Religious Site Reflection

Overall I had a very good experience visiting all of the religious sites. I learned a lot of information and got a lot of information that really broadened my horizon on the religions and opened my mind to understand their perspective of the world. At the Islamic Center of Raleigh I liked how they provided us with a basic overview of Islam and how we got to hear some of their students recite the Quran. At the Buddhist Center I really liked how colorful the center was and how we got to walk around the stupa even though it didn't really bring me any type of good fortune. I did find it frustrating however that everyone was only really concerned with the Dalai Lama and didn't focus on some of the other beautiful aspects of Buddhism. The Hindu temple was the prettiest by far. The statues of all the gods and goddesses were quite intriguing to look at. The synagogue was also one of my favorites. I really enjoyed the Rabbi's comparison of Judaism to Buddhism. I wish that I would have asked more questions and actually used each of these places to my advantage so I could get a practitioner of the religion to answer the questions revolving around the 3 questions in IB. One thing I would recommend is that for World religions this field trip would be most beneficial if it was taken at the beginning of the year as an introduction to the course. This is definitely a field trip that I would love to go on again.