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Fatima Chunara GCSE- R.E

Christian and Islamic attitudes towards bullying

Homework

1. Do you think religious people should stop bullies from bullying people?Yes, I think religious people, and in particular religiousleadersshould make it known to the followers

of their religion that bullying is not accepted within it and theyshould do their best to positively

influence them especially teenagers who may beexperiencing peer pressure to bully others. Also itmay beseen as a religious persons duty to try to try and stop bullyingespecially in religions that are

pacifists.

2. Explain why Christians are against bullyingChristians are against bullying because according to the bible and the teachings of Jesus it is wrong.

Christian are pacifists and this means they would be against all types of violence and are taught to

turn the other cheek if provoked and it is these believes and sayings from the bible that make

them so opposed to bullying. For example a teaching in the New Testament states that according to

Jesus Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God. And so from here

we can see why Christians would be opposed to bullying, to add to this in theeyes of Christians they

should be the ones to help the victims of bullying as it issomething that Jesus would do and also

something he would expect of his followers; in short rather than being the cause of the pain it istheir duty as Christians to help those who are in pain. Also manystories and examples in the bible

which Christianslive therelife byshow how against Jesus was to bullying, and also how hewas

against those who stand byand watch as others are hurt, for example thestory of the Good

Samaritan shows Christians how a victim received helped from an enemy and isused to show them

to stand up against bullying.

3. If everyone were religious there would be no bullies Do you agree?Despite the fact that nearlyevery religion is opposed to violence and bullying, I do not believe that

just becauseeveryone is religious there would be no bullies. There are many reasons why I believe

this; firstly, it is that as humans we are given free will and though there are guidelines from our

religions telling us how to behave, we need thestrength and belief to follow it. Also with free will,

comes our ability to do evil,yes, those actions may be wrong, and yet despite being religioustemptations arestill there to commit thesesins from the influence of the devil. Furthermore, as a

Muslim I believe that thislife is a test, and to me one of the parts of this test is being able to refrain

from committing sinssuch as bullying but that does not mean that if all the world was Muslim there

would be no crime.

In fact even ifeveryone had thesame beliefs there isstill the problem of interpretation, two people

may read thesame verse from the Quran and yet still differ on opinion, and there are thoseeven in

this modern society who use religion as not a motif for peace, rather as a motif of violence. People

take verses they want out of context and feed it to other people, and under this pretence of

committing violence in the name of religion we haveseen numeroussuicide bombings,loss of

innocent civilians and wars being initiated, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are primeexamples of this;

people who use religion for violence to fulfil their own political demands, in short their opinions on

Jihad differ from the majority of Muslims and yet still violence is happening at this very moment.

And even on a smaller scale we can see this, think about all Christian or all Muslim schools, no one

can say that within theseschools there are no bullying, because bullying issomething that occurs

within nearlyeveryschool in all its forms. Especially in this modern era, where no not onlyyour

religion is noted byyour peers, but whereeverything from your socialstatus, to your physical

appearance and brandsyou wear can be cause for bullying- and we cannot say that this bullying only

8/7/2019 Christian and Islamic Attitudes Towards Bullying

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Fatima Chunara GCSE- R.E

happens in mixed faith schools because it happenseverywhereeven in thoseschools whereevery

child follows thesame beliefs.

To me this is proof for how no matter how many people are religious, injustice willstill happen. To

others of course my views mayseem wrong and to them ifeveryone was religious the world would

be free of bullying. This people may have these views because they may believe that ifeveryone well

and truly believes than they will follow theexamples given to them in their religion and avoidconflict. Some Christian may believe that since Christianity is a pacifist religion, than there would be

no conflict ifeveryone believed. I however, disagree with this just bylooking at past events;

Christians have fought in violence against other religions ( the crusades), and also amongst

themselves- a primeexample being Northern Ireland which demonstratesexactly what I was

previouslysaying about different interpretations; both Catholics and Protestants are Christians, they

both follow the bible and they both believe in Jesus and therefore theyshould believe in pacifism

and follow thesame beliefs. But in reality, it does not matter that Christianity is a pacifist religion, or

that they follow thesame bible, the point islike in Islam, within Christianity there are different

interpretations.

To conclude I would say that just theexample of how people interpret things differently, along with

the fact that as humans we have been gifted with free will and the ability to commit evil, I think nomatter how many people are religious, bullying will always occur, against people in your own

religion, or against people following other religions.