Growing up, I adore Star Wars and have always been a huge fan of the franchise since I was a child. It was very interesting to discover that many individuals actually consider the Force from the franchise to be a religion which was something I would never think could be…

In lesson 4.4 which focuses on Islamophobia and the grounds that it was built from, I further realized just how biased our contemporary America is. I found it particularly interesting in Liz Bucar’s article that face masks were deemed as negative and those who wore them were scorned because it…

While engaging in this lesson, my understanding of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was further increased and I realized how discrimination specifically against Jews was still relevant today. I have always known about the KKK and understood that they were a hate group that focused on White American supremacy with…

Prior to this lesson, I understood that religious freedom was a principle that protected people’s right to live, speak, and act according to their own beliefs peacefully in public and private; however, not all individuals are given this equal opportunity. Specifically, in America “religious freedom” is limited to and oppressed…

Before this lesson, my understanding of the word ‘intolerance’ was its basic definition of unwillingness to accept certain views, beliefs, or behavior that is different from an individual’s own, but in the academic study of religion, not only does it hold true but it also bears a more extensive significance…

When thinking of ‘class,’ I have always defined it as the systematic order of a society where the people are divided because of their economic standing, a notion that we have created to categorize people based on how we perceive others solely on their status. In the academic study of…

When I hear the term ‘gender,’ I innately assume we are talking about the human biology of being female or male. However, ‘gender’ is much more in-depth than just being female or male. It is the range of characteristics between masculinity and femininity with reference to the social construct and…

Prior to this lesson, I believed race to be only a concept that categorized different people into divisions of humankind that all have a certain physical characteristic. In this lesson, I come to realize that race is not just a biological perspective; however, it closely ties into power in the…

Prior to this lesson, I did not really think much of the word ‘space’ and I had no idea that it could possibly possess such a profound definition in the academic study of religions. In the reading provided, Tweed introduces five ways to analyze space and how it can work…