Rel 330 - Religious Beliefs

Religious Belief System

REL/330

Religious Belief System

A belief system is a system that is an opinion which determines how we interact with every aspect of out life. Your belief is something that is stored deep into your subconscious mind that will either give you the drive you need to succeed or tell you that it is ok to fail. Religion is a particular type of belief system, but not all belief systems are religion. Telling the difference between religious from non-religious belief systems can be easy at times, but can be difficult as well. A belief system can cover a variety of situations that may overlap with some religions. There can be a belief system that feels you should give any monies you can spare to support the particular entity ad everyone knows that is in common with Christianity that fully believes in tithing. (Cline, 2006)

The beliefs that I have make up a religious belief system because I was taught from the bible since I can remember. I am from the typical southern Baptist environment. My family would rise every Sunday morning and walk to the local church to worship, praise God, and fork over all the money we could afford. I never really understood why we gave what little we could spare to a church where everyone appeared to have some much more than my family possessed. I thought it was some kind of scam because the man preaching to use wore fancy jewelry and wore fancy clothes. I would see people jumping around, screaming strange phrases and knocking things over in the church. I was an ignorant child at the time and witnessing this type of behavior was comical to me and I would laugh whenever I could. My mother or any other adult would scold me for doing so but it was never explained to me that that was. I was taught to never question the bible. The bible is perfect and from God so questioning it was wrong and since I was a child I was not supposed to say anything. The belief system was one that I found many flaws. I would see people doing things that they told me not to do when I was in church. I was not aware that the church was just a place that was viewed sacred on Sunday but was filled with corruption on every other day. With age, I do realize that religion and belief systems are viewed differently by every person in the world. What I get out of my church and religious belief is different from any other person attending the same church. The basic commandments were common factors of the system but all of the grey areas were exploited and from what I can see still remains to be exploited. (Canning, 2006)

I was born into a life of poverty without a presence of a stable family environment or steady income for that matter. My mother did all that she could to ensure my siblings had all that we needed. She could not come through all of the time but we were strong enough to know that our mother was working hard to provide for her family. She was not a very religious person but she did teach us the basic understanding that we should do all that we could to always do the right thing. I learned that telling the truth all the times was noble but not wise in my environment. I witnessed numerous crimes in my neighborhood but when asked by an authority figure I knew the consequences of stating what I saw and learning to conveniently lie was a trick of the trade of living in my neighborhood. We did eventually move from that neighborhood and I was able to live in areas that had a more refined environment and the lessons my mother taught me could be used and I could be a regular child in a regular environment vice the slums of my beginnings.

Some benefits and disadvantages of having a particular belief system can be the fact that we are all from different paces and I think that beliefs are based on where you are from. People that live in densely populations live by a different system than the people that live in suburbs. This particular example is not based on a religious viewpoint but it has religious outcomes because by not adhering to the strict rules can have back lashes that are life threatening and death can be eminent. The "code of the streets" is not widely discussed due to its sensitive nature. No one is going to sit down and tell the way of life in these areas. Secrets are kept to preserve the enter workings of the streets. It is similar to the dark alleys you read about in novels and newspaper articles. The benefit to knowing the "code of the streets" is that you can survive in the urban areas without having to deal with the incidents some may encounter when they do