Exercise V: World Religions

Let me frame my question/observation:

For this exercise, you are to research and write an essay covering the following main world faiths/religions.

Then there are four central philosophies of world religious movements listed:

Buddhism/Hinduism
Monotheism
Paganism
Atheism

Two questions:

1. What is the essay to cover exactly? The central tenants of these religions? The basic structure? The history? My choice? Other?
2. Monotheism. That is a huge group of religions; further one cannot combine them effectively into a group and write an essay about those individual religions at the same time - unless one is writing about monotheism in general (See question 1)...Thus, I suppose the answer to this question lies within the answer to question 1.

My initial thought is that one cannot lump all the monotheism religions into a group and submit a worthwhile essay - unless the essay is about monotheism in general. However, I think that misses the point of the exercise and paints with too broad of a brush. Many people will miss the differences if they do so, and thus forgo much education and learning potential.

Thoughts?

I feel that the IP is designed so that you are exposed to things you would not normally expose yourself to. And thus, what you choose to write about will demonstrate what you took from the experience.

It is not so much about right or wrong answers as it is about personal growth.

So your interpretation of the assignment will be reflected in your answer.

Fair enough answer!

That said. I'm a seminary graduate student...my academic career revolves around these exact questions. So for me, this exercise is rather rudimentary in that I have already explored such things, and while there is always more to learn, my exposure to these is pretty well versed.

That said...to approach an essay on such subjects - for me - would entail volumes upon volumes of text. Now that I think about it...I'll add that to the to-do list for retirement!

However, while the interpretation of the assignment will most certainly be reflected in my answer...I'm asking for clarification from those who are "in charge" of such things as to how I might approach that assignment. Not that they should tell me how to do it...but some guidance as to how to approach it, given what I've just said.

Perhaps I'm not articulating this succinctly enough...No worries, I'll produce.

I know this is NOT going to be the answer you want and it will not feel very helpful at all. But it is the best answer I have.

How you interpret the lesson and decide to go about it is in part the assignment. There is no right or wrong answers so to say. We are not looking for you to write thing 1, thing 2 and come to end 3.

We hope that certain aspects get covered, but once the IP is finished and if people decide to continue, then the training master may wish to go over it more with that individual if they are looking for something in particular.
It is not about,”can you tell me accurately and in enough detail to be the end all and be all of reports over a given subject.” It is to see what you get from it.
:laugh:

That's a perfect answer Wescli, thank you.

It's perfect in that it doesn't answer my question with specifics, but instead provides a guidance as to the purpose of the assignment. From that, I can frame any such work I do.

Again, thanks.

Side note: The reason that this is important is that if I wrote about the history of said things, there would be little growth opportunity or even discussion opportunity (unless we wanted to discuss known history) versus writing about, say, the differences or dogmatic approaches of said things, etc.

Always trying to set myself up for success!