars. This connects all of us. The simplicity of the Islam faith from the beginning made it very popular. Historically, the Islamic faith blossomed and spread throughout the Middle East after the death of Prophet Muhammad and continued onward into Central Asia, North Africa, and into southern Spain. From the 8th century until the 11th century, an Islamic Empire reigned over this gigantic region. The spread of Islam into the United States began for the most part with the founding of the country although the first Muslims were few in number. The real influx of Muslims into the United States did not begin until the late 1940s and then through the 1950s and 1960s as immigrants from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq arrived to seek out job opportunities and new lives in and around the Detroit area and southern California region. The spread of Islam in the United States therefore was really brought on by these new communities of Muslims from these various countries who would settle here. With their families, these Muslims brought a rich legacy of religious worship and practices that are very unique and distinctive from those practiced by other religious groups in the United States.
In my country, Islam is distinctive from the United States The whole city of Damman except for the small other religious groups are Sunni Muslims. We practice Islam exactly the same simple way everyday of our lives there. On Fridays, there is a call to the mosque and we gather for group prayer as a Muslim community. We are Muslims who think that prayer is one of the most fundamental duties of our everyday life. We are committed to five prayer sessions per day. These prayer sessions are extremely important for my Islamic faith to remain rock like inside myself.
The form of the Muslim prayer ritual I do remains the same as laid down by Prophet Muhammad. Muslims pray five times per day at prescribed times following precise body movements and recitals to convey total submission to Allah and Allah alone. The most obvious benefit in this uniform system of prayers all over the world is that it helps in establishing the uncontested invariable Mastership of One God and the universal brotherhood of man. Muslims from all over the world recite the prayers in the Arabic language and therefore all Muslims pray to Allah in this name and this name alone. The benefit of this universality and uniformity of name and language establishes universal brotherhood of man by impressing on the minds of all the people, whether of one race or another, of one place or another, that although there is difference of color, language, shape, etc., in the inhabitants of one country and raceto that of another country and race, their sentiments, their aspirations, their natural inclinations, and their relations with their
Creator are the same, and so they should all say the same prayer in identical language when they approach a Common Deity.
Let me explain that there are two basic kinds of prayer among Muslims. One is Farz, mostly said when a congregation is possible, and he other is Sunnat. Since there is no priesthood in Islam, where there is a group prayer, someone leads the group from the congregation. This leader in the prayers is called an Imam. His duty during group prayer is to ensure that the congregation is lined up in the proper manner and that the entire group faces the Holy Place of Mecca while saying their prayers (118). This looking towards Mecca while praying reminds the Muslim faithful of the founding place of their religious faith as demanded of them in the Holy Quran:
We have seen the turning of your (Muhammad’s) face towards
Heaven. Surely, we shall turn you to a Qiblah (prayer direction)
that shall please you, so turn your face in the direction of Al-
Masjid Al-Haram (at Mecca). And whosesoever you people are,
turn your faces (in prayer) in that direction. (Surah 2: 144).
The philosophy behind the Muslim prayer ritual is rooted in the five articles of Islamic faith: (1) Belief in one God Who has absolutely no associate with Him in His divinity; (2) Belief in God’s Angels, (3) Belief in God’s Books, and in the Holy Quran as His last book, (4) Belief in God’s Prophets, and in Muhammad as His Last and Final Messenger, and (5) Belief in life after death. One who believes in these five articles of Islamic faith enters the fold of Islam and becomes a member of the Muslim community/ The prayer ritual is indeed about vowing and committing to Allah’s supremacy as the one and only God, Creator of everything, non-living and living, on this Earth as well as the whole Universe. The Muslim prayer ritual is about submission to Allah by the individual believer as well as the congregation of believers to follow His way and obey His will.
Us Muslims often speak about the spirit of worship (ibadat). This spirit of worship involves this total and complete submission of one’s human self to Allah’s will. This concept is wide ranging with multiple meanings. The use of it by Muslims is evident in all aspects of our lives. For example, when a Muslim obeys Allah as a slave would his master, then one is behaving in ibadat. When one frees his speech from filth, malice, abuse, and falsehood, and speaks of truthful things and goodly things than one has become infused with ibadat.
Thus, my home city of Damman provides me with a setting where the religion of Islam influences every aspect of my life in large part due to the five prayer rituals per day. These prayers are said at appointed times everyday and every Friday the community gathers together to pray as a group. The Islam religion is clearly the most important part of my individual identity and so crucial for my religious value system. The Islamic identity part of my personality is so important because Allah means everything to me. I want to be resonating and reflecting the values of Islamic character everyday of my life. I want to be just like Prophet Muhammad in my honest, straight behavior. I want to be a good person who likes everyone. I am very much a good Muslim who tries to uphold my rituals to a large degree everyday of my life.

#10 - Field Trip to Riverside Mosque
I went to a mosque in Riverside, California and witnessed all the Muslims from the local region pray together led by the imam, Mustafa KoKo. This prayer ritual on Friday afternoons at the Riverside mosque begins with the Muslims cleansing themselves in the washing area to be clean and pure for their prayers. Muslims believe in washing the hands, arms, mouth, and feet to prepare to pray to Allah in a holy, pure state of both body and mind. I was very impressed with the harmony and coordination of the Muslims once everyone was engaged in the prayer with imam Mustafa KoKo. I participated in the prayer ritual since I am a devout Muslim myself. It was a great prayer ritual with everyone really involved and in synch with our body movements and our recitals of the Holy Quran. Then afterwards, I sat down and talked with Mr. KoKo about the mosque in general being more than just a place of prayer.
Mustafa KoKo emphasized that a diverse group of Muslims from all over the world converge to practice the Islamic faith in the Riverside mosque. Mustafa KoKo noted that the Islamic mosque is a special place for the Muslim community to come together to pray on Friday afternoons as a group. However, in addition to this central role on Fridays, Mr. KoKo explained that the mosque serves as an important educational center for all Muslims in the local area. Muslims can come and relax at the mosque’s library any time during operating hours to read and study Islam. Mr. KoKo said that the mosque library has writings from all over the world by Islamic scholars in both Arabic and English. Another function of the mosque is for Muslims to come together for dinner banquets occasionally, especially on Islamic holidays, so that Muslims can strengthen their bonds as an Islamic community called in Arabic, ummah. Mr. KoKo said it can be explained best as a community of God’s people who are living by the principles, words, and laws derived from the Holy Quran.
When asked about the Muslims’ behavior and ethical standards in the local community of Riverside, Mr. KoKo explained to me that Muslims are good, peaceful people who want to do good for their families and do good for their communities. He told me that all the Muslims that attend Friday prayers are law-abiding, honest, and good hearted individuals who love their families and respect their fellow Muslims. Mr. KoKo explained to me that Muslims throughout the area are devoted to the Islamic laws, doctrines, and principles as Muslims in the Middle East. He said that the five pillars of Islam are followed by Muslims here in Riverside, California as they are followed by Muslims over in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Respect, trust, honesty, and faith are all words that help Mr. KoKo describe some of these principles shared among the local Muslims. He gave me examples of how Muslims helped one another through tough times in the past. He said that during the post-9/11 period, when the mosque was defaced by graffiti, and when threats were levied towards some of its members, the Muslims throughout the area bonded closer together and prayed to Allah on Friday afternoons as a group. In other words, these Muslims were seeking peace and love rather than seeking revenge and violence for these hate crime acts. During natural disasters, like the forest fires in 2003, Mr. KoKo said that the mosque became a relief center for the fire victims’ families and how Muslims throughout the region came to their aid and provided them money relief to start their lives over again. Muslims see themselves as a community of good souls serving and obeying Allah through following the prescriptions and principles clarified for all in the Holy Quran.
Another important insight given by Mr. Mustafa KoKo about Muslims living here in Riverside or anywhere in the United States is that Muslims believe in generosity, honesty, and fellowship in crafting their social relationships and social ties with their communities. Muslims, in other words, are a very tolerant religious group towards people of other religious faiths. Mr. KoKo explained to me that the Muslims in the business community in Riverside are very numerous and that they are contributing to the welfare and advancement of the community all the time. For example, Mr. KoKo said that a prominent Muslim businessman in Riverside recently headed a food drive during the month of Ramadan to help the poor and hungry in the poorest section of the city. This food drive brought smiles to the faces of so many families in poverty throughout the City of Riverside. People were benefiting from this free food being given to them by Muslims who are asked to serve the poor and be especially humble souls during this holy month. The religious community of Muslims in Riverside can be seen as one that can be defined as a group of honest, hard working, and family oriented people that have migrated here at one time or another from all over the Muslim world. They have settled here with their religious beliefs, principles, and values that only serve to benefit not only themselves in their starting over here in the United States but also provides benefits for their local community since they are honest, hard working, and family oriented people.
In response to the general misperception of Americans that Muslim women are secondary members of the religious group, Mr. KoKo explained that most Americans misperceive the role of women in the Islamic community and base their misperceptions on how women are viewed culturally here in the American community at large. Women in Islam are different than women who are not in Islam because of their recognition of their distinctive role as primarily the moral center of the household. Women in Islam indeed represent the moral integrity of the men’s family households. The women understand Allah’s duties and rights given to them are distinctive from men’s duties and rights. As a result, Muslim women fully understand the restrictions and boundaries in their public behavior as women compared to most women who live in the United States. Mr. KoKo underscored that one of the biggest misperceptions of Islam concerns Muslim women. They are indeed the moral stronghold of every family household, very respected.
#11 - Miracle Story of the Lady of Guadalupe
The miracle story of the Lady of Guadalupe is something very important to the Mexican people down in Mexico and the people of Mexican heritage in the United States because it sets them apart and gives them special status as a unique people who had a unique visit from the Mother of Jesus herself, the Virgin Mary, who came to tell a peasant, an Indian Mexican peasant the news that the Mexican people had to convert and accept Jesus Christ as their savior and messiah.
The Mexican people mark the visitation of the Virgin Mary to this peasant as the widespread conversion to Roman Catholicism that took place after it. The Mexican people were able to view themselves as specially designated by this Mother of Jesus and that they were told to become faithful and brave. Even today, this image of the Lady of Guadalupe is so crucial for the people of Mexico and those people of Mexican heritage in the United States. The image of the Lady of Guadalupe is seen by Mexican people as their own source of unique protection from God Himself and a blessed relationship with Jesus Christ the Messiah of humankind. The Lady of Guadalupe is found on all kinds of different things including tattoos on people who think it provides some form of protection. The Lady of Guadalupe is found in the form of statutes, pictures on the wall, and many different other material forms to reflect this acceptance of this unique miracle story as the pivotal background fact of the Mexicans turning into Christians.

#12 - Latino Religious Experience versus Asian Religious Experience
The Latino religious experience is distinctive from the Asian religious experience because of the fact that Latinos are Christians, Roman Catholics, who may speak a different language, have different cultural customs, and do things different than white mainstream Americans, they do believe in the same three things other Christians believe in - God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The religious closeness of the Latino immigrants and white mainstream Americans is something that becomes important in accepting the Latino communities and people as Christian brothers and sisters more often than not. Today, the Latino communities are well respected and well loved by all ethnic groups including the white majority in the Southern California region. The language barrier is something that is overcome by the similarity in religious beliefs, religious images, religious icons, and religious rituals. Latino Roman Catholics are as Christian as the white Americans in their religious background and habits.
In contrast, Asian immigrants come to the United States with religious beliefs that alienate and isolate them from white mainstream Americans. Many Asian immigrants are Buddhists. They believe that the religious goal is a blissful, peaceful state of meditation known as Nirvana. It is a pleasurable state of mind that makes a person detach from material wants, needs, and cravings. However, the white majority in the United States are all Christians with very few Buddhists. There were no connecting points in the religious traditions, religious rituals, and religious belief systems of the white majority and Asian immigrants. Unlike the Latino immigrants, who at least believed in Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost, the Asian immigrants were believing in something really strange called Nirvana or a state of perpetual bliss and peacefulness.
The similarity between the Latino religious experience and the Asian religious experience is the fact that both groups usually use their native language to practice their religious rituals and beliefs. For Latinos, the language is Spanish. These religious masses and rituals are practiced within the context of this Spanish language. This means that white Americans who speak only English are not able to participate in the Roman Catholic mass. As a consequence, the white mainstream Americans are not very welcome in these Spanish speaking environments at Mexican neighborhood churches. Likewise, if a white American would patronize a Buddhist Church then the likelihood is very high that some native Asian tongue would be used by the believers during their rituals. This use of a native Asian tongue in the Buddhist Church is something that is expected because of the reality that most white Americans are not members of the Buddhist Church and these Buddhist Churches serve Asian communities.
The Asian immigrants and Latino immigrants came into the United States with their religious traditions, rituals, and customs in the context of their native languages. These immigrants are distinctive because they have their own unique religious traditions and rituals representing their home cultures. They are automatically alienated and segregated from mainstream white America by having their religious organizations separated from the majority group in a complete, total way. By using the native language, including only native immigrant members, and catering to such immigrants, these religious groups from both the Latino and Asian groups are very much home grown organizations. This is a source for immigrants to reconnect with their own home cultures and native cultural ways. These religious organizations are always functioning to retain, reflect, and teach the old traditions, the old customs, and the old rituals of the old time religious organizations from the old countries. The Asian immigrants and Latino immigrants turn to their religious groups to revive their faith in their home cultures and ways of life.

#13 - Role of Buddhist Church
The role of the Buddhist Church is a perfect example of how these religious organizations served to help Japanese make the ethnic adjustment in the racist United States. The Japanese are a very proud people who learn from a young age that they are the superior race in the world. Suddenly, these Japanese immigrants had to encounter harsh racist conditions and racist treatment from the majority whites in the United States. They had their bubble burst. The ethnic identity of Japanese was something bad and negative in the United States. The white majority was very racist towards the Japanese first in Hawaii and then on the mainland when these immigrants came looking for work and a better life in the early part of the twentieth century.
The Buddhist church was a place where the Japanese immigrants could comfort each other, make connections, make business deals, and help each other get adjusted in the racist American society. The Buddhist church was a place where Japanese immigrants understood that religious people were attending and gathering to pray, meditate, and get things right in their lives. It was a positive gathering place that brought people together for all the right reasons. The Japanese could relax, meditate, and engage in their traditional Buddhist ways and rituals, while also meeting up with other Japanese immigrants from their home towns and home cities. It was a social gathering place that allowed the Japanese immigrants to feel less isolated since they were confronted with vicious white racism in the late 19th century and the early 20th century.
The Japanese made the ethnic adjustment as best that they could as Buddhist believers in that state of blissfulness known as Nirvana and by pursuing the eightfold path of the Buddhist faith, the Japanese were able to retain some of their cultural identity from back home and connected with the Japanese people in Japan. The Buddhist faith was usually practiced in their own native language which made it more of a home, cultural thing than anything else that they did once in America. The hard work, long hours, and economic pressures were sucking up all their free time and when they did get out, then it was usually over to the Buddhist church to meditate and socialize with other Japanese.

#14 - Religious Diversity in America
The positive benefits of having a long history of religious diversity and religious tolerance is that new generation Americans automatically accept the existence of diverse religions side by side as a normal, ordinary occurrence in any society. This is not true at all. Most societies have big problems with religious diversity. Religions can’t exist side by side always peacefully and sometimes wars and violence throughout the world break out over religious issues. The United States of America was founded on this principle of religious freedom of expression and absence of religious persecution. As a result, the first U.S. Congress made it legal in 1791 with the passage of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that made it clear that government could not abridge in any arbitrary fashion the freedom of individual religious expression. In addition, the First Amendment makes it very clear that the government could not establish a national religion either. Legally, in this country, since 1791, any religious group can basically set up shop and begin operations within their follower circle as long as they are being private and not harming anyone else with their practices and rituals.
This is an incredible development for religious diversity in America because every religious person in the whole world knows in their hearts that if they can somehow make it to the United States, at least, if anything else, they can practice their religious beliefs freely and without fear of legal retribution. This is how all the ethnic minority groups were able to withstand the most vicious racist era of American history in the 19th century and early 20th century, including immigrant groups, who came for economic opportunities. These minority ethnic groups were permitted in most cases to operate their religious organizations tax-free as the national government recognized religious freedom and no government interference.
The religious diversity in the United States of America is the most positive development of all other things in my opinion because people can be themselves in regards to their religious beliefs, values, and behaviors. The American opportunity in religion is that any group can set up shop and begin practicing their rituals without fear of any government authority of any kind interfering and intervening but actually helping to protect the religious freedom of the group. It is remarkable to also point out that the religious groups of all different kinds can exist peacefully side by side in almost all situations across this country without problems of differences in belief. It is a hallmark to the widespread cultural notion in the United States that religious tolerance is a positive development and thing for everyone to practice. Americans are born and raised learning about the First Amendment in grade school that religious freedom, religious tolerance, and religious diversity are positive and good developments in this free, open society. This is something that makes Americans very special people and makes them very distinctive people in their view points, opinions, and personal values about religious groups other than their own kind.
There are some barriers to still overcome in America despite the religious diversity. The barriers involve conflicts among religious groups that don’t make the front pages of newspapers and broadcasted in the mass media. Some communities have problems with religious diversity. When the 9/11 attacks came down, for instance, the Muslim groups were under threat, attack, and victims of hate crimes in the immediate aftermath. This religious intolerance was brutal and the Americans who engaged in it were grouping all Muslims with the radicalized Al Qaeda terrorists. There is no similarity between the two groups even though Al Qaeda claim to be a religious group, they are not recognized as legitimate by the vast majority of peaceful, honest Muslims. This religious intolerance was also shown by American Christian groups when Joseph Smith from New York launched the Mormon religion in the 1830s. He became the Prophet of the new religious group who practiced polygamy along with other senior members of the organization. These Mormon leaders were taking on multiple wives which horrified the Christians in the region. Smith and his followers fled because of religious persecution over to Illinois and Missouri where they were also targeted with religious intolerance by white Christians living in these areas. Smith was finally killed by a mob. His religion of Mormonism survived by leaving the Midwest and heading to a place called Utah where nobody lived yet.
These examples demonstrate that religious intolerance does spring up in America now and then and when it does there is a slanted white Christian view point involved since the vast majority of white Americans are Protestants or Evangelicals. The white Christians who represent the majority group have demonstrated this religious intolerance when challenged or threatened as in the case of the Mormons’ polygamist values and the radicalized Muslim terrorists’ violent attacks. These challenges to the status quo and cultural values by religious groups of this nature can cause a violent, vicious back lash. The Muslims in this country even today are viewed with suspicions and considered ‘terrorists’ even when they are the furthest thing from terrorists. There is still prejudice and racism about the Muslims in America if people take off their blinders and look really lose to the realities. Muslims have been searched, seized, and arrested in increased ways in all their communities across the country. Part of the Homeland Security policy is to crack down on any radicals in the U.S. Muslim communities, especially any sympathizers and collaborators to al Qaeda. However, in practice, this means all Muslims everywhere are targeted when appropriate and necessary for secret surveillance and spying on their religious practices. Distrust towards Muslims is at an all time high because most of the people in the government are white Christians who view the whole thing in religious conflict terms, especially the evangelicals.

#15 Describe One Religious Movement in America that has Transformed American Life in Unexpected Ways
I am a big fan of the movies so I have shown interest in getting to know more about some of my favorite stars in these movies I like and some of them, like Mission Impossible’s Tom Cruise, as well as Pulp Fiction’s John Travolta, are Scientologists. What is scientology?
Scientology is officially called a religion by its followers who uphold the truth revealed by L. Ron Hubbard in a best selling book called Dianetics. The organizational branch that rose up around L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings about how to purge or clear the negative elements and vibrations from one’s consciousness. Hubbard was a former successful science fiction writer who had published a whole sequence of novels before writing Dianetics. The book is about human beings having major problems with their lives and self development because of a whole array of blocking mechanisms, negative vibrations, and evil forces. By going through an elaborate procedure that involves ‘clearing’ these things from the consciousness, a Scientologist is able to emerge dynamic, motivated, and powerful in a real way and sense. By having these negative and evil things cleared out of the consciousness, forever broken down, the individual can become whatever his or her potential is as a human being.
Yet, Scientology is highly secretive in its organization about the most truthful secrets left by the deceased L. Ron Hubbard that only the highest developed believers can find out and Tom Cruise is one of those based on the newspaper reports about his activism in the organization. One newspaper article noted that Cruise spends a lot of time out on the Scientology owned estate in Hemet where he is able to practice his beliefs and help other individual believers continue to the elaborate ‘clearing’ process and procedure. After the initial processes begin, the Scientologist believer begins to be hooked up to a ‘truth machine’ that actually measures the responses of the individual through the elaborate question and answer format of the clearing process. The biggest challenge of the individual at this point is facing down one’s darkest secrets, biggest negative experiences, and the sorrow, hate, and anger built up over the growing years from child to adult. Scientologists engage in what is basically a confrontation with all past memories and experiences to clear out the negative vibrations from these experiences. Once these are all cleared out, then the Scientologist believer can proceed to the higher, elevated levels of truth finding that Tom Cruise has reportedly entered at this point. By having elevated himself to the elite group at the top, Tom Cruise has probably been revealed the ultimate secret that a former Scientologist exposed in a book he wrote against the group’s cultish elements. This ultimate secret that only the top elite Scientologists find out is that L. Ron Hubbard was an incarnation of Jesus Christ himself. Hubbard becomes the ultimate religious icon in American Christian tradition and this makes me at least get the chills about this so called religious group.
The ‘clearing’ rituals that cost thousands and thousands at first, then tens of thousands and tens of thousands, and finally hundreds of thousands to find out this ultimate secret that L. Ron Hubbard is Jesus Christ himself. The pyramid scheme set up in this religious organization that sucks all the followers dry is something that has been under fire for years. Scientologists claim that they are giving the money to their religious group because they are ‘clearing’ themselves of all the negative and evil inside themselves. In exchange for the ever higher levels of clearing, these Scientologists are more than willing to pay more and more money and even mortgage and bankrupt their lives to get to the final and ultimate secret that L. Ron Hubbard is an incarnation of Jesus Christ. This secret telling ritual of Hubbard being Christ is done on a Scientology owned yacht in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The trip of course to this ultimate secret telling session runs into the three hundred thousand or more range which means all elite Scientologists are also filthy rich people as well, including Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and a whole line of Hollywood stars and starlets.
This religious group has demonstrated to Americans in my opinion that Christianity is sometimes completely rejected in regards to how you get to the same union and harmony with God that Jesus did. Scientologists are always clearing themselves out of their negative and vibrations. They are all going for the same higher consciousness that their leader, L. Ron Hubbard found, when he wrote Dianetics. This ultimate secret that Hubbard is Christ links Scientology to Christianity in a real sense. It means that Hubbard is a different kind of Christ and one that brought this new message to hook up to these truth machines and begin the scientific-based ‘clearing’ process of the body, soul, heart, and mind to prepare for truth and awareness at higher levels. The assumption in Scientology is that individuals are unable to handle the higher levels of truth without elaborate processes, preparation, and build up to manage the complications.
This is a science fiction adaptation in a way that L. Ron Hubbard devised to apply to the modern times of America where people are attracted to non-Christian rituals and non traditional approaches to religious truth finding and discovery. Hubbard’s techniques are clearly influenced by his science fiction writing. He has human beings possessed by ancient alien energies and blocking mechanisms that can only be cleared out through the Scientology procedure that involves truth machines and mentors who guide the neophyte through the elaborate, scientific process. The fact that the Christian icons, rituals, and traditions are thrown out of the mix makes Scientology a possible preview of the future in the United States’ religious communities. These scientific approaches may grow in number and nature as the traditional religions are totally abandoned by the newer, next generations.