Religion, as we all know, is a social-cultural system that is composed of unique practices

and behaviors. We have a lot of religions around the world, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism,

Christianity (Largest population in a religion) It is usually people giving worship and honor to

their own Gods. Worship is the feeling of or the way of showing devotion and reverence to a

deity that has worth or/is worthy. Each religion has their own Gods, for example, Christians have

God, Buddhists have Buddha, and Islamic people have Allah. Believing in our own Gods has

several positive results in our society, usually there are values and teachings that we can attain

from listening to our mass. But there are also negative things about worship such as

discrimination to other religions, inhuman practices, disrespect to each other to persuade, etc. As

a person born in the Philippines, it is very normal for families to be religious, it can be Islam,

Roman Catholic, INC, etc. I am born as a Roman Catholic and having religious families are

common.

It is important to set aside our beliefs in looking at religion, and I have 3 reasons. One is

to give respect to different religions. Few of the beliefs that we have may be offensive to other

religions because we view things differently, one good example or reason of it is stereotyping.

Stereotyping is a generalized belief that we see in different culture or social group of people. In

my opinion, stereotyping should be avoided as much as possible because not everyone is the

same, they may be the same in their religion or origin but in the inside, they are unique, not

everyone is similar, each of us have our own differences and our differences should not be

discriminated. Another reason on why we should set aside our beliefs in looking at religion is for

the respect on the freedom of a person. There are a number of beliefs that takes away the

freedom of a person to the point that it is hard for them to show who they are and do what they
want. Some of the examples are the strictness of parents to their own children and the teachings

and words from our elders or ancestors. The freedom of a person should not be interfered

because people limit their own self, it is easier to know a person if we just let them be who they

want. For the last reason, Prejudice or being judgmental and being inequal to our fellow

religions. Like what I have said earlier which is stereotyping. It is when we see a group of people

then we tend to say things to them that can discriminate them, we should treat each other equally

because that is what our God wants us to do. They did not create us to show hatred towards each

other, not because we have a different religion, we have to treat the other religions differently,

for example, some people when they see Muslims, sometimes they are being extra protective to

their belongings or to their companion, they always think they are criminals and we should stop

that mindset, we should think what if we are in that position, will we feel comfortable? Will we

feel belonged? the answer is no. So that is why we should show each other the same love and

treat each other equally, more like how we treat our friends. It is not difficult to give a bit of love

and trust to others, the world, in my opinion, lacks in love and that is why countless wars and

disputes are happening in different countries and religions.

Not everything that I have said can be applied to all people. Each of us see things

differently depending on the situations and experiences that the person has encountered and only

thing we can do now is think positive and hope for the best results. Let us just follow and learn

the good teachings and values that our own God’s tell us. Make the world a happier and better

place for future generations to come.