Purpose

The goal of this website is to give an overview of the Asian religions I have studied this year in history class. Our studies focused mostly on India and China, and the religions followed by their people, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism. These religions are all fascinating, especially from the view-point of an American Jew; they are radically different from the western religions I know.

 My Emotion

When I was presented with the requirements of this project I was a little overwhelmed. After brainstorming ideas for days, I eventually decided I would focus on the religions we had studied earlier this year. One requirement of the project was to include a human emotion. In January I picked the emotion “acceptance” to focus my history studies around. I decided to include acceptance in my project by placing a slight emphasis on how acceptance was included in the four religions we studied in depth, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism.

While doing my research and painstakingly summarizing each religion, the contrast of acceptance in these religions struck me. In Hinduism and Buddhism acceptance is very important. They both include it in similar ways, primarily in their views on fate and duty. This isn’t surprising because these two religions are very closely related. Then I started reading about Taoism and Confucianism, which are the two major religions in China. Of all the religions I studied, Taoism is the most accepting and easy going. “Going with the flow” is a key tenet in Taoism. Confucianism, on the other hand, is very western-like, it emphasizes the benefit of changing one’s environment rather than just accepting it. Confucianism does not promote “Going with the flow” like Taoism, or even the accepting fate and duty of Hinduism and Buddhism. The contrast of all these religions, and how they have survived for millennium in close proximity while being so different, is one of the most interesting insights I gained doing this project.