class 1/31

Today in class we continued to watch the video that we have been watching for the past few days of class. I feel like I have learned a lot of new things from this video but also other things I have learned about before but no necessarily like this. The main thing that I took away from the video today was that people didn’t advance in technology because they were too focused on feeding themselves and trying to stay alive. All they did was advance in survival skills and other wilderness things. People can actually have a big impact on their environment. Americans (from the united states) produce around 20 million tons of wheat products alone. Jared Diamond says that he has been criticized for being too optimistic and not recognizing the impact that people actually have on the land that they choose to live on. Overall, I think I have learned a lot from the video. It showed me that these people really can survive without all the advanced stuff we have.

more on the video 1-28

today in class we continued to watch the video. we talked about animal domestication which means that you raise them yourself and bread them and can use them for various things. goats and sheep are the first domesticated animals. its easier to domesticate smaller animals rather than cows and horses and all of the other big animals. back in those days of when this video was, they didn't have access to things and machines that would help them get their farm work done. out of all the animals, the mast variety has not been domesticated. even some birds and fish have been domesticated, but its rare. in the video they also talked about the 14 animals that are over 100 pounds; excluding dogs and cats, that have successfully been domesticated and not just once but a lot. this list is in order: goat, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, two types of camels, llamas, reindeer, yaks, mittens, cattle and buffalo. none of these animals came from new guinea, Africa, and Australia. the llamas came from south America. all of the rest came from Asia, north Africa and Europe. you have to have a very productive system in order for everything to work out and to have things go smoothly.

video day two

Western civilization: class notes on the video

-gathering is done by women

-wild sago-turned into dough and then can be cooked

-very different plants in the middle east, barley and wheat where mainly the only things 

-draa-an archeological village near the Jordan river (northern middle east)

-on of the first examples of people living in permanent housing and actual buildings not just hunting and gathering and finding a place to stay as you go but an actual village

-they are actually building things and they are finally going to live in this village that they built

-granary id the place where they stored grain products, similar to a silo

-they are domesticating plants, they find a way to grow it and keep it safe and healthy

-china is one of the greatest civilizations all around; they are known for the rice, corn, squash and many other things that are more nutritious than the things they had. They had sorghum which is used to make breads, millet which is used for breads as well, and they had yams

video that we watched today

Today in class Mr. Schick showed us a video about people that lived on a different side of the country in a place called new Guianese in Oceania. First the video talked about Jared Diamond. He discussed that the world was divided into the have’s and have not’s meaning that some people have a nice home, enough to eat, they are healthy etc. and other people don’t have any of that. Papua New Guinea is this place where they are discovering things. Its located in Oceania which is north of Australia which is a very remote part of the world. Jared Diamond has many professions. He is a biologist, a professor as USLA, an author of the book that this movie is about, and he is a bird watcher. His specialty is human physiology. People have been living in this area for over 40 thousand years and nobody really even knows that this place exists let alone know that the people there exist. A man asked, “why do white men have so much cargo, and we black men have so little?” we have so much stuff and they don’t. people back then would say that power was determined by your race. White people find themselves superior to anybody of a different race. Advanced civilizations have 1. Advanced technology, 2. Large populations, 3. Well organize work force. Before things started getting written down or tracked. 

first day in western civilization

Today in class we didn’t do much. since it’s a new semester, it’s a new class with a new group of people. I still have Mr. Schick as my teacher though. We first went over all the rules and how the class works for all of the new people who haven’t had Mr. Schick before. All of the kid’s wo have had him before helped explain how he works and how the blogs work for homework every night. Then later in class I got called up to Mr. Ireton’s room. He just had to talk to me about a few things. I am not sure what I missed while I was gone. When I got back, I helped a few students around me to set up their new blog since they didn’t know what to do. I think that this semester is going to be good. Western civilization seems like a fun class and I am excited to learn about it.

recap of this year

This semester I learned a lot of things that I have never learned or even talked about before. I have taken geography classes in middle school but never a human geography class. This is probably one of the coolest classes I had this semester.  I really enjoyed learning about the other religions especially since I have only ever talked about Christianity. I have always thought maps were a really fascinating this as well. I have always studies maps but this year I feel like I just got a new and better perspective on things. Doing blogs everyday was also a new thing for me but I feel like it was very handy for me to learn how to do that. It also helped me recap what I learned which helped me to do better on my tests because I usually could just look over my blogs. I also thought I would add that tonight my house had a fire. Me and my sister were home alone and the fire fighters had to come but everything is ok now.

class on 1/15

Today in class we looked over our assignment from yesterday while Mr. Schick was absent. We had to write 5 paragraphs, 1 on each of the religions that we have been talking about. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism. We will be having a test on these five religions on Friday unless we get snow on Thursday and they think we will not be in school Friday. In that case, we will take the test on Thursday. We looked over our paragraphs and Mr. Schick emphasized the things that will be on the test and told us things that were not going to be on the test. This really helps me out because it eliminates some things from my notes that I don’t need to worry about studying. I plan on studying all tonight and tomorrow. Then I will just have to review on Thursday night (or Wednesday) so that I can be fully prepared for the test!

in class assignment

Christianity is the number one most populated religion. It has around 31.4% of the world’s population with around 2.2 billion adherents. They are called Christians. They attend church on Sundays and their Holy Book is called the Bible. It has three major branches: Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. Some Christians just attend a non-denominational church and consider themselves one or all of these three branches. 50% of the Christians are Roman Catholic. That leaves Orthodox with around 12% and the other 38% are divided between Protestant and “Others.” Christianity was founded upon the teachings of Jesus who was born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus was raised a Jew, but he gathered a group of disciples and preached the coming of God.  Jesus was arrested and crucified on the cross, but three days later he rose again to be our savior. God sent his only son to save us from our sins. 

Islam is the second largest religion that has around 23.2% of the world’s population following with around 1.8 billion adherents. These people are called Muslims. They attend Masjid or Mosque which they usually attend on Fridays. Their holy book is called the Quran. Bangladesh and Pakistan are more than 90% Muslims. The word Islam in Arabic means “submission to the will of God” which also has a similar root to the word for peace. The word Muslim in Arabic means “one who surrenders to God.” The countries Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh are the four countries that hold the majority of Muslims. Islam is divided into two principal branches called the Sunni and the Shiite. Funny enough, they actually don’t like each other that much. Shiite Islam is divided into three principal schools of thought, based in part on disputed over leadership after the Prophet Muhammad. 

Buddhism is the third most populated religion. They are called Buddhist. This religion mainly exists in east Asia and south east Asia. Buddhism is split into three main branches called Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana. It is almost impossible to get an accurate count for the number of Buddhists because there are a lot of people that participate in Buddhist acts and still consider themselves a follower of another religion as well. Someone can be both a Buddhist and a believer in other Eastern Religions. This is not allowed in Christianity or Islam though.

Hinduism is the world’s fourth largest religion with around 1 billion adhering to it. 97% of all Hindus are located in one country which is called India. There is also 2% located in Nepal and around 1% in Bangladesh. Hindus have allegiance to a particular god or concept within a broad range of possibilities. The manifestation of God with the largest number of adherents; an estimated 80% is Vaishnavism, which worships the god Vishnu who is known to be very loving and is the god who was incarnated as Krishna. 

Judaism is the last religion and it is necessarily the smallest. There are roughly 14 million Jews. These Jews are located anywhere but two fifths of them are located in the united states and the other two fifths in Israel. These people are called Jews and they worship in a synagogue. The name Judaism is derived from Judah who is a patriarch. Judaism is the first recorded religion to talk about monotheism. This is belief that there is only one God. Jews are similar to Christians in the way that they both believe there is one God who is the ultimate and powerful ruler of this world. The one thing that makes us both who we are is that Christians believe that Jesus was sent to be out savior, and Jews believe that he is just a prophet. They are still waiting for their savior. Judaism offered a contrast to the polytheism practiced by other religions, which means you worship more than one God. 

assigned questions 1-8-19

The four basic Vedic texts and their meaning: 

1.    Rig-Veda- stands for “knowledge of the hymns of praise”, for recitation 

2.    Sama-Veda- stands for “Knowledge of the melodies”, for chanting 

3.    Yajur- Veda- stands for “knowledge of the sacrificial formulas”, for liturgy 

4.    Atharva-Veda- stands for “knowledge of the magic formulas”, named after a priest

-      Indulgence is a remission before god of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. There are many myths about what it does. I choose to believe that this is pretty accurate since it’s the one most people talk and rave about. 

-      I think that the indulgence either sparked or inspired martin Luther in some way to write his “95 theses” because right after the catholic church sold the indulgences, Martin Luther composed his piece. http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his101/web/37luther.htm

-      The hajj is a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca that takes place in the last month of the year, and that all Muslims are expected to make at least one trip in their lifetime. 

In class assignment: Religions

The five most common religions: statistics from three point of views-

Christianity-

1.    CIA World Factbook: 31.4% 

2.    Adherents.com: 33% 

3.    Mr. Schick: 30%

Islam- 

1.    CIA World Factbook: 23.2%

2.    Adherents.com: 21%

3.    Mr. Schick: 22.6%

Hinduism-

1.    CIA World Factbook: 7.1%

2.    Adherents.com: 14%

3.    Mr. Schick: 14.6%

Buddhism- 

1.    CIA World Factbook: 7.1%

2.    Adherents.com: 6%

3.    Mr. Schick: 6%-20%

Judaism-

1.    CIA World Factbook: .2%

2.    Adherents.com: .22%

3.    Mr. Schick: 2.1%

more religions

Today in class we talked about three more major religions. We first talked about Hinduism. There are around 1.1 billion adherents that are called hundis.  they are mostly located in India but there are some in the united states. The holy book that they refer to is called the Vedas which is a book about eternal truths revealed to ancient stages that are composed in verse form. They are meant to be sung and memorized. There is no distinct founder for this religion. It’s mainly just a series of intellectual of theosophical points of view rather than a rigid, strict set of rules. This is the oldest existent religion today. They mainly believe in incarnation so once you die you live again in a form of a different body or thing.

Next, we talked about Buddhism. There are 1.5 billion adherents and they are given the name Buddhists. They are mostly located in southeast Asia, china, Nepal and japan. There are around 1.2 billion adherents because the amount varies since people follow this religion along with other religions at the same time. there are four denominations and they are called Tibetan, Zen, Theravada and Audits. The founder is Siddhartha Gautama. They believe in the four truths: 1. There is suffering, 2. Attachment to your desires is the origin of suffering, 3. There is a succession of suffering, 4. The eightfold path will lead to the cessation of suffering. 

The next religion we studied was Judaism. This is one of the smaller religions in the top religions. There are 14-18 million adherents. These followers are called Jews. They are mostly located in Israel but there are some in the United States. The founder is Abraham. They follow a holy book which is called the Torah. 

            

top 2 major religions

Today in class we talked about the top two major religions. There are so many around this world today, but we had to focus on the main ones that the majority of the world’s population is focused on. First, we discussed Christianity, which is the number one most popular religion today. There are around 2.2 million adherents. These people are called Christians and they are mostly located around Europe, north America, and south America. The branches of Christianity mainly consist of the catholic church, eastern orthodox church and all of the protestants. The founder of Christianity was Jesus Christ, obviously. The holy book that the Christians beliefs are written in is called the bible. Christianity is the belief that Jesus is human and divine; he was the son of god, he was crucified and died. He was buried and then he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven where he reigns with god the father. 

The next religion we discussed which makes up the next largest part of the world is Islam. This religion has about 1.5 million adherents. These people are called Muslims and they are located around the world in places like Indonesia, Middle East and North Africa. There are two major denominations called the Sunnis and the Shiites and come to figure, they do not get along very well as they do strongly disagree in some areas of belief. The founder of Islam is Mohamed. These people follow after a book called the Koran. Their purpose in life is serving and submitting to their god which is called Allah and submitting to all of their laws.