How do belief systems affect a country's political system and culture?

Many decades ago that belief systems affect the political system and culture greatly. Most of the time because the same cause of fighting for what they believed in.For this reason this fights were of much value to the countries culture and politics.

Osama Bin Laden is an example of a strong believer muslim terrorist.His powerful religion have made and represent very important changes or movements in countrie.Politic or diplomatic problems being with the attack to the twin towers in New York.

In Bolivia the good thing of been catholic or follow a religion with a lot of believers is that the church can control people in case of violence. Politics and cultural fights are the most common issues in a country, but religions or the belief system of the community may calm down the missunderstanding.

These problems in each country originated because different faiths and beliefs makes the hopes of the community also different. People may have differents ways of asking what they want so all the different religions come up.Some of these religions are under the influence of the belief of the country so people have to adapt to it or change the people in their surronding changing their belief system.

The local and national believe systems perspectives of my country

Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion and the constitution recognizes it as the official religion of Bolivia.Statistics in 2001 showed that the Catholic religion had a vast majority with a 77.99% of Bolivia's population but a much smaller portion of the population participates actively.

The religions that coexist besides Roman Catholicism are Evangelical Methodists, Mennonites, Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, Seventh day Adventists, Jewish, Buddhists, Hinduists, Baha’i, Hare Krishna, and others. There are also evangelical groups, a Muslim community with a mosque in Santa Cruz and a Jewish community with a synagogue in La Paz.Also there is is a Mormon temple in Cochabamba , small Buddhist and Shinto communities. There is a variaty of religions in Bolivia apart from the official one.

Bolivia have many Saints that are the protectors of the villages and cities and the Virgin Mary of Urkupina is the protector of Bolivia. There are sanctuaries of the Virgin like the Virgin Guadalupe in Sucre and Mamita of Cotoca. Evangelic religion is against these rituals or sanctuaries but there are slowly more members of this believe each year. But even if people have differents belief they are very tolerant with others beliefs or religions.Here, in Santa Cruz as my point of view this is a deeply religious community.People does not practice their faith or devote.There are also people who follows the rules of the Catholic Church like baptizing their children, first communion, confirmation and marry in a churth even if they have not a stronger belief in God. These fakes actions are because claiming in public that one is atheist might be strange or weird as the catholic religion is the official one.

The church often mediates conflicts between the government and the population. The Church in my community helps people who live in the street, poor people, in orphans and old people.Many schools are owned by the church and that’s why the religion is an obliged subject in this type of schools.The opinion of the Catholic Church is very strong in many ways, for example the laws and general behavior. It isalso dominating peoples beliefs by the church's point of view like abortion and homosexuality.These are a very extense theme, in my community people hide when doing this since both subjects are considered a crime.

Why do people have different belief systems?What are some of the different belief systems held in differents countries?

Nowadays we live in a community that held many belief systems. For this reason we may have close friends that may believe in a different religion.This is an opportunity to learn and understand the differents rituals and customs.We also should learn to respect the diversity of religious freedom and to have tolerance with others belief.

People may have differents belief or religion because many aspects. One of the principles reason is because people is raised like their parents so the religion is passed generation to generation but as we live in a freedom world we are able to decide if continue with the families religion or change to a different one.We even have the fredom to believe in what we want, if there is not a religion for our belief we can make our own belief system.

The religion of differents countries can vary because every person has the freedom to choose other faiths to practice.The culture, society and family influence can change depending the area at which people live. We can also proof how does a religion is affected by culture, history, or geographical position. Religion has been affected by history in many ways and we can see this when we see at Christianity.It is a religion that caused many differents belief systems because Christianity denies the existence of modern prophets. Therefore, they are left to interpret the Bible on their own. So, people can look at the same passages of scripture and get very different meanings out of it. Without prophets, God can't tell the appropriate people they have misunderstood what was written. So, we get different groups of people can keep coming up with different interpretations of the Bible thus creating many different versions of Christianity and belief systems.

The differents belief systems or religions in close countries or communities may cause a lot of discussions and problems.There are many people who dont accept others belief and the differents kinds of faith causing confrontations between geographical areas. Most of these problems are caused because most religions wants leadership by increasing their number of followers.If there exist people with differents ideology this mean less people to follow a religion.

These are some examples of differents belief systems or religion in differents areas:

Middle Eastern Religions:

1.-Christianity

-Roman Catholicism

-Protestantism

-Eastern Orthodox Church

2.-Islam

-Shi’ite

-Sunni

3.- Judaism

4.- Zoroastrianism

Far Eastern Religions:

1. Confucianism

2. Taoism

3. Shinto

4. Mahayana Buddhism

Indian Religions:

1. Hinduism

2. Sikhism

3. Jainism

4. Theravada Buddhism

African Religions:

Tribal Religions of Sub-Saharan Africa American Religions:

Religions of Indigenous American Indians

Oceanic Religions:

1. The religions of the Pacific Islanders

2. The beliefs of the Aborigines of Australia

3. The beliefs of the Maoris of New Zealand

Buddhism

Is a non-theistic religion and philosophy with between 230 to 500 million adherents worldwide. The vast majority live in Asia. It consists of two major schools: Mahayana and Theravada. Mahayana is in turn divided into East Asian and Tibetan.

However there are many other sects besides these. These divisions reflect a combination of doctrinal differences and regional syncretism.

Buddha's real name was Siddhartha and was born in Nepal near the border with India more than 2500 year ago. He was the son of a king and married a princess called Yasodhara. His father king Suddhodana gave him everything he wanted or needed but then he realized that material wealth was not the ultimate goal of life.

The legend says that when he was 29 years old, he decided to abandon the comfortable life he had. He said goodbye to his family and went away riding a white horse. During six months he wondered and lived a life with absolutely no luxury with his hair cut to the skin and dressed with orange-red clothes. During those six months he also practiced meditation and yoga which is a practice that comes from Hinduism. One day after finishing meditating, he had a disclosure which determined him to go around the world to radiate his ideas. To make this work easier he formed a group of monks.

Since the late 19th century,Modern Buddhism has emerged as a truly international movement. It started as an attempt to produce a single form of Buddhism, without local accretions, that all Buddhists could embrace.Buddhism is based on the teachings and founded in Northern India by the first known Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. In the sixth century BCE, who lived in parts of what is now Nepal and northeast India. There are between 230 to 500 million adherents worldwide.

The big difference of Buddhism with others religions is that buddhims have not any God.They believe that pain are caused by the wishes that invade as, to get rid of this pain we most get rid of these wishes. According to this religion people do not need a God because everyone has a specific Karma that explain our beauty, intelligence and the way we are.

Islam

Islam is a monotheistic abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the islamic prophet Muhammad.This man was born in the Arabian city of Mecca more than 1400 years ago in a very poor family.His father died when he was young and then he was adopted by his uncle. He married a woma called Khadija. Muhammad saw Allah in a profound cave called Hira near Mecca. In the cave, Allah (God of the Muslims) showed him a sacred book, the Qur'an and ordered him that he must preach the religion.The word Islam means "submission", or the total surrender of oneself to God. An adherent of Islam is known as a Muslim, meaning "one who submits.Islam is the second largest religion of the world. People who believe in this religion are called Muslims.

Duties and practices

The Five Pillars of Islam are five practices essential to Sunni Islam. Shi'a Muslims subscribe to eight ritual practices which substantially overlap with the Five Pillars. They are:

• Shahadah (profession of faith)
• Salah (ritual prayer)
• Zakah (alms tax)
• Sawm (fasting during Ramadan)
• Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).

Sunni

Are the largest group in Islam. In arabic, as-Sunnah literally means "principle" or "path". The Sunnah (the example of Muhammad's life) as recorded in the Qur'an and the hadith is the main pillar of Sunni doctrine. Sunnis believe that the first four caliphs were the rightful successors to Muhammad; since God did not specify any particular leaders to succeed him, those leaders had to be elected. Sunnis recognize four major legal traditions, or madhabs: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. All four accept the validity of the others and a Muslim might choose any one that he or she finds agreeable, but other Islamic sects are believed to have departed from the majority by introducing innovations

Christianity and Judaism

Christianity vs Judaism

Christianity and Judaism share historical roots, both have a closer relationship.These two religions diverge in fundamental ways. Judaism places emphasis on actions, focusing primary questions on how to respond to the "eternal" Covenant their nation received at Mount Sinai. Christianity places emphasis on belief and practice, focusing questions on how each person receives the Covenant offered by Jesus.

Christianity forms a part of the monotheistic religions and represents the world´s largest religion. It's followers are called Christians and they believe in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth also known as Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament. Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God and see him as a teacher which is the example for a devotional life. Jesus Christ is the revealer of God and the saviour of humanity as he was crucifixed in order to bring salvation from sin.

Christianity has a close relationship with Judaism, both historically and theologically. Jesus, the twelve disciples, the author of most of the New Testament, and the members of the earliest Christian churches were all Jews. Jesus' family followed Jewish customs and Jesus frequently quoted the Hebrew Bible. Jesus' followers believed him to be the messiah, a Jewish figure predicted in the Jewish Bible.
Judaism is a monotheist religion just as Christianism. Jews believe in Yahve. Jews say that pronouncing his name is disrespectful and therefore they call him Adonay which means "my lord". Jews the same as Christians say that God created the world and everything that exists.

The 10 commandments of Christians and the Torà of the Jews are a list of rules which a Jew or a Christian have to obey in order to maintein their faith.

Christianity

They recognize Jesus as the Messiah and regularly visit the church especially on sundays and sunday. They also read the bible, this is a collection of canonical books in two parts:

• The Old Testament
• The New Testament

Thir place of worship is located in the church, chapel and cathedral. Their propet is jesus and identify he as the Son of God, God incarnate and the savior of the world.

Birth of Jesus: Virgin Birth

Death of Jesus: Death by crucifixion

Judaism

They do not recognize Jesus as the messiah. They belief that everyone with a religion is a sun of God. Jews recite prayers three times daily and holidays. All Saturday they join at their place of worship called Synagogue.Their prophet is Moses or Abraham and identify Jesus as a false prophet.

Birth of Jesus: normal birth

Death of Jesus: Death by crucification

Jews think that one day the Messiah will come and give the world peace and reconstruct it's the peoples' power.

What are counter-belief systems?

Counter belief systems are distortions of belief religions for people who have not any belief or have not adapt to any religion of the world.This is also called synctretism. Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contradictory beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought.These people may have convictions equal in depth to those of religious adherents. For instance, followers of the life stance of humanism regard themselves as just as deeply believing in their life stance as corresponding to any religious belief. This lack of religion, or indifference to religion have caused many disscutions between people that believe. Some examples of these type of believe systems are:

• Voodoo



• Anarchism



• Santeria or Satanism



• yoga



• Atheism

Atheism is the afirmation of the non existence of Gods, including the simple absence of belief in deities. Although atheism is often equated with irreligion, it is applied to any person or belief in conflict with established religion.

Voodoo is a spiritual tradition practiced in West Africa, which came to the New World due to the importation of African slaves.West African Vodun is the real form of the religion. The divine creator of Vodun is Mawu and he embodies a dual cosmogenic principle which represents Mawu as the moon that represents male and Lisa as the sun that represents female.

Satanist refers to the word of Satan or the practice of ritual magic.It is also known as "reverse christians" are the people who worship Satan and their church is called the Church of Satan. they follow the satanic bible which was also written by Anton Lavey who founded this church.