Reference no: EM13781136

A central part of any religion is the way it enforms culture through ritual, practices, social institutions, holiday practices, art, and literature.
For five of the seven religions we study you must discover, research, or participate in its religious culture in some way and report on it by posting in the appropriate thread. You should

(1) Explain the cultural entity you are describing adequately enough to allow an outsider to understand it. Be careful to cite the source of your information or experiences. Use images or links to online resources as needed, but be sure to cite and include the url to material you take from the web.

(2) Say what you think the item you describe adds to the experience of the believer or how it functions in their daily life. Sympathetically try to enter into the practice the way a believer would and describe how it adds to their lives.

(3) Look at the practice objectively and critically from the outside and evaluate it. Try to explicitly identify the common ground you find with believers that would allow you to talk about it objectively.

Example from another student

1. Sukkot begins on Tishri 15, the fifth day after Yom Kippur. It is a drastic transition, from one of the most depressing holidays in our year to one of the most joyous. Sukkot has a dual significance: historical and agricultural. Historically, Sukkot commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. Agriculturally, Sukkot is a harvest festival. The word "Sukkot" means "booths," and refers to the temporary dwellings that we are commanded to live in during this holiday in memory of the period of wandering. The primary observance associated with Sukkot is the building and dwelling of the temporary shelter.

2. To a believer, Sukkot adds faith to their daily life. It gives them a reason to be thankful to God because they do not have to wander in search of temporary shelters anymore, because they already have a home. Making, decorating, and staying in a booth reminds them of how lucky they are to have a home of their own. Sukkot is about being thankful for the life that they have, including: a family, home, and food to have and share during their feast.

3. While looking at this practice objectively, I found that the believers are not consistent with their beliefs. From a common ground point, it is contradicting because they have a home, yet they need to make a dwelling to live in. If they already have a home, why do they need to make a temporary home to thank God from? To be thankful means that you cherish what you are given because not everyone has it or is given that opportunity. Therefore, believers should be able to thank God from wherever they feel comfortable or choose to be. Building a temporary home to live in just to show your appreciation to God is contradicting because then it is as if they have two homes, which makes them greedy and unthankful for what they have. A believer could then argue that they are  thankful for the home that they have, but they choose to live in a temporary dwelling for seven days to remember what it was like when they had to constantly travel and never had a home of their own. This makes them more thankful for what they currently have, because God gave them a chance to have something of their own.