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The Life of Rohingyas
The Life of Rohingyas
RELS 2300
12/7/17
Religion is everywhere. I drive down the street and there is a church of my faith on every
corner. However, there are still many other churches of other faiths. There are many different
religions throughout the world, some are well known while others are not. There are three major
differences that each religion could be more focused on, those three things are the materialists
perspective, a functional perspective, and a faith perspective. The materialists believe that the
supernatural aspect of a higher power is invented by humans, but we wont be focusing on this
today. While the functionals believe that religion can be found everywhere and help to define
our societys and ourselves too. Faith, on the other hand, cannot be seen or readily perceived;
faith is more of an expression than an evidence. Today, we are going to discuss a religion that
isnt as well known, it is a religion located in Myanmar. These religious people are always facing
These people are of the Muslim religion, or Islamic faith, living in a Buddhists world.
They are suffering from persecution, they have very poor living conations, they are denied
citizenship, denied an education, and health care. Due to the violence towards them and the
persecution they face, thousands of them have resorted to flee to the surrounding countries.1
Islams are a monotheistic religion, meaning they only worshiping one god. They believe
that God has always existed and that he will always exist. They believe that he is the creator of
all, but that we are not created after him. God cannot be seen although he sees everything. Islam
is a faith based religion, because they believe that God cannot be seen, so they have to have a
strong faith in him. They express their faith in him by following his teachings. In the book Is
God a Virus? by John Bowker it states that, religions are organized systems that serve the
essential biological purpose of bringing people together for their common survival. The way
this relates to the Rohingyas people is, that they band together and depend on each other to
survive.
Although Buddhist are a nontheistic faith2, I find it ironic that the Buddhists are
persecuting the Rohingya religion because they share similar beliefs. Buddhists also practice
meditation and finding their inner peace. Their goal is to obtain enlightenment, which I think
So, in conclusion, my observations are as follows: the Buddhists and Islams both in their
respective religions are faith-based and functionalists in their way of life. However, as evidenced
by the treatment and persecution of the Rohingya people there is much room for improvement in
the way that they are treating other people. In a religion there should be love, peace, and
tolerance. If they lived their beliefs they would all be able to live among each ether, and the
1. Muslims have lived in the area now known as Myanmar since as early as the 12th
century, according to many historians and Rohingya groups. (Aljazeera.com) Muslims have
lived in Myanmar for all that time, yet they are still required to pass all these thing in order to
gain citizenship there. In order to obtain the most basic level (naturalised citizenship), there
must be proof that the person's family lived in Myanmar prior to 1948, as well as fluency in
one of the national languages. Many Rohingya lack such paperwork because it was either
personal deity. Practitioners try to perceive the impermanence and interdependence of all
Diffen.com/difference/Buddhism_vs_Islam
Staff, Al Jazeera. Mynamar: Who are the Rohingya? Asia Pacific, Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera,
170831065142812.html