On Wednesday night, my friend Jack asked me to attend a club with him. The name of the club is called Globe Med. Jack didn't really explain much besides the fact that it was a club centered around providing care for the around the world who are in need. But upon arriving I realized that the club also had a classroom like atmosphere with a goal of informing it's members about issues that different areas of the world struggle with.
The first meeting was centered around Nepal and the poor communities that Globe Med had been funding and will be continuing to fund. So as the club leaders began to describe Nepalian culture, they made it very clear from the start that their religion was a huge part of their identity as individuals and as a whole. Around 86% of the people of Nepal practice Hinduism, with another large portion being Buddhism and the rest scattered evenly.
I know we don't study much of the Hindu culture in our class, but something that interested me is that apparently in Hinduism, you don't necessarily have to believe in something. Rather, you just practice traditions and rituals. They used to the term 'orthoprax' instead of other religions which are 'orthodox.' People follow these daily rituals and they become part of peoples every day lives, effectively becoming their culture. Each person practices these same rituals and traditions, and it binds them as a community, and each community sharing the same connection binds them as a people.
I just thought this was interesting and related to the topic we discussed during the first week of class about what is needed to have a religion. I learned that one of the largest religions in the world doesn't necessarily believe in a higher power.
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