Unit 3 questions

C1)      What are some of the similarities between sports and religion in contemporary America?

         Their are a lot of similarities between sports and religion in America. One similarity is that they are both huge parts of American culture and people are usually into sports and religion or not, meaning that a lot of people care about sports and religion, and a lot of people don't. Both sides compete for fans or followers. trying to get people to join their side. To some people sports are life and that's all they put their time into. just as some people put most of their lives towards religion. When both groups meet, such as at a sport's game or Sunday mass, they meet to share similar interest.

C3)      Discuss one American television series that communicates moral messages (of how Americans are supposed to behave, what are they supposed to value, what happens to them if they refuse to adhere to these ways of acting and valuing, how they can return to a righteous path after they have strayed, etc.).

          The show that I chose to watch was CSI, it is a show that is about the justice side of criminal acts, showing how criminals are caught and punished. Throughout the show they  find out who the criminal is through little to no evidence at all. The moral message of this television show is that if you do something wrong you are going to end up getting caught. Sometimes in the show they show what the life of a criminal is like, showing the viewer that the life of a criminal is usually negative and bad.

C5) Visit the site titled This Far by Faith http://www.pbs.org.thisfarbyfaith/

Choose a historical period, read about the period and some of the people discussed in the site form that period and share the results.

     Martin Luther Kind focused on a campaign of economic justice and criticized Vietnamese War. However, he was killed in 1968. After his death, Robert. F. Kennedy. also focused on economic justice, but he was killed only four months after he addressed his concerns about churches for black people. As a result, it seemed really hard to keep churched for black people. However, Cone claimed in his book that black people had power to destroy the white mainstream American culture, and his book inspired a lot of young black poachers.
     However, in addition to drug uses of black people, black people’s churches were criticized because of HIV or AIDS. President Bill Clinton tried investigating the decline of the number of black people who came to church. He found that fifty percent of black people came to church in 1970, but only 40 percent of them did after the spread of HIV or AIDS. By the end of 1990, Bolm in Gilead, which was a nonprofit organization for black people, decided to embrace black people who had HIV or AIDS and provide HIV education and support network as a part of their service. During 1999, 5,000 churches participated in HIV education and supporting network. Eventually, the number of black people who had HIV or AIDS declined rapidly.

C7) Religions around the world share several characteristics. In what ways going to college in America is like learning and experiencing a religion?

     All religions around the world share one characteristic. They all have beliefs and practices in orientation toward the sacred. For example, Buddha is the God in Buddhism, Jesus is the God in Christianity, and Muhammad is the God in Islam. People in all religions worship their own gods. Also, some religions share some characteristic. For example, Buddhism and Hinduism share their view of world. Both of them focus on a belief in rebirth.

     I had lived in Japan for 21 years until I came to study in the U.S. Most Japanese people do not believe in religions. Also, we do not talk or learn about religions at all, so we are not familiar with them.
     On the other hand, in the U.S. there are many people who believe in religions such as Christianity or Islam. One thing that surprised me in the U.S. is that I was asked for a permission to be in the picture in an event of Bellevue College. This is because people who believe in some religions are not supposed to be in a picture because of their religions. Another thing that was surprising to me was that some people wear religious clothes in school. I had never seen that kind of clothes before in Japan, and I did not think that religious people would be not that religious. That is why seeing people wearing religious clothes surprised me. In addition, many lectures cover religious thing such as prejudice and discrimination. I had never learned them in Japan, because there are few people who believe in religions. Thus, I think that these are how going to college in America is like learning and experiencing religions.