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Concepts of Religion

Concepts of Religion

Alexzandria Ryan

Comp 1 T/R 2:00

Mrs. Bettes

11/29/16
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Concepts of Religion

Concept of Religion

Religion has been around since the beginning of recorded history. Society says religion

and politics is not something to be talked about. Religion has a way of dividing people and

causing turmoil. The question of whos belief is right or wrong is what has caused most of the

wars in history and still ones today. Religion even causes disagreements in everyday life. Some

will not marry outside of their own religion, because differences could be a chance for

unnecessary fights in the relationships. Fighting over which religion is right has caused more

turmoil in the world than anyone could understand. Many have looked for a way to help bring

world peace. Unfortunately, unless the world comes to one religion, the fight could destroy the

world. The bigger part to this is not one religion is wrong or right, but that each religion is a

small part to a bigger concept. However, brain development restricts human ability to

comprehend the larger picture.

That great thing about religions being a smaller part of the bigger concept is they are able

to interlink and allow scientist to separate the religions into three categories (Crabtree, 2016).

The three groups based on how many god(s) a religion has, does the religion believe in heaven or

reincarnation, and what book does the religion use. Evidence shows regardless of how many

god(s) a religion has, the gods link to one (Crabtree, 2016). As in mythology where there are

multiple gods that can connect to people and stories in the bible. Such as comparing God, Jesus,

and eve to Zeus, Prometheus and Pandora (Burns, 2013). One can also find similarities in the

belief creation and that god created heaven and earth (Genesis 1:1). In the religions with one

god, although the religious groups would like to think the god they believe in is different than

others. Evidence shows the gods are the same one. Where Christians and Jews believe in god and

Muslims believe in Allah, which when translated is god, the same god.
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Heaven and reincarnation is one of the other categories that compares the religion. In

which nothing says you have to believe in one or the other and actually they could combine and

make since as a whole. Heaven is looked at as a goal. That if a human was a good person in life

once a human passes God will reward them by letting them into heaven and it is not a wrong

thought process. Dr. Jeffrey Long has found evidence from interviewing multiple people with

near death experiences. The study had people from all across the world of all ages whom shared

a death experience and claimed heaven is real. Dr. Long compared the stories and found them to

be very consistent, proving the possibly that heaven is real.

Reincarnation is part of some religions and its the belief that once a human passes their

soul recycles and goes into a new body. In the reincarnation belief it is said that the cycle

continues through 9 realms (tsuji, 2016). The thought that a soul could continue through cycles

is far fetch for those that believe in heaven and could be the same for those who believe in

reincarnation and are told about heaven. Just as heaven has evidence towards being true,

reincarnation has the same. Dr. Lan Stevens, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia

Medical School and many others have investigated claims and have proven the claims to be true

(tsuji, 2016). Both have been proved to be right and in the reincarnation belief there is an end to

the cycles, and thats where heaven could fall into place. That humans dont just live one life but

multiple and then go to heaven.

There are also the religious books that take a play in the categories. In which the books

play a big role in the separation. Each book was written by man but show many similarities. In

the Christian belief there is an old testament and new testament both combined into one book,

the bible, describing before Jesus and after. The old testament describes how god made the earth

and what he did after the earth was made. Part of which was about the people who started the
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world. The new testament reveals the commandments which is a set of rules for people to live by.

The Jewish religion uses the Tanakh.The book is divided into two parts as well, the Torah and the

prophetic teaches. Much like the new testament which holds the commands the Torah is a set of

rules the Jewish people were given. Mostly to help the people stay alive. The prophetic teaches is

the Jewish version of the old testament. Islam is much like Christianity and Jewish. The religion

has a book as well that holds their teaching that were revealed to Muhammad from God. As well

as the rules for the religion. All three of the religions share a set of rules as well as teachings

from god. The more interesting part is that in all three books they share the same teachings. One

story is about Abraham, and that god told him he was going to have a child that would lead the

world but his wife Sarah could not have a child, so Sarah told her maid Hagar to sleep with her

husband and in doing so Hagar got pregnant. Sarah found out that she was pregnant and order for

Hagar and her son to leave in exile (Foucher). Another explanation is that in all three books, god

talks about the world having peace and how to treat others for peace. Which is where Buddhism

comes into place, the religion is about peace and loving others (Tsuji, 2016). The religions all

have the same teachings with the biggest one being peace but the belief that each religion is

different keeps human fighting.

Its the ego of the right and wrong that continues the separation of religions and what has

caused so many conflicts in history as well as today. In the past Native Americans died over the

Catholics trying to convert them because if the Natives did not follow and become catholic they

had to die. We had the same thing happen in babalonal time, where Christians were executed by

the romans for following in Jesus, due to the fact the romans believed jesus was a fake. The Jews

were executed in world war two because Hitler believed they were not the perfect people and if

you were Jewish that meant you were bad. We have the same thing happening today in the
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middle east, where radical groups are killing people that will not follow them and their beliefs. In

all of the conflicts people lost their lives, the fight between which religion is right or wrong still

continues as people fight for who is the right. The truth is no religion is wrong, we all believe in

a higher power and fighting is not fixing anything. But the reason humans have such a hard time

seeing that the religions are connected is because of the brain.

The saying people only use ten percent of their brain is incorrect. The concept is right but

in reality humans use their whole brain. For humans, to have the ability to even grasp an abstract

thought they use a part of the brain called the frontal cortex (Ridley, 2010). The frontal cortex is

the front of the brain that deals with motor skills, sense of self, and is associated with higher

mental abilities. This area for a normal human being is a 50:50 ration of long and short

connections. In a geniuss brain the connections are either more short or long connections. These

connections are what allows the ability to see problems for new perspectives (Ridley, 2010). At

this point in time the amount of information humans understand is just beginning to grow

because of technology. The more technology that is given to us the information our brains are

holding. And in recent test with Einsteins brain, the more you work one part of the brain, the

brain its self grows (Ridley, 2010). So the more we learn about religion the more us humans will

be able to see the connections the religions with hold.

At one point everyone had many gods because humans could not connect the smaller

pieces to the larger one and see that all of the gods were really just one. Human brains were less

developed at that point and as time went on more connections were able to be made. The

capabilities of collecting and organizing more information has helped the human race come to

the conclusion of one god. However, egos have cause chaos with the belief their religion is the

only true. Humans at this point have development mentally and are able to understand larger
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concepts, but do not have the capabilities to grasp a large concept, like religion, creation and

more. As time continues scientist believe those connections will increase for the human race and

what we call a genius now will not be able to compare to how intelligent we will be in the future.

Humans are able to understand religions in parts and without the ability to connect them on a

deeper level to understand the full picture of god, the world will continue to have conflict. The

future depends on the development of the mind. So that the larger concepts out of our reach will

be understood and conflicts in the world can be resolved.

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References

Tsuji, T. (2016). Buddanet Basic Buddhism Guide on Reincarnation

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/reincarnation.htm

No name (2016). Religion Library: Islam

http://www.patheos Islam.com/library/

Burns, D. (2013). The Parallel Similarities of Greek Mythology and Christianity

http://tv.cos.ucf.edu/blog/?p=7390

Foucher, R. All Eyes on Israel

http://www.jesus-resurrection.info/abraham-

Crabtree, V. (2016) A List of All Religions and Belief Systems

http://www.humanreligions.info/religions.html

Ridley, L. (2010). Whats inside the brain of a genius

http://www.sciencefocus.com/feature/tech/whats-inside-brain-genius
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