Module No. MODULE No.

2: Unpacking Self
and Title
Lesson No. Lesson 3: Supernatural: Believe it or Not!
and Title
Learning 1. Identify various religious practices and beliefs
Outcomes 2. Understand the self in relation with religious beliefs
3. Explain ways of finding the meaning of life

Time Frame 3 hours/week

Introduction In this Module, you will learn about the religious experience in general and some of
its variations around the world.  The focus will be on the types of religious beliefs
and religious leaders, especially in small-scale societies.  An exploration of
Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other major religion is beyond the scope of this
tutorial.  The approach taken is that of cultural relativity--religious practices or beliefs
are not evaluated in terms of their "correctness" or "sophistication" but, rather, in
terms of their function within the societies that have them.

Abstraction
Religion

Asia is the birthplace of all the world’s major religions and hundreds of minor ones.
Like all forms of culture, Asian religions may be considered geographically in terms
of both their places of origin and their distribution.

South Asia
Hinduism, with a polytheistic and ritual tradition comprising numerous cults and
sects, is the oldest of several religions that originated in South Asia. It remains a
unifying force of Indian culture and the social caste system—which Hindu tradition
sees as a reflection of the relative spiritual purity of reincarnated souls. The religion
has had little appeal outside the Indian cultural context. Except on Bali and other
“Hinduized” islands of Indonesia, Hinduism is practiced outside the subcontinent
mainly by Indian expatriates.
Jainism and Buddhism emerged in reaction to prevailing Hindu practices in the 6th
and 5th centuries BCE, respectively. Although Jainism never spread significantly
beyond two present-day states of northwestern India, its principles of nonviolence
and asceticism have deeply influenced Indian thought.

Buddhism arose in northeastern India as a “universal” alternative to hierarchical

religion, offering nirvana, or enlightenment, to individuals regardless of culture or
social station. In the centuries following its foundation, Buddhism gave rise to two
main divergent schools: Theravada, which claimed orthodox adherence to the
teachings of the religion’s founder, the Buddha, and Mahayana, which held its
teachings to be the fullest account of the Buddha’s message. The monastically
oriented Theravada predominates today in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia,
while the more liberal Mahayana, with its proliferation of philosophical schools and
sects, has had an immeasurable impact on the civilizations of China, Korea, and
Japan. Vajrayana, or Tantrism, is an esoteric form of Buddhism practiced in the Tibet
Autonomous Region of China, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia. In India itself, the once
sizable Buddhist population has diminished to a relatively small number of adherents.

Sikhism, a monotheistic Indian religion, was founded in the Punjab in the late 15th
century CE and has fueled that region’s modern demands for independence. The
current Indian state of Punjab has a Sikh majority, with the city of Amritsar in that
state as the religion’s spiritual centre.
Southwest Asia
Southwest Asia (the Middle East) is the cradle of three great monotheistic systems:
Judaism and its offshoots Christianity and Islam. Judaism, founded in the eastern
Mediterranean region some 4,000 years ago, posits a covenant relationship between
God—the source of divine law—and humankind. Most Asian Jews now live in Israel,
although there are small Jewish communities in various other areas of the continent.
In the 20th century a number of Jewish sects and reform movements founded
elsewhere accompanied immigrants to Israel.

Christianity, which was derived from Judaism some two millennia ago, came to
have the largest number of believers among the world’s religions. After it was
adopted by the Roman and Byzantine empires, Christianity became predominant in
Europe and in European-derived cultures. It is practiced by sizable minorities in
many Asian countries (notably South Korea) and by Roman Catholic majorities in
East Timor and the Philippines.
 Jerusalem: Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem.

Islam dominates as the state religion of most Southwest Asian countries, and a
substantial majority of Muslims live in Asia. From the Arabian Peninsula, where it
was founded in the 7th century, Islam spread throughout the Middle East, into Central
Asia and parts of South Asia, and across the Bay of Bengal to Malaysia and to
Indonesia, which remains predominantly Muslim. The majority of Asian Muslims
belong to the orthodox Sunnite branch, except in Iran and Iraq, where members of the
more esoteric Shīʿite branch are in the majority. Muslims constitute important
minority populations in India, the Philippines, and China. Among the other religions
that developed in Southwest Asia are Zoroastrianism, an ancient religion that
survives in Iran and India and contains both monotheistic and dualistic elements; and
Bahāʾī, a universalist faith founded in Persia (Iran) in the mid-19th century.

Mecca: Great Mosque

Mecca: Great Mosque
Muslim pilgrims surround the Kaʿbah, the shrine at the centre of the Great Mosque,
Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Zurijeta —iStock/Thinkstock
East Asia
Ancient Chinese religious and philosophical traditions survive in the form of two
main schools, Daoism (Taoism) and Confucianism, both of which originated in the
5th or 6th century BCE. The two schools differ in orientation—Daoism stressing
mystical experience and the individual’s harmony with nature and Confucianism
emphasizing the duty of the individual in society and government—but both have
profoundly influenced Chinese and Chinese-derived culture. Indigenous Chinese folk
religious traditions continue to influence the practice of both Daoism and
Confucianism, as well as Buddhism, which has many adherents in China.
Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism are also widespread in Korea, where
indigenous Korean religious traditions remain important as well.

Shintō encompasses the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the Japanese
people. Although among some practitioners that tradition has absorbed the influences
of other belief systems, such as Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, its
fundamental principles linking sacred power, ritual observance, and imperial
nationhood remain unique to Japanese culture.
Other religions
In addition to the major religions discussed above, numerous localized spiritual
practices are found throughout Asia. Animism, for example, is particularly common
among some ethnic minorities of South and Southeast Asia. Mystical shamanism
remains characteristic of numerous North and Central Asian peoples, and shamanistic
cults are also found in South Korea and Japan.

Religion & You

 Puts a smile on your face

Religious people tend to be happier than non-believers. According to research

published in December 2010 in the journal American Sociological Review, this
happiness boost comes not from any particular denomination or belief, but from the
social joys of being part of regular services. Getting together with others at a church,
temple or synagogue allows people to build social networks, closer ties and,
ultimately, more life satisfaction. 

 Raises self-esteem (if you live in the right place)

Depending on where you live, religion may also make you feel better about yourself
by making you feel part of your larger culture. People who are religious have higher
self-esteem and better psychological adjustment than people who aren't, according to
a January 2012 study. But this religion benefit only holds for people living in
countries where religion is widespread and important. The findings, reported in the
journal Psychological Science, suggest that a religious person would get a happiness
boost in devout Turkey, but see no benefits in secular Sweden.

 Soothes anxiety
If you're religious, thinking about God can help soothe the anxiety associated with
making mistakes. In other words, believers can fall back on their faith to deal with
setbacks gracefully, according to a 2010 study. This trick doesn't work for atheists,
though: The study also found that nonbelievers were more stressed out when they
thought of God and made mistakes.
 Protects against depressive symptoms
Depression recovery proceeds better against a backdrop of religion. According to one
 1998 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, older patients who were
hospitalized for physical problems but also suffered from depression recovered better
from their mental struggles if religion was an intrinsic part of their lives. More
recently, scientists reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychology in 2010 that belief
in a caring God improves response to psychiatric treatment in depressed patients.
Interestingly, this increased response wasn't tied to a patient's sense of hope or any
other factor that might be bestowed by religion, according to study researcher Patricia
Murphy of Rush University.

"It was tied specifically to the belief that a supreme being cared," Murphy said.

 Motivates doctor visits

In fact, religion is linked to health in general, possibly because religious people have
more social support, better coping skills and a more positive self-image than people
who don't join faith-based communities. In one 1998 study published in the journal
Health Education & Behavior, researchers at the University of California, Los
Angeles, found that regular churchgoers are more likely to get preventative care, in
this case mammograms. About 75 percent of 1,517 church members in the study got
regular mammograms, compared with 60 percent of a sample of 510 women who
were not church members and attended less regularly on average.

 Lowers your blood pressure

People who attend church often have lower blood pressure than those who don't go at
all, according to a 2011 study out of Norway. Those results are particularly
impressive given that church-going is relatively rare in Norway, and researchers
thought that cultural differences might prevent religious Norwegians from getting the
kind of blood pressure benefits often seen in American churchgoers. In fact,
participants who went to church at least three times a month had blood pressures one
to two points lower than non-attendees, results similar to those seen in the United
States.

The benefits seem pegged to how faithful believers are in their church routines.
People who went once a month or less had a half-point blood pressure benefit over
non-attendees, and people who went between one and three times a month had a one-
point reduction in blood pressure. The faithful may get lessons in coping with stress
and anxiety from the pulpit, according to the researchers, or they might get a
relaxation boost by singing, praying and performing rituals with others.

Closure Great job! You did very well in this lesson. Keep it up!
Module No. Module No. 1: Unpacking Self
and Title
Lesson No. Lesson 4 – The Political Self and being a Filipino
and Title
Learning 1. Develop a Filipino identity
Outcomes 2. Identify different Filipino values and traits
3. Reflect on your selfhood in relation to your national identity

Time Frame 3 HOURS/WEEK

Introduction Culture is a very dynamic and multi-dimensional aspect of development as it spans
and intersects with various sectors and social groups. More than these intersections, it
is also an interface of the past and the present that influence how people move
forward into the future. It is the identity of societies, where way of life is a result of
their histories, stories, experiences, knowledge, beliefs, and traditions. Values on the
other hand, is the basis of people’s choices and is defined as a belief or ideal that is
shared by a group or a community regarding what is good or bad, desirable or
undesirable, acceptable or unacceptable. Having a set of values that is shared within a
society provides a common ground where greater cohesion can be cultivated. Hence,
culture is the background while shared values are the guiding principles by which
policies and programs must be developed in order to give flesh to inclusive,
sustainable, and people-centered development.

Role Play: ( video recording) show at least 3 Filipino values together with any
Activity member of your household. Give your witty performance to this activity.

Abstraction
FILIPINO CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY:
 Filipinos have been described as friendly, outgoing, sensitive, easily offended, nosy, garrulous,
direct, hospitable, feisty, irreverent, good natured, clever, witty, gregarious, happy, generous, easy
to laugh, gracious, easy to befriend, casual, fun loving, sensitive and hospitable. Personal and
family honor are stressed, as well as dignity and pride. Education is highly valued and families
make great sacrifices to educate their children. Hiya (shame) is instilled in Filipinos at an early
age. To be shamed is the greatest form of disgrace. Filipino culture developed over centuries in
tandem with and in response to Western culture introduced by the Spanish and later Americans.

Social Values and Organization in the Philippines

 The great majority of the Philippine population is bound together by common values and a
common religion. Philippine society is characterized by many positive traits. Among these are
strong religious faith, respect for authority, and high regard for amor proprio (self-esteem) and
smooth interpersonal relationships. Philippine respect for authority is based on the special honor
paid to elder members of the family and, by extension, to anyone in a position of power. This
characteristic is generally conducive to the smooth running of society, although, when taken to
extreme, it can develop into an authoritarianism that discourages independent judgment and
individual responsibility and initiative. [Source: Library of Congress *]
 Filipinos are sensitive to attacks on their own self-esteem and cultivate a sensitivity to the self-
esteem of others as well. Anything that might hurt another's self-esteem is to be avoided or else
one risks terminating the relationship. One who is insensitive to others is said to lack a sense of
shame and embarrassment, the principal sanction against improper behavior. This great concern
for self- esteem helps to maintain harmony in society and within one's particular circle, but it also
can give rise to clannishness and a willingness to sacrifice personal integrity to remain in the good
graces of the group. Strong personal faith enables Filipinos to face great difficulties and
unpredictable risks in the assurance that "God will take care of things." But, if allowed to
deteriorate into fatalism, even this admirable characteristic can hinder initiative and stand in the
way of progress. *
 Social organization generally follows a single pattern, although variations do occur, reflecting the
influence of local traditions. Among lowland Christian Filipinos, social organization continues to
be marked primarily by personal alliance systems, that is, groupings composed of kin (real and
ritual), grantors and recipients of favors, friends, and partners in commercial exchanges. *

Island Influence and the Philippines Multi-Cultural Stew

 It is said that Filipino culture is derived from all the cultures that have resided on the islands. The
bayanihan or spirit of kinship and camaraderie is thought to have taken from their Malay
ancestors. Close family ties are said to have been inherited from the Chinese.
 The Tagalog word tsismis, wrote journalist Alan Berlow describes "stories, intrigue, lies, gossip,
speculation, gathered like rice in a basket and tossed up in the air, sending husks to the wind,
leaving behind kernels of truth. Truth and half truths, anyway." It is a "missing link, a smoking
gun, the connective tissue of random events, the effort to explain things that resist explanation.
 Philippine Pinoy culture has been described as "a buoyant chaos of Asian and Spanish
influence." The Philippines has been a crossroads between east and west and meeting point for
cultures from all over Asia and the Pacific, and the country's culture and people reflect this
merging of cultures.

Influence of History, Spain and America on Filipino Culture

 According to the Philippines Department of Tourism: Filipinos are a freedom-loving people,
having waged two peaceful, bloodless revolutions against what were perceived as corrupt
regimes. The Philippines is a vibrant democracy, as evidenced by 12 English national
newspapers, 7 national television stations, hundreds of cable TV stations, and 2,000 radio
stations. Three centuries under Spanish rule followed by 50 years of American influence has
made the Philippines an Asian country unlike any other. Through a thick layer of Spain and
America, you can glimpse the Filipino soul trying to express its unique, cultural identity through
creativity. [Source: Philippines Department of Tourism]
 Through music and dance: Our love of sosyalan (socializing), dancing and music, culminate in
the province-wide street party and town talent show – the fiesta (festival). Usually a celebration of
the earth’s bounty, be ready to dance in the streets to tribal drum rhythms (listen for the Latin
influence). Or simply marvel at elaborate floats blooming with the season’s harvest and the town
folk’s crafty work. From masquerades to mud fests, pilgrim processions to pageant parties, our
island-style parties are open to everyone.
 Through art: Naturally artistic, you’ll see our penchant for color and craftsmanship even outside
museums and galleries. Pay attention. It can be seen in our handicraft, design, fashion. Spot it in
our churches or our parks. It can be loud like our jeepneys or as clean as our embroidery, as brash
as our tribal tattoos or as delicate as Lang Dulay’s weaving.
 Through food Our distinct cuisine came from the comfort food that reminds Filipinos of family,
home, and simple joys. Its many-layered flavors are expressed differently from kitchen to kitchen.
So try to get invited as often as you can! Take the national dish, adobo (pork stewed in garlic, soy
sauce and vinegar). It has as many recipes as we have islands. But we all share it. With islands so
diverse, Philippine culture is a buffet or fun and festivity.
 There is common saying that the Philippines endured 300 years of Spanish rule and 50 years of
Hollywood. One Latin American journalist wrote that “self-awareness acquired with
independence from Spain has been inseparable from a sense of backwardness and self-doubt.
Describing her childhood, Imelda Marcos said, "I knew how to eat an apple before I knew the
banana. I knew the American anthem instead of my own anthem."

Latin Influence on Filipinos

 The Filipinos character has been described as a mix of Hispanic and Asian cultures. Many say
Filipinos have more in common with Latin Americans than they do with Asians. Life in the
Philippines often has a slow pace. Big gatherings and fiestas are common. There is
a manana attitude about time. Being punctual is called “American time.
 Machismo culture is prevalent on television, in the workplace and in everyday life. One Filipino
woman told Newsweek, "our culture teaches that men are to be strong." The roots of the macho
lie both in Spanish colonial and traditional familial hierarchal structures.
 Latin America is often described as violent, passionate and intense. Crime rates and often murder
rates are high. Large numbers of people party regularly all night. Many non-Latin Americans
consider Latin Americans to be noisy and affectionate. Madonna described Latin culture as "very
embracing, warm, passionate." The same cold be said about Filipinos.
 Latin American are very hospitable and generous and it often seems the poorer people are the
more they are willing to give. Guests are honored with special dishes and treats. Honor is
important and defended vigorously, sometimes even physically. Personal criticism is taken very
seriously and should be avoided. Because individuals are considered far more important than
schedules, punctuality at meetings may be admired but not strictly observed. A casual stop over
can sometimes turn into a visit that lasts a few days or a week. These guests often disappear,
however, if work need to be done. Children like house guest because they spoil the children and
give them lots of attention. These ideas and values also exist in the Philippines.
 Cleanliness is a virtue despite how dirty things seem on the street level. Much time is spent
making sure that the house is tidy and clean. Floors are mopped on daily basis and walls are
scrubbed weekly. The condition of a house is a reflection on the family and especially the mother.
The streets are beat up and full of trash but homes are clean. People keep their homes clean but
often litter in public.
 Latin Americans sometimes seem to have difficulty distinguishing between realty and myth.
People believe in miracles and the power of divine intervention. Charismatic leaders and sports
heroes are worshiped as gods and their faults are glossed over. It is no surprise that the literary
movement of "magical realism,” championed Columbian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, sprung
up in Latin America. These ideas are very much alive in the Philippines.

Asian Influence on Filipinos

 National Geographic photographer Karen Kasmauski said, Filipinos “are more expressive and
emotional than other Asians, yet they still have a polite Eastern restraint and civility about them
and a strong aesthetic sense, an appreciation of beauty—particularly beautiful women.” Despite
have a reputation for being emotional, Filipinos are surprised by overt expressions of emotion and
don’t like when people raise their voice.
 An emphasis is placed on skills to smooth interpersonal relations and minimize interpersonal
conflict. When a difference of opinion arises, an effort is made to settle the matter with
euphemisms and go-betweens rather than open criticism. Pakikisama—the art of smooth
interpersonal relations—is of utmost importance to Filipinos. Social control is exerted through
customs similar to adat found elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
 "Face" is important in the Philippines as it is elsewhere in Asia, where it has been said that "face
is more important than truth or justice" and losing face is often an individual’s greatest fear. Face
is essentially respect in a community and is a crucial underpinning of society. Loss of that respect
threatens the relations of individuals with almost everyone in his or her world and is hard to get
back once lost and thus is avoided at all costs.
 ”Face” is equated with honor and “losing face” is equated with shame, disrespect and
humiliation. Maintaining dignity and avoiding embarrassment is at the heart of maintaining face.
Some people describe the West as a guilt-based society where people's behavior is dictated by
their personal hang-ups. Asian societies, on the other hand, are often described as shame-based
societies, in which behavior is often defined by fear of losing face. It is considered very bad taste
to publically criticize a person since it results in a loss of face within the community. Necessary
criticisms and suggestions should be made in way the that no one is blamed and shame is not cast
upon any individual.
 Filipinos and Southeast Asians consider it rude to say "no" directly. They often say something
like "maybe," "I am busy," or even "yes" when they really mean "no," or convey a no answer in a
way that foreigners don't understand. This behavior sometimes causes confusion with Westerners
who like a "yes" or "no" answer, and who tend to believe there is a possibility of a "yes" unless
they are told "no" straight out.

HERE ARE THE TOP 10 TRAITS OF FILIPINO

Closure Thank you for your great effort to this module! You did very well!