Comparative Religion course offered through the ULC

The presentation by Rev. Kythera Ann in this ULC course gave a comprehensive overview of the history and comparativeness of numerous religions.  Quite a few were known or slightly known to me, while others just fascinating, learning the history and customs of religions I barely knew existed, was the most enjoyable part of this class.

As I started into these discourses, I found that most of the religions of the world have pretty much the same clear message: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you!" For years, I carried such a hardened outlook on some of the religions of the world. I realized that it was all "contempt without investigation." After bottoming out from addiction, I took on a brand new faith, and have been developing a new philosophy in life, and this course has given me another tool for growth.

I also had a misunderstanding about a religion that I thought I was familiar, Hinduism.   I’ve a co-worker who is Hindu. I now think I’ve a much clearer understanding on the how reincarnation works than I did before I took this course.  I’d previously thought that all Hindus and Buddhists were trying to reach a greater and greater level of spiritual awareness during each life until they reached oneness with God.  Now I understand that early Hindus and a few modern followers are more interested in discontinuing the cycle of reincarnation so they can find spiritual peace.  It is not much of a difference; it may even be just semantics, but it did help me understand why I didn’t seem to always understand where my friend was coming from.

In addition to the deep details and the way the course made taking in such a large amount of information easy and interesting, I really liked the inclusion of the photos of locations and the small narratives about the religion being discussed.   This made the static details of the beliefs come alive be seeing real accounts and stories from that faith which also had me looking forward to the next lesson each week.  There was not anything that I would say I liked the least about the course.  It exceeded my expectations and I certainly enjoyed the way it was researched, written and presented.

One of the most valuable things I got out of the course was the knowledge that I was looking at many religions with a very narrow view. I was taking what I knew about the most common form of some religions and projecting that onto the entire belief system.   Even though I know, as an active Christian, how things are very different from how the Christian Church started out.  With the schisms and various denominations, I should have wondered more about whether other religions have similar histories so this class enlightened me tremendsously on some of my erroneous views.  Reviewing different aspects of Buddhism -- I have worked with people who are followers of the Dalai Lama, so that was my entire view on Buddhism in general.  It was fascinating to see how Buddhism also had changed along with society, just as Christianity has over the centuries.  I also had no idea that the Dalai Lama wasn’t the head of all practicing Buddhists.  Recognizing that we all suffer from one thing or another in life, and that we’re all in a search to ease ours and others’ suffering, we are learning how to live life on life’s terms. It seems to be one of those "AH HA" moments!

Thanks to this ULC class I’ve been able to grasp more about why I have adopted the Universal spiritual point of view. I’ve gained more confidence to converse with people from all belief systems and, just maybe help them by being able to connect with a lot of viewpoints

This is an essay from the Universal Life Church