This week in Religions of the World we ended our section on Buddhism. We learned the difference between zen buddhism and Amitabha buddhism. Zen Buddhism is all about meditating and being devoted to enlighten ones self. Zen is self meditating, and focusing on your own goals. Where Amitabha is all about reaching nirvana with a group. Not only making yourself reach enlightenment, but encouraging others to do so also. One thing I found interesting about Amitabha is that one does not reach enlightenment until everyone in that group is prepared. Now the biggest question after learning these different kinds is if they are still the same religion. Now they are still aiming for the same goal; nirvana. But with zen its all about devoting yourself to yourself, where Amitabha is making your community enlightened. It is very interesting to hear peoples opinions on that.

This week in Religions of the World we began to learn about Buddhism. Most people know of Buddhism being some old fat man, meditating and happy. But little people know that that happiness is not reached, until nirvana is reached. You have to go through the suffering in life, before you can even think about happiness. What I like about this religion so far is that they focus on karma. Karma as you might know, is the belief that whatever your actions are, you will get a similar action in return. An example would be if you were generous, something good is going to happen to you in either this life, or your next. Now not every believer in karma is a believer of an afterlife. Buddhists believe that you go through a cycle of rebirth to death to rebirth again. But a rebirth does not automatically make you a human in your next life. Your actions will decide what you become out of the six different realms of rebirth. If you do good things in this life, you could be a human, or even a titan in your next life. But if you have bad karma, and are greedy, and selfless, you make be a hungry ghost, or even worse a hell being. Buddhism so far has been a very interesting thing to learn, I definitely recommend everyone to take a look at it.

Today in my Religions of the World class we talked about the difference between atheists and agnostics. It may seem to the naked eye that both are against the belief in a God(s). But that is not particularly true. Agnostics don't believe in a god nor don't believe in a god. It is more of the act that they just aren't sure if their is a supernatural existence or if their is not. Where as Atheists believe that their is no god. Tell me who talks more about religion than atheists. Next time you see an atheist walking down the street, ask them why religion is not real. Its almost the same as asking a priest why God is real. They may say some information that may make you side either way,  but none of it is facts. There is no real facts on if religion is true or not true. You may be wondering why I'm so intrigued by this class, and these concepts. It is not so much that I'm intrigues but it definitely helps me study. Re-writing what I learned in class that day helps me look back and truly think about the in-depth details of that class.

As I begin my classes at WMU I have become very intrigued with this one class called Religions of The World. Its all about exploring religion not only in a religious view, but also a scientific view. This class gives an overall perspective as to why religion exists, and has existed for so long. Im not a huge religious person myself, so I didn't come into the class with a very bias view on religion. As the class went on we started looking at quotes of religious experts. As I skimmed through most of them, I got stuck on this one quote that will change my view on religion for the rest of my life. It was "Man makes religion, religion does not make man." This quote really makes you step back and rethink why religion has existed for so long.