Culture & Vocabulary: Major religions of the world

270,783 views ・ 2018-07-21

English with Ronnie


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hi, guys.
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I got a secret to tell ya.
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Do you have a religion?
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Yeah?
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Most people do.
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I don't.
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I am what is called "agnostic".
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"Agnostic" means I do not believe in a god.
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Do you want to turn the video off because you're offended by my religious views?
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Go ahead, but you're going to miss a great lesson on religion.
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My whole point of this educational video, if you will, is to preach tolerance.
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Because guess what?
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You have a religion, I have a religion-no I don't-and other people will have a different
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religion than you, especially when you're travelling.
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So, let's say that you leave your beautiful house and your beautiful country, and you
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come to another country.
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Guess what?
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There are going to be people that don't have the same religion as you, and you get to respect
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them, and hopefully they get to respect you.
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Unfortunately, the world has kind of turned against us.
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Thank you, media, for making all religions a point of war; which it shouldn't be, because
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most religions should teach love.
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Oh.
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Where did that go wrong?
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So, what I want you guys to understand is that I don't have a religion, I don't want
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to have a religion, and it's my choice; as is it's your choice to have your religion.
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But respect goes a far way.
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So, let's dive right into religion.
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What is it?
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The cool thing is when I was researching this is the dictionary didn't really have a distinct
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definition of "religion", but it said this - it said: "Religion is a cultural system
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of designated behaviours"-so how you act in your culture-"practices"-so things that you
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do; no matter what your religion is-"and world views".
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So, this means how religion sees other issues in the world.
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You with me so far?
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So, religion has nothing so far to do with anything that is violent or bad; it has to
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do with someone's opinion of a culture.
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We have two words to start off.
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The first one is "atheism".
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"Atheism" means that you do not believe in a god; nothing.
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There's no god that exists.
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It's kind of close to "agnosticism", which I told you that I was.
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"Agnosticism" means that you have no proof that god exists, or any gods exist.
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So I teeter-totter between being atheist and being agnostic, but I don't have a religion.
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I think religions are amazing, but "atheism" is a belief that god doesn't exist, and "agnosticism"
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is a belief that: "I don't know yet, so don't ask me my question.
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I haven't decided."
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What I've done is I've written down the four top-and by no means best-religions of the
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world.
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In our crazy world we have 10,000 different distinct religions.
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10,000.
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But over 85% of the population are in the top four religions.
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Now, statistics: I don't believe them, so when I tell you percentages and stuff, it's
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clearly all from the internet and I don't believe half of it; but let's see if you do.
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Apparently the biggest population in the world, 2.4 billion or 33% of the population are apparently
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"Christian".
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Okay?
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Apparently this involves people who are atheist and agnostic.
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So that's statistic is blown out of the water right away, but Christianity is supposed to
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be the religion with the most followers.
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So, first word to learn is: "monotheistic".
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"Mono" means one, and "theistic" means God.
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So, Christianity is a religion with one god, and his/her...
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His/her...
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God's name is God.
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Is God a him or a her?
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What do you think?
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Yeah, you don't know, do you?
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Okay.
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So, this...
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Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
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Okay?
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We like to shorten his name and just call him "Jesus".
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And Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God.
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He was born to a virgin...
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What?
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In a manger.
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That doesn't make sense, scientifically; don't tell my mom that.
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The holy book that Christians use is called a "Bible" or "Gospel", so this is where all
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of the teachings of Jesus Christ are written.
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People who practice Christianity are called "Christians".
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And the important thing that you guys have to realize is that if you are Catholic, you
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are Christian; if you are Protestant, you are Christian; if you are Eastern Orthodox-these
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are the top three-you are also Christian.
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So you have to be careful.
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You can't say to someone: "Oh, well I'm Catholic, but I'm not Christian."
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Well, damn straight: You're both Catholic and Christian, because these religions practice
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Christianity.
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Okay?
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So be careful what your ideas of... are from your country.
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Christians believe that when you die-which we all will-you will either go to Heaven or
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Hell.
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Other religions, like Catholicism (Catholic people) believe that there's a purgatory.
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And purgatory is kind of like the waiting room; that they haven't decided if you're
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good or bad yet.
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So, you can go to Heaven or you can go to Hell, or be rested in purgatory.
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Where do you want to go?
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You want to go to Heaven, don't you?
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Okay.
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The next one we have is 1.8 billion people; 24% of the population.
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So, there isn't a big difference in the size of the population, if the statistics are true
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(which they're not).
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This religion is called "Islam".
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It is, like Christianity, a monotheistic religion: One god.
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In this religion, God's name is "Allah".
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I think Allah's a man; sounds like a man's name.
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And just like Christians have Jesus...
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I can do this.
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Just like Christians have Jesus, Islam has Muhammad.
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Now, Muhammad is apparently the messenger of God.
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Jesus was the son of God, but Muhammad is the messenger of God; so he directly told
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the people what God was saying.
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Interestingly enough, in the Islamic religion, they have prophets: Adam, Abraham, Moses,
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Jesus...
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What?
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Muslim people or people who are Islamic - they believe in Jesus.
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Jesus was a prophet.
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Okay?
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So, all of these guys: Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, who exist in Christianity are also
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prophets in the Islamic religion.
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But they believe that Muhammad was the last messenger of God, so he's the most important
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prophet.
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Just like Heaven...
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Just like Christianity, there's a final judgement where people go to Heaven or go to Hell.
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Well, that sounds really similar to Christianity.
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What are you guys fighting about?
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You all go to the same place; you do good, you do bad.
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People who follow Islam are called "Muslim", and the holy book is called the "Qur'an".
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So it's a book that has the teachings.
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Do you see a lot of similarities between these two religions yet?
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Open your mind.
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Have a look.
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The next religion is "Hinduism".
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Hinduism is polytheistic or monotheistic.
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So, I've told you that "monotheistic" means one God.
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What do you guys think "polytheistic" means?
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"Poly" means many.
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So, Hinduism is polytheistic or monotheistic.
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Or, if you choose-it's your choice-you can be "atheist".
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What?
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A religion that can be atheist...
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Oh yeah.
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Hinduism - this is pretty cool.
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So, check this out: It was made in India and it's the oldest religion in the world, apparently.
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And it's based on dharma, and dharma is the way of life.
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It's like a life path; telling you what are good things and bad things to do.
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Check this out: There are no religious authorities.
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What?
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Nobody's telling me what to do?
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Well, this is pretty cool.
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There's no governing body, which means there's no...
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Again, there's nobody telling you what to do; there's no one god, there's no one person
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that is almighty.
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There's no prophets, and there's no special holy book.
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This sounds very open-minded.
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The pronunciation of the common Islam faith...
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I forget.
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So, we've got Sunni, which is 75 to 90%, and we have Shia which is 10 to 20%; I forgot
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about that.
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But if you guys look at the Hinduism...
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These words are very difficult for me to say; I do apologize.
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Let me go to my notes; my pronunciation notes.
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So, we have: "Vaishnavism".
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If I've said that wrong, I do apologize; it's not my intention.
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And then we have: "Shaivism" and "Shaktism".
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Again, if I've done that wrong, I'm sorry.
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The Hindu people...
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So people who practice Hinduism are called "Hindus" - they believe in "reincarnation".
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So, "reincarnation" means: When you die, your soul doesn't go to Heaven or Hell; it comes
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back again, maybe to this Earth, and you live a whole other lifetime.
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Wow.
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Do you believe in reincarnation?
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I do.
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I think I've lived many, many times; and I was probably hanging out with you at some
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point.
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We were like: "Yeah!
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This is great, Ronnie!"
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I'm like: "Yeah."
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Okay?
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So, reincarnation is very different from Heaven or Hell.
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Okay?
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Reincarnation means you are born again and you live again.
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Amazing.
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Super cool.
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And the last one is "Buddhism".
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If you guys have ever been to China or if you're from China, you can go to a beautiful
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Buddhist temple.
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Awesome.
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Like Hinduism, Buddhism has no personal god, so you don't worship one person; but it's
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based on the teachings of this one guy who was a real person named Buddha.
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He's pretty cool.
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He looks nice.
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So, this is based on his teaching or his ideas.
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All right?
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This only makes 520 million; 15 to 16% of the population of the world.
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Again, statistics.
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Basically, Buddhist people believe in rebirth into five realms of being.
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Check this out.
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The top one would be heavenly, so this means you've achieved all the amazing things you
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should in your lifetime; you would not be reincarnated again and you'd be heavenly.
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We have demi-gods; humans, that's me and you; animals; hungry ghosts; and hellish.
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Now, hellish, obviously would be the worst one.
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Maybe some humans are actually hungry ghosts and hellish - I don't know.
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So, Buddhism is based upon the teachings of Sidda...
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Sidda-ta...
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Siddhartha-I'm sorry; I can't do it- Gautama.
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If I said his name right, amazing.
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That's it.
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So, I want you to think about your religion, and I want you to also think about the people
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around you.
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Do you know people who have a different religion?
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Do you know people that have a religion that's not written down here?
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Cool.
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Talk to them about it.
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We have a saying in English that you shouldn't talk to people about sex, religion, or politics.
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I'm not talking to you guys about politics ever.
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Love people; don't hate people.
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I'm out of here.
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