By Day 5

Respondto one of your colleagues in one of the following ways:

• Ask a probing question, and provide insight into how you would answer your question and why.
• Ask a probing question, and provide the foundation (or rationale) for the question.
• Expand on your colleague’s posting by offering a new perspective or insight.
• Agree with a colleague and offer additional (new) supporting information for consideration.
• Disagree with a colleague by respectfully discussing and supporting a different perspective.

Support your reply to a colleague’s post with at least one reference (textbook or other scholarly, empirical resources). You may state your opinion and/or provide personal examples; however, you must also back up your assertions with evidence (including in-text citations) from the source and provide a reference.

Important Note: For all Discussions in this course, you are required to complete your initial post before you will be able to view and respond to your colleague’s postings. Begin by clicking on the Post to Discussion link, and then select Create Thread to complete your initial post. Remember, once you click Submit, you cannot delete or edit your own posts, and cannot post anonymously. Please check your post carefully before clicking Submit!

Christianity is one of the main religions of the world, with millions of followers all worshipping the beliefs around the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christianity has grown tremendous amounts since the beginning of the religion, and continues to grow as time passes. One third of humans consider themselves Christian. (Harvard Divinity School, 2018.) I do not identify as a Christian, as I fail to believe in a higher power or worship Jesus. Instead, I would consider myself as agnostic; this means that I do not claim faith in a higher power, but also considered a sceptic in regards to religion or a higher power. I remain respectful to those who do worship a higher power, but I myself, do not. This has a large influence in my life and the decisions I have made and continue to make, just as people who do follow a religion and worship their God relate their decisions and lives around said God that they worship.

Lumen explains, “the sociocultural context of society—which includes all social and cultural factors, from politics and religion to the mass media—not only creates social norms, but also places major importance on conformity to these norms. Norms dictate what is considered to be acceptable behavior; what is considered normal or acceptable in terms of sexual behavior is based on the norms, mores, and values of the particular society.” (Lumen, n.d.) Some social norms in Christianity are based around the ten commandments written by Moses, and still followed today. They basically say to be a good human, and a good addition to mankind.

In regards to sexuality, Christians have firm beliefs about sex being necessary for reproduction but celibacy being mandatory. People in this culture believe that sex should only happen in marriage, and that adultery is an absolute disgrace. Some christian people refuse to use contraceptives due to their beliefs that sex is necessary for reproduction. Also, the bible says very little about sexuality in regards to sexual orientation but there are a portion of Christian humans who completely disagree with the thought of homosexuality, as homosexuality does not produce life and goes against the beliefs that sex is based around reproduction.

An agnostic outlook doesn’t relate any of these things to their religious beliefs as there are none specific enough to relate to. So to someone who is not a part of Christian culture, it is not uncommon for people to have polygamist relationships where there is more than one partner. Psychology today explains, “according to genetic studies, it is only relatively recently, about 10,000 years ago, that monogamy began to prevail over polygamy in human populations.” (Burton, 2018.) In addition to this freedom in having relationships with multiple people, people who are not majorly religious commonly have sex before marriage. Also, homosexuality is not always something that people who are not very religious frown upon. I’m very curious to hear the thoughts of those who come from a different religious or cultural background than me!

References:

Boundless Psychology. Lumen. (0AD).  https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/sexuality/.

Christianity. Religious Literacy Project. (2018, August 29). https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/religions/christianity.