Ethan+Reese

Ethan Reese Copper


 * // Christian and Judaism Beliefs on Religion And Slavery //**


 * // Our mission statement //**

Over the next week you will be researching for and creating a document that will **inform the public about a specific issue relating to religion.** You will need to choose a specific focus that allows you to focus on ** multiple religions ** and investigate both **primary and secondary sources**. Overall your project must include sacred texts and multiple interpretations of these sources. You may use sources that we have studied together in class but must also locate sources of your own. As you find sources you must complete Source Analysis Sheets to document your findings. You are most likely to succeed on this project if you do not include your own religion but instead investigate other religions.


 * // “Fundamentals and extremists religious views on slavery” //**


 * // “By taking the responsibility for life's hardships from our own shoulders and putting it onto some Higher Power, humanity's misfortunes became easier to accept. //****// "It's not our fault." became the haunting cry of humanity that echoed down through the millennia!” //**

This is a Quote from a Christian man saying how religion is used to take sadness or wrong doings on a higher power. In the bible there are many interpretations of slavery and if it is wrong or not, in a later quote in this brochure it talks more in depth about the second interpretation of the bible. Fundamental Christians take on interpretation the first that all men and women are created equal and that slavery is a disgrace and if ever started should be abolished. Of course back when it was accepted to be racist most Christians owned slave what was considered a fundamental Christian back than. The fundamental and extremist perspectives of any religion change depending on what the culture accepts in that point of time. Current fundamentalists Christians interpret the bible as saying that every person in gods eyes have the right to freedom and that can not be taken from anyone. The fundamentalists believe that this quote has no meaning because if one lives the virtuous and great life than theirs no need to put their wrong doings on their god.


 * // “One of the main reasons why masters did not want their slaves to become Christians involved the Bible. They feared that slaves might interpret the teachings of Jesus Christ as being in favor of equality. This was one of the main reasons why most plantation owners did what they could to stop their slaves from learning to read.” //**

This is an example of extremist views on the Christians interpretation of the bible about how the bible is interpreted as freedom for all and the extremists kept people uneducated and made them live in fear to keep them away from interpreting the bible as freedom. The extremists see the bible as an interpretation that non-Christians are unequal and because blacks were not allowed to be Christians they were considered unequal and ok to be enslaved. A belief supported by itself, and an self fulfilling prophecy because they weren’t Christians they were treated bad. But since they couldn’t have the protection Christianity offered it was ok to keep blacks enslaved.


 * // "All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them," //**

This quotes is from the torah and says treat people, as you wanted to be treated, this is interpreted in two different ways. The fundamentalist Jews see this as saying be nice to all people and creatures that could treat you the same way meaning, that they don’t want them to enslave people of other cultures and races. But just like any religion there are extremists who say that Jews were enslaved and how they see this as saying that they are also allowed to enslave cultures that are less than they are. Not many Jews feel this way but there are some, which really disappoints me. For a culture that is so keen on letting go of worldly items and that they should forgive the wrong doing of others. But this quote is meant to be interpreted, in the end all of these religions have at least one person who sees slavery as an acceptable thing to do.

Work Citations

Blight, David. "Religion in Slavery."

Africans in America PBS, 21 Jan 2001. Web. 2 Nov 2011. < [] >.

Simkin, John. "Spartacus Educational."

Spartacus Educational European History E-Learning project, 2003. Web. 2 Nov 2011. < [] >.

Freeman, Tzvi. "Jewish Biliefs." //Torah, Slavery and Jews//. Freeman Flies, 30 jan 2011. Web. 9 Nov 2011.

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Reflection On Religion In this unit one of the things I learned was about how certain religions think of the after life, and how their culture they live in impacts the way the govern or carry themselves as a religion. One other thing I learned in this unit is how not all stereotypes are true and that religions and cultures will try to make other cultures or religions look bad or evil. This is not true as I learned in this unit I saw the real Muslims, The real Jews, The real christians and none of them have a really good history or really bad history.

I chose this topic because im curios about how leaders or normal people can do crazy things like genecide or slavery because "god" told them to. Slavery has been around just as long as religion has and they walk hand in hand in the torah and the bible their are references to slavery and how it can be interpreted as good or bad. I also learned that the fundamentalist and extremists of both religions have switched depending on what the social norm is at the time.

The final product is something I feel good about although some of the paragraphs are lengthier than others, their was a reason for most of the unequal amount of time spent or the overall look. I wanted the brochure to look as if it was a two sided brochure that proved the point that religion and slavery walks hand in hand with each other. Which I accomplished, I spent more time on the Christian aspect of the brochure because I had more knowledge and understanding of that religion but I didn't ignore Judaism I gave it a couple paragraphs. Overall the knowledge was their for christianity and was difficult for me to understand Judiasm beliefs.