Country, Government, Leader

India 

 Federal Parliamentary Representative Democrat Republic 

President Pranab Mukherjee

China

Communism 

President Hu Jintao

                                                                          Mexico 

                                                    Federal Representative Republic

                                                          President Felipe Calderon

Afghanistan

No central functioning government 

President Hamid Karzai

Iran

Theocratic Republic

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Israel

Parliamentary Democracy

President Shimon Peres

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahau  

Germany 

Democracy and Federal Republic

President Joachim Gauck

United Kingdom

Constitutional Monarchy

Queen Elizabeth ll

Prime Minister David Cameron 

France 

Unitary Semi-Presidential Republic 

President Francois Hollande

Brazil

Federal Republic 

President Dilma Rousseff

Venezuela 

Federal Republic

President Hugo Chavez

Saudi Arabia 

 Monarchy

King Abdullah

Questions.

Who is Siddhartha Gautama?

The founder of Buddhism.

Where are the main locations for Christianity?

The Americas, Europe, and southern Africa.

What does cultural characteristics include? 

The groups language, religion, and ethnic heritage.

Is Hinduism monotheistic or polytheistic?

Neither.   

What religion has more followers? Hinduism or Buddhism?

Hinduism, 900 million.

October 18 2012

Today in class we went over three more religions and will finish all of them tomorrow. Today we talked about Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. While we were talking about Islam i learned that women do not have as many rights as we do. They don't get an education like the boys/men do, they are also not aloud to over expose themselves. Only a tiny bit of skin can show through clothing everything else is covered. Then we started talking about Hinduism. I really liked Kishan talking about the religion in front of the class because he explained it really well. I learned that if you as a Hindu they would say Hinduism is monotheistic but technically its neither. I also liked that Kishan said in Hinduism your life is before religion, most religions are very stricked and you have to put all of tat first. Lastly we talked about Buddhism, I actually kinda already knew some stuff about that religion but at lunch today Mr.Schick told me that the Budda never really ate but his statue is always fat. I forgot to ask him in class why they did that but i think we will talk more about it tomorrow. Tomorrow i think we are going to start talking about Judaism.

October 15, 2012

Today in class we started to go over the answers to the questions we had to answer when Mr.Schick was out on Friday. We only really talked about Christianity because we had some pretty good discussions about the answers everyone got. I learned that Christianity's holy book is not the Bible it is the New Testament which is a book in the Bible. I also thought it was interesting when Mr.Schick told us that most wars start because of religious disagreements. I thought it was interesting because religion is supposed to bring people together and help each other understand the meaning of life. Not kill anyone who doesn't agree with you or doesn't have the same point of view on something as you do.

Top Five Religions

Top Five Religions

Christianity was founded in the Middle East by Jesus Christ after his death, which is also the central figure for the religion as well as the Pope. Christianity is a monotheistic religion and has 2.1 billion followers. The holy book is the New Testament (Bible). This religion isn't only found in the Americas, it is also found in Europe and southern Africa.

Islam has 1.5 billion followers and was founded around 600 AD in the Central Asian Arabian desert and spread to East Asia, Central Europe and North Africa. This religion is monotheistic and their holy book is the Quran. Islam’s central figure is Allah which in Arabic means “God”, the Prophet Mohammed is most central.  Generally this religion is practiced in the Middle East, Northern Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, and Western Africa.

Buddhism is a monotheistic religion that has about 376 million followers and was founded around 460 B.C by a price named Siddhartha Gautama. Siddhartha Gautama is the central figure of Buddhism, as well as the Buddah. This religions holy book is called the Tipitaka.

Hinduism has 900 million followers and was founded in 1500 BC or earlier in India. Its central figures are Guru and Sage. This religion’s main locations are India, United States, and the United Kingdom. Hinduism is a pantheism religion with polytheism elements. Their holy book or sacred texts are, the Vedas, Upanishads, Sutras, and the Bhagvad Gita.

Judaism is mainly found in Israel and the United States and has 14 million followers. This religion is monotheistic and was founded in the year 2000 BCE but the exact year and date is unknown. Its holy book is called the Torah and the central figures are The Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 

October 11,2012

Today in class Mr.Schick showed us a power point about different cultures and cultural characteristics. Which is and idea or theme that is shared between everyone in the group and used throughout their everyday life. For example, language, religion. and ethnic heritage. English is now considered the world language and is used for most business. We also how it would be helpful if everyone around you and in your country spoke the same language. We said they it could help with business and news. If something is happening it would be easier to get the word around about what ever is going on.

October 10, 2012

Today in class we presented our power points. There groups and each group had a different topic. My group’s topic was Vikings. I didn't really get to help out with my group’s power point because I had a volleyball game. My group also did not send in the power point so Mr. Schick didn't get it. When my group had the present we had to use another classes presentation to get at least some points. The other two groups were doing Columbus and Native Americans. I learned that Native Americans were in American before the Vikings and Columbus, but when Columbus showed up he fought the Natives for the land. I also learned that there are still many Native Americans living in America today.

October 8, 2012

I was only in class for ten minute but within the time I was there we were assigned groups. I'm not sure what the groups are for yet but I was assigned to the viking group.Knowing that most teachers don't like it when students miss class for sports I would just like to add that we did win our game.

Test!

On Friday we took a test on the movie God Grew Tired of Us. It was a fill in the blank test which I really liked because I have never taken a test like that before. I think I got a pretty good grade on the test, but usually when ever I think that I don't do very well. There were only two questions I was really uncertain about.

Wednesday October 3, 2012

Today in class Mr.Schick showed us how to use an open source recourse page. Our assignment was to find an organization that helps supports Africa in any kind of way. Once we found the website for the organization we would put the title down on the source resource website, then put your name and your partners name, and the link to the organization. My partner was Morgan, we found i think up to 2 organizations. One of them was The Water Project, the other was Sponsor a Child in Africa. I thought the website we were using to put our links down was really cool. I liked that we all could be working on one paper at the same time on at least 20 different computers. The only hard part was not being about to use a link more than once.

God Grew Tired of Us

Today in class we finished watching God Grew Tired of Us. We found out what happened to the lost boys that were brought to America. Panther wen't back to Africa to merry his girlfriend so they can both live in Pittsburgh. He was also reunited with his family. While in was in the United States Panther earned his Bachelors degree and started raising money to build a school in Sudan so he can teach people. John also got his Bachelors degree. He saved enough money to bring his mother and sister to the U.S. he helps support his family. John is also building a medical clinic in Sudan. Daniel didn't really do much to help in Sudan. He still works in the Job Core and he never found his family. My favorite parent in the movie was when John was reunited with his mother. I just thought it was so amazing how he hasn't seen his mother in 17 years and they find each other. I also liked John's mothers reaction when she saw him. She started singing a song I'm guessing their tribe use to or still does sing when they are happy or grateful. I think it would be very cool if we could do something to help the people in Sudan as a class. I'm not really positive on what we could do to help but in middle school we use to have contests on the see which grade could raise the most money for something and who ever won got an ice cream or pizza party.