VII Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся
Старт в науке
The importance of religion in human life, in the development of culture and the whole society
Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя III степени
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Introduction
All people believe in one thing or another. Some people think that the physical world is self-contained and can be perfectly well understood with the help of science, these people consider themselves to be atheists or non-believers. Others will argue with them and confirm that they believe in supernatural, when the world cannot be explained scientifically is as real as anything. This way, a huge number of people all over the world find in their religions answers to the most difficult questions.
In truth, very few people touch upon the topic of religion and its importance in our world. I decided that it would be very interesting for me to work on this topic and I was not mistaken. Having started my project, I realized that it is very difficult to find useful information on this topic; however, using various sources I was able to learn a lot of new things.
Working on the project, I learned a lot about different religions. And I strongly sure that the main thing is to live all religions in peace and harmony, to understand each other. I believe, it is not important what religion you are, it is important to wake up and look at the kind blue sky.
So, my Project goal is to examine the question of the importance of religion in human life, in the development of culture and the whole society.
Hypothesis: religion plays really important role in all spheres of our life and its influence is great.
The object of the exploration is religion.
The following tasks were set:
To understand what religion is and elicit the main feature of the religion.
To answer the question why religion has appeared.
To find out the information about universal religions.
To compare universal religions.
To understand the main functions of religion.
To collect the information about the role of religion by survey.
Methods of the research work: theoretical analysis, survey.
Chapter 1. The term «religion»
What is a religion? Its main signs
So, what is religion? It is the world outlook, view of life and the human behavior on the basis of belief in existence of supernatural sphere. It is a special form of reality. Religion is a human aspiration for direct related with the universal basis of the world.
The definition of religion suggests that religion cannot exist without belief in supernatural and mysticism. Also, the idea of creationism, according to which the whole world was created by God, is a sign of religion. In fact, religion cannot exist without religion consciousness, religion cult and religion relationships.
The history of the development of the religion
The development of the religion has a long and multidimensional history. As far as I know, the basis of it is persistent effort of people to eke out drawbacks and vises of the earth life by the belief in the opportunity of their correcting and compensation by marvelous form.
Primitive religious beliefs have already appeared in primitive time. Then they have been constantly changing and complicating. There are three stages of religion development: tribal religions, national religions and then world's religions.
To continue, it is not a secret that exactly religion was the reason of various wars throughout history. For instance, religion wars in Europe in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, armed clash between Protestants and Catholics. The cause of these wars was the religion reform and religious differences.
Nowadays, some countries try to unite different religions into one or to ban religions altogether to avoid religious conflicts. However, this method cannot be successful, because it will be discrimination against other beliefs. Moreover, people will always fight for their beliefs, so it will only create a conflict. I agree with the statement of Benjamin Franklin who once confirmed, «Many have quarreled about religion that never practiced it.» After analyzing the interrelations within different countries, I was once again determined that people should respect other religions and live in peace with each other. For example, there are more than one hundred religions in India, but they all live in harmony and mutual understanding.
Chapter 2. World's Major Religions
The main information about the world's major religions
A huge number of people all over the world profess the world's major religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism.
According to the statistic (appendix 1) Christianity has about 2.2 billion followers, Islam is followed by over a thousand million followers, Judaism has only about 12 million followers and Buddhism is followed by 350 million Buddhists worldwide.
Christianity is the world's biggest religion and it is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ who is the founder of Christianity. Jesus was a Jew who was born in Bethlehem; he came to earth to teach about love and fellowship. He was crucified by Romans and then rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples to show everyone that there is another life after death. Christians believe that there is one God.
Islam is the second most popular religion in the world and it was revealed to humanity by Muhammad, a holy man born in Mecca, to whom God told many important things. Muslims, those who follow Islam, believe that there is only one God called Allah.
Judaism is the oldest of the world's four great religions and is around 3500 years old. The founder of Judaism is Abraham, Jews see him as a symbol of trusting and obeying God. Moses is also an important figure of Judaism as he gave the Jews freedom from slavery in Egypt. Moses protected the Jews from the anger of God and negotiated with God on their behalf. As for Jews, they also believe in a single God who created the universe.
Buddhism is based on the teaching of the Buddha and it is a religion about suffering and need to get rid of it. The founder of Buddhism is Siddhartha Gautama. He was born into a royal family, where he had everything he wanted. One day he saw what real life was like and after that he decided to become a homeless holy man. He found the path to Nirvana, the most enlightened, blissful state one can achieve, a state without suffering. Buddhism is not centred on the relationship between humanity and God. Moreover, Buddhists believe that there is a cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth that this goes on and on. But if a person can gain Enlightenment, they can break out of this cycle and go to Nirvana.
The similarities of the world's major religions
The first similarity of the world's major religions is that all of them have the Holy Book. The Christian Holy Book is the Bible, which is divided into the Old and New Testaments. It is interesting to know, that the parts of the writing contained in the Old Testament are also sacred to Jewish and Muslim people. The Holy Book of Islam is the Koran, translated as "the word of God". The Torah is the Jewish Holy Book, which contains the laws of God. The Holy Book of Buddhism is the Tripitaka.
The second similarity is that Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists have special places of worship. The Christian place of worship is a Church, also a Chapel and a Cathedral. They are often built in the shape of a cross with the altar facing east towards the rising sun. Churches are usually beautifully decorated. Christian worship involves praising God in music, speech, readings from scripture. As for Muslims, their building for worship is called a mosque. Very often mosques have a domed roof with a tall tower called a minaret, from which Muslims are called to prayer. Mosques have bare walls and very little furniture. Jews worship in synagogues. Buddhists worship at home or at a temple. They may sit on the floor barefoot facing an image of Buddha and chanting. All Buddhist temples contain an image of a statue of Buddha.
To my mind, the third similarity is that the world's major religions have their own festivals. As for Christians, their most important festivals are Christmas, Easter and Lent.The main Muslim Festival is Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic Lunar calendar. During it all Muslims across the world do not eat during the hours of daylight. The main Jewish Festival is Passover. It is the time when Jewish people remember how they left Egypt. It is a major eight-day festival. Wesak is the main Buddhists festival, it is the birthday of Siddhartha Gautama.
By the way, the world's major religions have a tradition of pilgrimage- journeying to some holy place as a religious duty. Such places are Bethlehem, Mecca, Jerusalem and Mount Senai.
To tell the truth, Jerusalem is a city of Israel, which is of great importance to Christians, Jews and Muslims. It has many important places for all these religions, such as the Mount of Olives, he Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock, an ancient and very holy Muslim building.
As for me, the world's major religions are united by interethnic character, preaching the equality of all people and classes and popularity around the world.
Chapter 3.
The role of the religion
Conducting a survey for students of my school about what role religion plays for them (appendix 2), I would like to confirm that religion fulfills four main functions. The first of them is the world outlook function, it means that religion creates views, assessments and norms that define understanding by human the world and his place in it. The second one is the normative function as religion regulates social relationships, behavior believers in society, family and other spheres through the concept of sin and the system of bans and punishments. I believe that the compensatory function is also really important, it psychologically offsets limitation, weakness and human dependence of objective existence conditions. Also, this function relieves stress and anxious feeling at individual level. The last but not the least function is the communicative one. It provides communication between believers and God or among religious organizations of different denominations.
Religion had a huge impact on the development of the culture of society. She inspired artists and architects, musicians and writers. Our culture would be poorer without the use of religious images.
Conclusion
To sum it up, religion plays really important role in our life. It holds the nation together, creates moral values, regular spiritual life of society. In my opinion, religion promotes the development of writing, typography, art and culture itself. Moreover, it realizes handing out cultural heritage from generation to generation. It always nourished the spiritual culture of the world. Besides, religions are guardians of high moral values, among which may be called tolerance, mercy, justice. It teaches people the right moral conduct based on love, reverence, sincerity and wisdom. Religion has always been and will always be a barrier against evil and an opposition to hatred.
I would like to say that our beliefs are as varied as we are, so a civilized modern man treats other people's beliefs with respect, rejecting only those, which are immoral or lead to illegal action. Talking with my classmates, I understand that there are different religions in my class. Christians, Muslims, Jews and others study, grow up and develop together. I believe it is really great, on this basis, children learn to be tolerant towards others.
This way, the theme of religion is really urgent problem in the modern world, because it has a huge impact on the whole society. Religion can bring together millions of people and vice versa it can divide them. However, it is important to note that there is always a choice, and each person can be tolerant to others. I am absolutely convinced that all religions are connected to each other, that all of them make our life kinder and give us new cultural values. As Frederick II once noted, «All religions must be tolerated, for every man must get to heaven in his own way.» I strongly believe that religious differences are not a cause for disagreement in society. On the contrary, we should be friends and share our cultural knowledge with others. So, we should live in peace, love everything that surrounds us and believe in a bright and pure world together, and religion will be always with us and will help in a difficult minute.
Literature
1. Английский язык. 10 класс: учеб. для образоват. организаций: углубл. уровень/ О.В. Афанасьева, И.В. Михеева.- 2-е изд.,- М.Просвещение, 2016.-222 с.
2. Обществознание. 10 класс: учеб., для общеобразоват. организаций: базовый уровень/ [Л.Н.Боголюбов, Ю.А.Аверьянов, А.В. Белявский и др.]; под ред. Л.Н.Боголюбова [и др.]; Рос. акад. наук, Рос. акад. Образования, изд-во «Просвещение». - М.: Просвещение, 2014.- 350с.
3.Основы духовно-нравственной культуры народов России: 5 класс: учебник для общеобразовательных организаций/ Н.Ф.Виноградова, В.И.Власенко, А.В.Поляков- 3-у изд., стереотип.- М.: Вентана-Граф, 2018-160с.
Internet resources:
1. https://info.wikireading.ru/87040
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
|
What role does religion play for you? |
% of people responding so |
|
Helps me to understand myself |
5% |
|
It keeps and develops the culture of the society |
20% |
|
Religion shows people the right and moral way of life |
30% |
|
It gives a hope for a bright present and future |
15% |
|
regulates social relationships |
30% |
6