Discussion Practice Questions HUMAN 40 RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD Humanities Berkeley City College Discussion Prompt 1 This Smith s previous point that satisfaction of the desire for worldly success is more substantial than pleasure does not have to be argued for a contemporary Western audience The Anglo American temperament is not voluptuous Visitors from abroad do not find English speaking peoples enjoying life a great deal or much bent on doing so they are too busy Being enamored not of sensualism but of success what takes arguing in the West is not that achievement s rewards exceed those of the senses but that success too has its limitations that What is he worth does not come down to How much has he got Smith 15 Who are these Anglo Americans to which Smith refers http en wikipedia org wiki Anglo American Do you agree with this characterization of Anglo Americans as not enjoying life a great deal or much bent on doing so they are too busy Explain your view Anglo Americans refers to those people who speak English as their first language or their mother tongue These people do not necessarily have to be whites but those people who move to the English speaking countries and begin to speak the English language and with time when they have offspring they learn English as their first or native language The Anglo Americans do not seem to be enjoying life but are viewed to focus much on their worldly success according to Smith Also these people are viewed to focus so much towards success rather than pleasure since they are mostly viewed be migrants who leave their native countries and settle in these countries with various reasons These people also are believed to be living in those countries either due to job activities or as refugees who later end up having offspring s who learn this language as they grow and become citizens of that state by birth because they were born in those countries Discussion Prompt 2 What is distinctive in Hinduism is the amount of attention it has devoted to identifying basic spiritual personality types and the disciplines that are most likely to work for each The result is a recognition pervading the entire religion that there are multiple paths to God each calling for its distinctive mode of travel Smith 28 What do we think about this claim that there are multiple paths to God A The use of the singular i e god v gods and capitalization as with a proper name i e the God v a god would seem to imply the same identical one and only one God would that change your mind B The idea of many paths to the same goal of union with God might seem to discount the worth or value of the path itself while some religions place more emphasis on the path than the goal what do you think According to Hinduism there are many paths to God and these paths are attributed to the four personality types Smith 1994 The paths are such as through work love psychophysical and knowledge These paths are closely examined to have intrinsic values attached to them which ought to be followed in order to be on the right path For instance an individual can use any of the paths to God such as by use knowledge one gets to know God through learning and exchange of ideas The singular god and gods and the capitalization of the same words God and god would change my mind because according to Hinduism the god in small letters is used to refer to an idol or an evil image made to be worshipped instead of the true God with a capitalized letter g Therefore the singular god and gods means the same thing while the other God and god refers to the true and supernatural God compared to the false or evil idols A B I believe that the emphasis should be put on the goal and not the path because the goal is the primary objective while the path can be replaced with another if it does not yield good results regarding the goal Also the path should have emphasis although not too much so as to avoid less concentration towards the goal It is important therefore for one to choose the correct path that does not interfere with the goal and one which helps one to focus on the goal without consuming a lot of time such that one may lose concentration Discussion Prompt 3 The word my always implies a distinction between the possessor and what is possessed when I speak of my book or my jacket I do not suppose that I am those things But I also speak of my body my mind and my personality giving evidence thereby that in some sense sense I consider myself as distinct from them as well What is this I that possesses my body and mind but is not their equivalent Again science tells me that there is almost nothing in my body that was there seven years ago and my mind and my personality have undergone comparable changes Yet throughout their manifold revisions I have remained in some way the same person the person who believed now this now that who once was young and is now old What is this something in my makeup more constant than body or mind that has endured these changes Smith 30 emphasis mine Please reflect upon Smith s questions What is this I and What is this something that has endured these changes Ask yourself Who am I and share your response The letter i is viewed to refer to oneself whereby according to Smith oneself is regarded as the soul which does not change despite even the growth of other parts of the body The soul is inbuilt in oneself and is not visible and it is the one that possesses the letter i because without it one cannot exist although it is invisible The soul hence defines who an individual is his and his possessions Also the soul does not develop like other body parts or things that are attributed to an individual but it just exists in a person and defines the individual together with every aspect attributed to that person It is thus viewed to be the spiritual being in a person according to Hinduism Smith 2009 References Smith H Marranca R 2009 The world s religions New York HarperOne Smith H 1994 The illustrated world s religions A guide to our wisdom traditions San Francisco HarperSanFrancisco