At first, the lecturers gave us the assessments methods and types of how the process of lecture the students must follow. And the dean explained us what we have to do in the entire trimester. I was happy to know that we have panel discussion, reflection, research paper and oral final exam because all students have done much these things in past trimesters. He gave us clarification for how to do this reflective diary which takes 40% of the total marks for this subject.
Then, he moved to giving lecture about the sophists and about the “Brain for Hire”, how the sophists are good and fabulous at ideas, words and arguments. And I imagined that the lawyers, nowadays, are most likely to be the descending bloodlines of sophists. And, the most interesting thing that I learned from him was that just people are always loser and happiness comes from injustice but not from justice. I totally agree with him. And I found out that the system of collecting income tax has not just been formed in these 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. It has been used since thousand years ago.
At last, he and another lecture performed a conversation of Calicles and Socrates and they let us give opinions on it. Moreover, the lecturer distributed us the paper of that conversation. Finally, I admit that I have heard and learned so much of what I had not known before from that week 4 lecture.
In this week tutorial session, the lecturer explained about many religions on the world. Then he explained their history, beliefs, practices and so on and so forth. Going through this session, I get more knowledge about religion that I never honestly know before. After finished explanation, he asked us to draw picture or something like that to mention how we understand, how we feel about the various religion and what we got from his lecturer. Then we were supposed to choose one religion as a topic to reflect on that. I chose Zoroastrianism because I don’t know about this religion and I want to know more and more about this. It gave me the opportunity to search and learn about this religion.
As far as I found about this religion, Zoroastrianism is a religion that was founded by Zarathushtra also known as Zoroaster in Persia, modern day Iran. It was once the religion of the Persian Empire, but has since been reduced in numbers to fewer than 200,000 today. Judaism and Christianity are similar to Zoroastrianism. And I found that Islam is also similar to Zoroastrianism from some website. In some case I think it is right like there is only one God to worship and prayers are recited five times a day, but in belief they are totally different.
We can say that the Zoroastrianism is monotheism and dualism because the belief of this religion is there are a God named Ahura Mazda and his opponent named Aura Mainyu (evil). Zarathustra was charged with the task of inviting all human beings to choose between him (good) and Aura Mainyu (evil). This is totally different from Islam which belief is there is only one God to worship and He has no opponent and nothing can be compare with Him.
In Zoroastrianism, about disposing of the dead, it is unlawful to burn or bury the body or to throw it into water, as any of these modes of disposal would defile one of the sacred elements; the dead must therefore be exposed in high places to be devoured by birds and dogs. In my personal view, it is very sympathy-less work and, I don’t understand that which sacred elements would be defiled by burying the dead body. In Islam, we have to bury the dead body and cannot burn or throw it into water and, we have to touch the dead body very softly. I can’t imagine about devouring by birds and dogs. This is one thing absolutely different between Islam and Zoroastrianism.
Finally, I got many knowledge about this religion that I don’t know before. Then, I realized that we must learn and take as a lesson from those ethical issues to be able to avoid misunderstanding when we communicate with people from different places. I am sure that I will get more knowledge related to ethical issues by learning through this subject.
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