Elements of Religion

Elements of Religion

There are many different ideas and beliefs involved in the elements of religion. What are religious traditions? What do these traditions say and do? How are religious traditions organized? These are all questions to the basic components of religious traditions and their relationship to the sacred. Religion will always be a big area of interest due to its impact on society.

In my own words, a religious tradition is an idea or spiritual belief that has been passed down through generations. Religious traditions differ from person to person all over the world. These days, you might notice that within your own group of friends everyone has their own opinions and revelations of how things came to be. Those opinions are more often than not different from your own. In my experience, discussing religion amongst a group of people proves to be quite difficult because a lot of people are not willing to stay open-minded. People feel so strongly about their belief system and are often absolutely adherent to its teachings. Personally, I choose to take more of a nontheism, or agnostic approach. It is not that I do not believe in a God, I just feel that it can not be proven or disproved. This has been a recent choice and discovery in my life within the past few years. I was born and raised a straight-laced Catholic just like my father’s family had been raised. Traditionally, Catholics participate in sacraments such as baptism, confirmation, penance, and the Eucharist. I grew up taking part in all of these Catholic traditions not knowing what I really felt on a personal level until much later. Everyone was raised to believe what their parents motivated them to believe so it is hard for me to hold anyone's religion against them. It's just something else in life that makes everyone unique. I understand why their thought process is where it is because that is what they know. I also believe that everyone should have a choice to follow any religion without discrimination, as stated in the Fifth Amendment. Different religious traditions include Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism and more. These traditions have their own set of beliefs and rituals. "Each of the world's religions may seem foreign to outsiders, but to an insider each represents a means by which both a particular society and creation as a whole can be understood more completely" (Toropov and Buckles, 2002, p.1).

Religious traditions say and do a lot in the world today. At times, they are the very reason for people to disagree with others in several aspects of their lives. If two people fall in love and one is Jewish and the other Muslim, that says a lot. Traditionally, that marriage would never happen. Some traditions even disagree within themselves. Judaism, for example, has three major stands. There is the Orthodox Jew, the Conservative Jew, and the Reformed Jew. The Orthodox Jew believes