Religion is an aspect of beliefs, feelings, and practices that elaborate on the relationship between human beings and divinity (Haught, 1990). It is also the worship of a supernatural being that has controlling power over the whole universe (Barret, 2011). Christianity is a religion based on what Jesus Christ taught or his beliefs and practices which Christians follow and share with others.
This course has provoked me to look at Christianity in a whole different manner because it elaborates that most people indicate that they know what the Bible means while in actual sense, they are only giving their opinions on what the Bible says. Most people believe that their interpretations of the Bible are the most correct; otherwise, they would get a different opinion if they did not think they were mostly right (Mendieta &Van Antwerpen, 2011).
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Many people in the world have different opinions about what is right and what’s wrong, who is allowed to be a Christian and who is not. In this course, this is challenged me especially by the analogy of Jews and Gentiles. The Jews were the first to be involved in Christianity, and the Gentiles wanted to follow their religion, but they were presented with so many rules to support for their identification as faithful followers of Jesus Christ. The central question posed is who gave the Jews authority over the Gentiles? Who allowed them to set the rules as to how a Christian should behave?
The writes of the Bible wrote it because they wanted to achieve a specific goal; for example, Luke indicated that he wrote because he wanted to have an account of what happened while John wrote so he would believe in Jesus (Bell, 2006). What has challenged my opinion about Christianity is that the writers of the Bible did not write what they wanted to see they communicated in a language the world would understand. The Bible has authority because the explanation given is through symbols, images, and pictures of the cultures involved with people.
I believe that God is the Creator of the universe and this is because of the wonders of creation. For example, when you look at how the sun rises to indicate daytime and how it sets to indicate nighttime, there has to be a supernatural power behind it. Human beings never could make a day or a night (Lee & Newberg, 2005). This analogy has made me have too many questions about religion, Christianity as well as spirituality and it has helped me conclude that God is all-powerful and He has authority over creation and our lives (Rohr, 2012).
According to Berry, we have many types of diseases in the world today, and the medical industry keeps stating that education and experiment is the only way we can cure these diseases. Berry does not comprehend why people see death as a curable disease. He illustrates how puzzled he is by modern medical industry because they faithfully imitate diseases in a way that isolates us and parcels us out. In this case, it shows that the body can restore itself and live again by its powers and instincts. The body can go free of drugs and any medicinal and mechanical help (Goodman, 2015). The process of self-healing has a sense of naturalness and inevitability.
In conclusion, the body, spirit, and mind reconnected and it is easy to say that the health of any one of these elements affects the others (Smart, 2015). There is a significant connection between our beliefs and the sense of wellbeing. When an individual is involved in positive views, comfort and strength attained from religion and prayer plays a significant role in helping in the reconstruction of body health. It maintains an individual cope better with stress, death or illness.
References
Barrett, J. L. (2011). Cognitive science, religion, and theology: From human minds to divine minds . Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press.
Bell, R. (2006). Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith . Harper Collins.
Goodman, B. (2015). Wendell Berry—health is membership. Nurse education today , 35 (10), 1011-1012.
Haught, J. F. (1990). What is Religion: An Introduction ? Paulist Press.
Lee, B. Y., & Newberg, A. B. (2005). Religion and health: a review and critical analysis. Zygon® , 40 (2), 443-468.
Mendieta, E., & Van Antwerpen, J. (2011). The power of religion in the public sphere.
Rohr, R. (2012). Immortal diamond: The search for our true self . John Wiley & Sons.
Smart, N. (2015). The science of religion and the sociology of knowledge: Some methodological questions . Princeton University Press.
