Vincent Farino- Religion

A word that can mean so much to people is “religion.” This single word can be so complex and have so many different meanings to different people. Religion can make people do many things that would seem very strange to most. Religion can make people go weeks without eating, it can even go to the extreme of suicide such as the terrorists from 9/11. This origin of the word suggests that the word religion describes a joining of the natural and human world to the sacred and spiritual world (Molloy 2). Religion can, “make claims about truth, yet some of their views are not easy to reconcile,” (Molloy 24). There are many different views and understandings of religion. Religions such as Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh Taoist, Confucianism, and Sikh are very divided on what religion means to them. They take concepts of love, compassion, immortality, and service and twist and turn them to fit their religious views. Many of the differing religious views can unify under the concept of love, but is it too unreasonable to ask that these practitioners of love show it to people outside of their religion as well?

-Molloy, Michael. Experiencing the World's Religions. Fourth ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2008.