My Experiences

This last assignment was the hardest for me out of the three papers we wrote throughout the semester. All this religious talk made me question my own religious ideas and values. Change is a very hard thing for me to grasp, and these essays really had me thinking that I should change the way I view the world. The experience I had while reading the Thurman essay was negative and I wanted to throw the book in his face. The Abram essay on the other hand is really what made me think otherwise. He just had a gentler way of expressing the ideas of a more peaceful and meaningful lifestyle. My first reaction to Baraka was anger. I was really upset about what they were doing to the chicks. I'm not an animal rights activist, I just don't like to watch people doing mean things to helpless animals. But after Micaela mentioned how the chicks were being compared to the humans going through the turn style, I realized that the whole movie was just one connection after another. I noticed there was lots of rituals going on within many cultures. Ya know like those guys chanting and shouting and then those other people jumping and other people painting themselves and singing in groups. In my past I really haven't been very religious or spiritual and I think that is a direct connection to my negative outlook of the world. I feel like this assignment and more specifically the Abram reading has opened my eyes to a more sententious way of living.

This site was very helpful to me by supplying tons of articles on Buddhism. It especially helped me with the concept on finding ones self (enlightenment). Check it out.

http://www.lib.montana.edu/reserves/rels202/

3 Responses

1) I didn't realize that view of the two parallel worlds. Its a good point, especially when it switches from a semi-third world country to a big city or high class scene.

2) The wordless part of the movie could have been a negative but i agree that the images, shots, and scenes made it worth it.

3) Thats an interesting point to connect the movie to Abram. All the different culture and scenes did make me think of religion and all the contrasts.

I think it was a very good wordless documentary of the worlds culture. What I got out of it was that it left everything open for you to think and come up with whatever you want it to mean. It was pretty much a bunch of random scenes of the culture from around the world. The whole movie I would just observe and see where each scene and image would take my mind. It brought out a lot of memories for me. It helped my paper by giving me a bunch of cultural examples to reference as examples.

Buddhism

The most interesting thing that i have read about Buddhism is their views on abortion they believe in rebirth so they consider you a killer if you meet there requirement that define you a killer these requirements are

From website:

• "the thing killed must be a living being"
• "you, the killer, must know or be aware that it is a living being"
• "you must have the intention to kill it"
• "there must be an effort to kill"
• "the being must be killed as the result"

these views are very interesting but not all Buddhist have them some still believe it be a choice.

Iranian Blog

When i listened to the Iranian Radio the two that i found the most interesting were the ones about the election and the Iranian oil. When they were telling us about the election the things that i thought were interesting here how the leaders got appointed which is through the Counsel of Experts then it has to be approved through the 12 Members of Guardians. I also thought it was kinda interesting that the men and women were both able to vote a fact i didn't know before and they are able to vote when they are only 15.
The info on the Iranian oil i thought was very interesting because i had no idea that they had 10% of all the oil know to man. Even though they can not do much with it because they don't have the money to invest in oil sanctions. They also have to import more than half of the oil they use. Wow how crazy is that.

Baraka Film

I thought that this film was interresting and found it unique in the sense of how portrayed a world with two parallels. It showed how one society was comparable to another and these kinds of comparisons can be found all over the world. I also liked the movie bescause it showed many different aspects of the world that are not well known. Altough there were not many words in the film, you were able to see what the film makers wanted to get across to their audience.