Camille Theriaque Comparative Religion Extra-Credit Essay Due May 8, 2012

My essay is in the form of a letter to my first grandchild, who is due October 17th. I am writing letters to let him or her know about lifes happenings. My intent is to give the box of letters to Gummi-Bear for his/her 13th birthday. My Dearest Gummi-Bear,

This is one of a (hopefully) large group of letters I intend write to you relating to my late-in-life college years. Currently, I am at the end of my two-year stint at Holyoke Community College. Being at HCC has been an incredible personal journey for me as I have enjoyed many of my classes and met some fantastic people. For this letter I am relating my semester with Professor George Ryan and the class Comparative Religion. Comparative Religion is just as the name implies, it is a comparison of some of the worlds religions. For this class we studied Primal/Tribal religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and hopefully Atheist/no religion, saved for the last day of class this Tuesday. For now, I am going to relate to you some of my favorite things I studied and learned in this class starting with the Primal/Tribal religion. I did not realize until recently that the Igbo and the Yoruba are a society in Nigeria. My grandfather was born in Nigeria and was part of the Igbo (pronounced EEboo). My mother was from his second family, and when he died in the early 1950s he was already in his 80s. I wish that I could have had the opportunity to learn about Nigeria, the culture he was raised in and possibly tribal religions. I discovered that the Igbo and Yoruba are both cultures currently in Nigeria. The Yoruba also is a religion that is primarily oral in tradition. Its practitioners tell sacred stories and perform rituals. The Yoruba religion has endured through colonization due to its practices adaptability to new places and times with flexibility. Even with the forced migration through the slave trade out of Africa to the Americas, the Yoruba religion has survived and flourished on other continents. With its goal of reconnecting to destiny, the Yoruba as practitioners do well as individuals and in society. Next, I really enjoyed learning about the fundamentals of Judaism. I have read various versions of the Old Testament numerous times over the years; however I never realized that there were actually two stories of creation. In the first sacred story

Elohim, one of the names for God, created the world in six days including creating man and on the seventh he rested, giving the Jews the Saturday Sabbath. What made this first story interesting was Elohim, who is both male and female created man however, this first man was not Adam. In the second story of creation God (Yahweh) created Adam and Eve and gave them domain over all of the creatures of the earth. This is the more know story of creation where the serpent tempted Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was the one thing God forbade them from eating. Eve ate the fruit and then persuaded Adam too. They then felt shame in their nakedness and hid from God. Adam and Eve when questioned by God would not admit to disobeying Him. They then blamed the serpent and each other with no remorse. Adam and Eve were then banished from the Garden of Eden. They became mortal and woman was given the curse of pain in childbirth. The last religion studied was Islam. At this time in the US, Muslims are being blamed for all the ills that are going on in this country since 9/11/2001. After watching Jerusalem, the Center of the World it was amazing to see the accounts of the first Crusades in the city of Jerusalem, when the Christians conquered Muslim occupied Jerusalem and then slaughtered every person there, including women and children taking refuge in the sacred mosque. Later, unlike the Christians, when the Muslims retook Jerusalem, they were extremely tolerant and allowed all religions to practice their faith. This included the Jews. I found it fascinating that the gatekeeper of the key to the church of Holy Sepulcher Israel in Jerusalem is Muslim and that his family has handed down this honor for hundreds of years. Lastly, from our readings from the Quran, I found out that it is against the teachings of Muhammad to take an offensive position in war. When the army is attacked they must distinguish between combatants and non-combatants (Quran 2:190; 122:39). What a direct contrast to the beliefs today of many Muslims, and the Muslims in history. While there are violent factions of Islam as there are in many other religions, I believe that most Muslims accept as true the teachings of the Quran and want to live in peace. So, my Dearest Gummi-Bear, I hope that by the time you are given this to read, we will be at peace and the current threat level nonsense is a long ago history. With much love-LYL, Mimi