Religious and Ethnic Groups Paper Essay

There is a lot of diversity when it comes to religion and race, mostly because of the lack of understanding each of them. If we take the time to learn a little bit about them I think that it will open our eyes and let us be more accepting of whom they are. Although there is a lot of discrimination in the world today we are still a lot more understanding than our ancestors where. The religious group that I have chosen is Jehovah’s Witnesses because they are more shunned against than any other religion I know. As for the ethnic group I chose is Black (African descent) because it seems to me that they are more discriminated against than any other race. Jehovah’s Witnesses beliefs are somewhat similar to the Christian beliefs, for example, they rely on the authority of the Bible, worship only one God and trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection for salvation. Some of the differences from the other religions are that they reject the doctrine of the Trinity and the existence of Hell, believes that Gods name is Jehovah, and they also believe the Holy Spirit to be Gods active force. They also believe that only 144,000 people will go to Heaven to rule with God and those that are left on earth that are deemed worthy will live in a restored Garden of Eden. Witnesses also believe that the purpose of Jesus incarnation of earth was threefold, which are as follows, To teach the truth about God, To provide a model of perfect life for people to follow, and To sacrifice his life to set humans free from sin and death. It is their belief that Jesus was not nailed to a cross but rather a single upright stake and that God raised Jesus fro m the dead, as a spirit creature, and he returned to Heaven, but that he was not made King until 1914. Witnesses try to push their religion onto other people without even taking that they already have a religion into consideration. They go door-to-door and try to get others to believe the way they do and also try to convert people with other religion. This causes people to become very upset and sometimes they  become very aggressive and violent towards the Witnesses. There tends to be a lot of very heated discussions on whether their beliefs are what is right and others beliefs are wrong no matter if they worship the same God or not. There are several ways that Witnesses have contributed to the American culture over the years, for example, they have administered functions called â€Å"The Society† and the â€Å"Watch Tower Society†, which they have used to put out their version of the word of God. They have won several court cases in which it has let people have their own religious freedoms to worship as they please. Witnesses have also made it to where you can have an operation and not have to accept a blood transfusion since because of their religion they do not believe in getting. There are several different procedures now that can be done without a transfusion when one was needed the way they done the surgery before. In their religion they are extremely discriminated against because of how they worship and what they believe. The sources of this prejudice is from the people but also mainly from the government because of their concern that it is wrong for them to spread the word the way they do, so to speak. For example, the French government branded them a â€Å"Dangerous Sect.†, and 71 Kingdom Halls where vandalized, burned and shot at and also fire bombed because of how they worshipped. French officials also publically called them criminals and taxed 60 percent on their religion and conveniently forgetting to tax other religions. Also Moscow even went as far as to outlaw their religion and said that they cannot even have a house of worship nor could they practice their faith in the privacy of their own home. There are several other ways that this religion has been discriminated against because of what they believe and how they choose to worship even though when it comes right down to it in the end we all really believe in the same outcome. I have learned a lot about this religion from the research that I have done and I do believe it has helped me understand them more because in the beginning I had no clue exactly what they believed in or how they even practiced their faith. Although I don’t agree with some of the things that they do and some of the ways that they perceive what they Bible says I am more accepting of who they are. The racial/ethnic group that I have chosen for this assignment is African decent because I think that they are more discriminated against than most  race’s that I know. They differ from other ethnic groups because for one their culture is different than most others, such as ancestry is different, culture and sometimes language can be different. This race has experienced different things with different cultures, for example, sometimes people that are Caucasian tend to treat them like they aren’t good enough for them to even talk to and that can cause a lot of controversy between the two ethnic groups. I think that in this day and age that everyone is more accepting of what color, gender, race or anything that is considered different than they were before. This race has contributed so much to the American culture and has made everyone look at some things in a better light so that they have a better understanding of what they went through in their history. They have paved the way for different races in a way that will help for hundreds of years to come. For example, they have made a huge impact with our music, religion, cuisine, clothing and hair styles, and several more. I believe that if they didn’t bring all these things to the American culture than it would be an extremely boring place to live. They seem to make things come alive, for example, they are more active when a church service is going on, they sing, dance and generally have a great time listening to the teachings of the Lord, which in itself is something that one needs to experience. There is also quite a bit of discrimination towards them to the point where it leads to a lot of violence. A woman named Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1st, 1955 because she refused to give up her seat on the bus because the white section was already full. Another example was slavery where white Americans bought, sold and traded African Americans so that they could use them to do the work that they didn’t want to do. They were treated as if they weren’t even humans at all, they were beaten, hanged, starved and degraded so bad because of the color of their skin. The main sources of this discrimination are of the white decent. I have learned quite a bit about this race to the point where I do understand them a lot more than I did. I’m not the kind of person that looks at the color of someone’s skin before I get to know them and because of that I am one of many who tries to accept everyone for who they are. The two groups that I have chosen are somewhat similar when it concerns what they have gone through in history to get to where they are now because of  the narrow minded people out there. They are extremely different in just about every way there is but there are some African descent who are Jehovah’s Witnesses and they have to struggle twice as hard to be accepted for who they are. My conclusions about the discrimination between the two are that no matter what religion you are or what race you are there is always going to be problems because of the lack of acceptance and understanding from other race’s and other religions. References: http://www.religionfacts.com/jehovahs_witnesses/beliefs.htm http://jw-media.org/beliefs/index.htm http://www.watchtower.org/library/rq/index.htm?article=article_02.htm http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=44484 http://www.apologeticsindex.org/j02ab.html http://www.cesnur.org/testi/geova_USAtoday.htm http://www.nbcnews.com/id/12466831/ns/health-health_care/t/bloodless-surgery-avoids-risks-transfusion/ http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art1856.asp http://fatwestcoast.blogspot.com/2010/04/african-american-culture.html