Students expand religious horizons

“Religion 101,” held in Murray-Dodge Hall, was designed to allow students who were previously unfamiliar with aspects of different religions to talk with RLC fellows.

Nine beliefs were explained for five minutes each after the attendees were seated with a plateful of kosher Chinese food. Fellows from different faiths spoke about global perceptions and their own perspectives about their own religion, its history, information about its founder, its central tenets and its sacred texts.

“The idea first came up during the RLC annual retreat, when we were deciding how to extend our own conversations to others,” Lalwani said. RLC fellows wanted to ensure that learning about religions was a personal experience, he added.

Initial descriptions helped inform questions that were later asked by audience members. Montoya explained that her and Lalwani’s hope was that, if the RLC fellows could not formulate an answer, “someone in the audience will.”

“Some of us have been in religious education since we were 5 years old,” Montoya said. She noted that while some take a basic understanding of world religions for granted, many know less about specific beliefs and practices.

Some fellows discussed the relatively unknown Sikh and Baha’i faiths, which are 500 and 160 years old, respectively. Ranjit Chima ’08 explained the significance of the five items all Sikhs carry with them at all times. “The kirpan is meant to be a real sword, but given the geopolitical climate… ,” he said, trailing off with a smile as he pointed to the sword-shaped pendant around his neck.

Jon Gandomi GS explained that the Baha’i faith emphasizes holding beliefs that are relevant to contemporary world issues. He noted that the Baha’i religion advocates the idea of the human race as one family, the elimination of prejudice and the harmony between science and religion.

Fellows who spoke about some of the lesser-known Southeast Asian faiths — including Sikhism and Jainism — described the distinctions between these religions. They said that many people see these faiths as derivatives of more widespread religions. For instance, many just view Sikhism as a blend of Islam and Hinduism, Chima said.

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Nikhil Bumb ’08 discussed the different aspects of Jainism at the forum.“[Jains] don’t have a philosophy of a God beyond a central feeling we’re all trying to aspire to,” he said. Jains advocate vegetarianism, non-violence and an outlook open to other perspectives, he added.

Ben Farkas ’09 described himself as a non-religious individual who believes in an essence rather than a god. He said that non-religious belief systems often include tenets regarding a natural human instinct for morality. Farkas described this belief system as a compass that points in the same direction in every human, though not all humans follow that direction.

During the question-and-answer session, fellows representing Hinduism, Judaism and Islam talked about the similarities and differences of their beliefs regarding death. Lalwani explained that the concept of reincarnation in Hinduism “is not like a grand math equation,” referring to the question of how populations can grow if everyone returns in a new life after death.

Ben Herzberg ’10 and Zvi Smith ’09 talked about the various interpretations of “heaven” in Judaism. Smith said that, while “heaven might be a place of physical pleasure, the rabbis don’t like this idea.”

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“I came in expecting to understand people a little better — I come from a homogeneous hometown,” Alison Carey ’11, an attendee of the discussion, said. “Five minutes is enough for a preview and to allow us to compare the religions to each other.”

The RLC is a group of more than two dozen students of different religious faiths who meet weekly to discuss religious issues and periodically host events for the campus community at large.