{"id":3814,"date":"2010-09-21T11:43:31","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T15:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2010-09-21T11:43:31","modified_gmt":"2010-09-21T15:43:31","slug":"is-this-really-a-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2010\/09\/is-this-really-a-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Is This Really a Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve really enjoyed the religion component to this course.\u00a0 Although I don\u2019t believe in organized religion, I\u2019ve never dismissed knowledge about other religious customs and beliefs.\u00a0 However, when visiting famous sites like The Westminster Abbey and St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, which do attract large masses of tourists, I felt as if I was in a museum rather than a place of worship. Westminster Abbey did have the occasional moments of silence for visitors to remember that it was a religious establishment, however I still didn\u2019t really feel the connection.\u00a0 While I do understand that of course, these beautifully crafted structures are world renowned, if I was religious I would feel a little uncomfortable with a church being more of an attraction than anything else.\u00a0 Visiting St. Paul\u2019s and Westminster did not provide me with any religious education however, when I visited Bath Abbey they did hand out pamphlets that highlighted the importance of God in our lives and bible scriptures, which I appreciated and thought that the other establishments could have done the same.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My favorite visits were to the Hindu mandir and the Islamic mosque because I really gained valuable knowledge.\u00a0 Although the mandir also seemed like a tourist attraction, in addition to showing off the intricate details of their temple, they also made efforts to teach the public about their beliefs with providing the exhibition on Hinduism. The mosque wasn\u2019t touristy, but our guide was helpful in explaining his religion and did his best to make connections between what we already knew and contrasted his views to some of our own religions.\u00a0 What I enjoyed hearing about the most was how involved these establishments were in their communities.\u00a0 I think it is great that they participate with people of other faith to reach out and service the community. The mosque\u2019s involvement in TELCO<\/a> (The East London Communities Organization), which has a commitment to \u201cworking together for common good and changing the way politics happen in London\u201d, was one of the many ways that they contributed to their neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I found the guide of the mosque to be the most interesting out of all of our visits because he shared something that I have never a representative of any religion say; he admitted that his people suffered from a lack of knowledge about other people\u2019s faith.\u00a0 He shared that there are some people who think they know all there is to know and don\u2019t seek additional knowledge and in his opinion this contributes greatly to the barrier between the Islamic people and the rest of the world.\u00a0 His honesty was admirable and I strongly agreed with him.\u00a0 Something as small as seeking basic understanding of other peoples and religions really can go as far as changing the world one day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve really enjoyed the religion component to this course.\u00a0 Although I don\u2019t believe in organized religion, I\u2019ve never dismissed knowledge about other religious customs and beliefs.\u00a0 However, when visiting famous sites like The Westminster Abbey and St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, which do attract large masses of tourists, I felt as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6677],"tags":[977,1009,15200,15201,969,934],"class_list":["post-3814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-melissa","tag-bath-abbey","tag-church","tag-hindu-mandir","tag-islamic-mosque","tag-st-pauls-cathedral","tag-westminster-abbey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}