.... and choose to pray on my own before tests, and at other times, but I strongly feel that people with other beliefs should not be subjected to my, or even the majority of the class's beliefs. In America, it is a right of the people to choose their belief, or lack there of, and we should learn to respect and honor that. I personally agree with the first two statements. The picture of Jesus should not be aloud because Jesus Christ is mainly a Christian icon. I also believe that a moment of silent meditation is much more appropriate than a prayer, Therefore I think the people .....

.... (Sudo, 4)." However, upon examination, it is not fair to make the generalization that Islam is a religion of violence, and one notices when looking at world religion on a whole, one finds that Islam was no more violent than any other religion. In fact, not only is Islam not a fundamentally violent philosophy, but we can also see that many other religions normally considered "non-violent," such as Christianity or Hinduism, have been spread through bloody conquest. Thus, in searching for a universal constant of history, we ought not fall into the "fallacy of abstra .....

.... spirits and evil demons into one’s head. The movie "The Exorcist" was a fictional horror movie based on a young girl being possessed by the devil, coincides with the 11th century practice of Voodoo. As in the movie, when Voodoo was performed the victim would go into convolutions and lose control of movement. They would start to sway, stagger, tremble, pant, sweat, and act wildly. After the spirit would leave the body, they would have no memory of the demon, as did the child in "The Exorcist". A familiar phrase you might recognize is Abracadabra. This is often heard in m .....

.... ... and probably didn't happen as Mark describes. This brings us to Mark's writing style. Mark seems to "tack-on" sentences to Jesus' teachings to make them more "Christian." This really changes the meaning more than any other tactic! Who knows what Mark may have edited-out to accomplish what he wanted to impress upon his readers? In this, he tries to interpret the meaning of Jesus' actions ... and does this in a misleading way. For example: Mark 2:19, Jesus regarding Fasting. Jesus makes a strong statement against importance to fasting, but Mark (in 2:20) tags .....

.... with prayer. There are different types of prayer. From quiet contemplation to complete ectasy or chaos in my opinion. Religious orders, specifically, differentiate from contemplative cloistered to active, or a little of both. Once I visited a different church with a friend and I found it incredibly hard to accept the way born again christians prayed so freely and openly compared to quiet contemplation, in a contemplative cloistered monastery with Benedictine Nuns. I questioned how one could really pray with so much yelling, crying and loud music, especially when I wa .....

.... was new to Buddhism. More recently in 1930 Tsunesaburo Makiguchi founded the modern sect of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism. Nichiren sects include the politically powerful Soka Gakkai Lay religious organization, but they have a much smaller following than that of the true land sects, which across with Nichiren as pat of the popular Faith movement of the Kamakura era. The people of this religion believe that chanting of Mantra, a Japanese phrase of devotion from the law of Karma or the law of the Lotus Sutra. Many Buddhist consider this Religion to be a cult because the principle .....

.... of ultimate good-ness and of ultimate reality. St. Anselm of Canterbury developed what we have learned to be the ontological argument. He began his argument by saying that even a fool can grasp or understand the concept of “a being than of which nothing greater can be conceived.” He continues to state that a fool would say that the concept of this being’s existence is only in his mind and in the mind of others but not in reality. However he also admits to the possibility of this being existing in reality. Whatever is understood by the fool is argued that than which nothing is .....

.... because here if one possesses the desire and motivation a person can be whatever they wish. In the 1700’s, many immigrants came to the New World in the search of this freedom. One of these groups, the Puritans, came in the hope of founding an order composed of pure and untainted Christians. Even today many immigrants, both legal and illegal, come to the United States with the hope of escaping the oppression found in many parts of the world. Puritanism as a whole was a society of strict, exclusive, conformists who believed they had a predestined path in life. Puritan .....