Passover Ritual Report

Nearly everyone enjoys Christmas, especially the little children of the world. Many cultures celebrate Christmas for different reasons. While the majority celebrates Christmas on the 25th of December, some celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanza. The history of Christmas is extremely detailed and can be found in the chapters of Matthew and Luke in the Bible. This holiday has many reasons for being celebrated with joy and happiness.

Rituals are events that provide a sense of acceptance and that are done regularly and enjoyed by many. Rituals mainly refer to a family, religious or community ceremony, rituals also express emotions such as love and togetherness. The ritual of the Eucharist has changed dramatically over the past years from the last supper, where Jesus shared his body to his disciples.

Before attending college here at Seattle University, I never necessarily thought that I would be interested in learning about religions other than my own. Throughout my life I was raised to follow the Christian faith. Everything that pertained to my life revolved around my faith. Although I do not regret being born and raised in a Christian home, some occasions have risen where I felt a sense of being “forced” into the religion. This caused myself to ultimately grow a disconnection from my faith. Coming to Seattle University with a sense of disconnection from my religion in actuality provided me the motivation and inspiration to possibly learn about different religions in order to compare and contrast their views from my personal ones, which

Now that I am able to draw a parallel with something I am familiar with, Greek organizations, I understand the importance behind religious rituals. Although it can be easy to question the practices as an outsider, I know first-hand what it feels like to be better connected with other members and the institution as a whole through participating in ritual. I now realize that although some aspects of ritual might seem to be extreme, individuals often come out on the other end with a greater sense of purpose and devotion. As individuals participate in ritual, group morale is often augmented; just like a baseball player’s confidence and enthusiasm might be improved through participating in a daily routine. Reading Gmelch and Sosis’s articles consecutively allowed me to better understand the common elements of a given ritual. Gmelch’s article helped me attribute a humanistic aspect to religious ritual, since I previously understood sports superstition at a deeper level. By combining an idea with which I was familiar with an idea I did not have extensive knowledge of, my understanding of both topics

Both chapters are full of valuable information about the indigenous religions of North Ameica and Africa. Among the rituals that grab my attention was the way how the Hopi and the Zuni people practice thier believes. In order for them be closer to the Holy Spirits, They wear some sort of masks that called them kachinas and begin to performe thier dances. The purpose of the dances is to seek for God giving such as the rain,which they believe it rejuvenates the entire cosmos, not just crops in a particular locale. The way how the Hopi practice thier Faith has a significant meaning. It explains why people are always looking for that hidden power that can guide them and mediate thier souls. The Hopi believes remind me as well about what Muslem

In this unit of SOR the year 11’s have been focusing on Rituals. Earlier in the term the year 11’s visited St Mary’s Church & The Brisbane Synagogue. This led them to evaluate whether the designs of sacred sites facilitate rituals and reflects an approach to the divine. The Church present at the St Mary’s site was built between 1900-1904. The Brisbane Synagogue is the oldest Synagogue that is home to Queensland.

For my Senior Seminar Project I explored religion through photojournalism. I did this by attending a Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Unitarian Universalist, Mormon, and Jewish Service. During the service I would take pictures of my experience but if I was told I was not allowed to take pictures inside in order to respect people's privacy, I would only take them outside. I photographed things that I felt captured the religion as a whole and embodied my time there. While completing my project I have learned various things about all of the six religions. The religions I valued learning most about was Mormonism because it is the religion I was the most unfamiliar with. I have learned the importance of doubt and questioning through looking at the

The symbols of the celebration help us to understand the value of the sacramental celebration for us to take it more serious; also to help us to remember at every moment the concept of been Christians and why we are calling for. For each day of our existences there are stuffs we do at the similar period, at the identical place and in the equal direction. These particular activities turn out to be ceremonies when we deliberately give them a greater significance and resolution. Sacraments aid us comprehend ways of existence and ways of performance in a certain beliefs and environment. Rituals support us to connect in and provide us a logic of personality and fitting. They support us to appreciate extraordinary periods and events and they tell

Religion is an important and prominent aspect of life. There are hundreds of religions established that influence thousands of followers. Personally, I am a follower of the Christian faith. My worship experience is in a church of like-followers praising an omnipotent God. In preparation for this research paper, I visited a worshiping venue for a religion outside the comfort zone of my own. In anticipation for the day of my visit, I did some prior research to a get a bit of background knowledge on my venue of choice. After some research and deliberation on a particular religion and venue to attend, I chose the Wat Buddharangsi of Miami: a Theravada Thai Buddhist Temple. Theravada Buddhism is a type of Buddhism that places emphasis on human pain in regards to God’s permit of evil on Earth. It is summarized by the Four Noble Truths that are based on the acknowledgment of suffering, its cause, and how we overcome this law of life (Livingston 246). Many of the practices of this religion include meditation. This alone peaked my interest because I see meditation being beneficial for not only religion, and not just specific to Buddhism, but useful for everyday life. Solidarity and peace gives you the opportunity to not only affirm your thoughts and beliefs, but also gives you a chance to focus on self-control. From the information I have gathered thus far, I could tell it would be an amazing learning experience that I wouldn’t regret.

There have been many scholars that have had different views on rituals and why people partake in them. One of the most renowned English Functionalist had the idea of rituals being performed because of a psychological reason. Bronislaw Malinowski proposed that humans participated in rituals whenever they were in danger. He suggested that rituals were performed as a mean to help people deal with anxiety. Bronislaw Malinowski was lead to believe that uneducated cultures did not understand how to cope with everyday problems so they performed rituals instead.

On April 23, 2016, my World Religions class at Rock Valley College took an all day trip visiting several different places of worship. We visited a Muslim temple, Sikhism temple, Hindu Temple, and ended our trip at a Zoroastrian Temple. As a born-again Christian, visiting several different places of worship was quite an experience in itself. I challenged myself to go into this trip with an opened mind- not to convert to them but to challenge myself not pass judgement. At each and every temple we visited, we were welcomed and warmly received. They were very eager to share their beliefs and traditions of their faiths with us. In every temple’s worship room, we removed our shoes. For each temple we visited, I had very different first impressions.

From my understanding, a ritual is something that occurs more than once and has a meaning behind it. For example, a prayer. A more basic example could be brushing your teeth every morning after you wake up. Rituals are used both by humans and animals. Animals often have mating rituals. Humans have been performing rituals since the earliest of times for a variety of reasons. In the Stone Age, rituals could have been used to communicate with gods or dead ancestors. They could also have been used to mark different times of the year. For example, the different seasons. Rituals were a form of symbolic activity. Some rituals even involved masks or other carvings. Perhaps there was even a ritual for making a carving.

During this class, Ministry, Culture, and Contextual Analysis we were instructed to observe a faith tradition unlike our own, to expose ourselves to a cross culture awareness and experience, and interpret what we observe.

As we look at different religions, we can observe the different lengths of time dedicated to rituals. Some might last days and involve total community participation, but others might only last a few seconds and be done privately by a single individual. Some of the most known rituals that are part of specific world religions include things like, gesturing the sign the cross, saying grace before a meal, but also big events like the Muslim month of fasting or the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca. However every religion has their own rituals and even if some might appear to be identical, they most likely will have a different meaning attacked to them. An example would be communion; even though the ritual might look the same in both the Protestant and Catholic Church, the meaning and belief behind it is completely different. The Protestants believe that the use of bread and wine are just a symbolic representation of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, but Catholics believe that through the Holly Spirit they actually become the real thing. It seams to me that through out the years and especially today, in western countries more than anywhere else, most people that belong to a religion don't take rituals as seriously as they should. That might be because of a lack of focus, which I think is completely understandable due to all the

When we humans think of rituals, we often resort to the primitive, voodoo, magic stereotype that follows the term ritual. However, my personal ritual does not include hand-made dolls with pins in their back or belief in a higher magical being. My family and I partake in the years old tradition, of going to Nights Beach on the side of Lake Erie and staying for a weekend. This ritual of ours helps us to get away from the GO - GO - GO lifestyle we all seem to get caught up in. I believe this qualifies as a ritual because socially, it reconnects my entire family on my mom side, and even a few stepsisters from my step dad's side. I have immediate family that come from Ottawa, to Etobicoke. Even my step siblings, who live as far as Alberta will come out for the weekend, to spend time