Religious Phenomenon
Garrett Kurtz
11/27/12
Religion 101
Religious Phenomenon’s
When reading both of these articles the one that really stood out to me in terms of interest was the article Women & Islam: The rise and rise of convert. This article really stood out to me because of the staggering statistics about how many of the converts was women. During the last decade 100,000 Britons have converted to Islam from their previous religion and seventy percent of the converts were women (Peppiatt 1). This statistic is up from the previous decade which only 60,000 Britons had converted (Peppiatt 1). It is so curious to why there is such an increase in the number of converts into the religion of Islam and why so many of them are women. In the article it describes the different difficulties these women go through as they have converted from their previous religion to their current religion, Islam.
In Smarts book worldviews there are six dimensions that he talks about and on the one that applies to this article is the Experimental dimension. The part of the experimental dimension that is relevant is the numinous experience. A numinous experience is an experience that is awe-inspiring. This applies to the reading, specifically one of the stories towards the end of the article. In the story of Nicola Penty-Alvarez, she talks about how she got into the religion, what it meant to her daily life, and what happened to her beliefs later down the road. Nicola said she was always interested in the meaning of life and when she came across the religion of Islam she said “It all just clicked” (Peppiatt 3). This was the numinous experience that sent Nicola’s life into the direction that she thought it should go and left her in awe. Nicola felt very welcomed by the Muslim community. The reason she felt so welcomed was because of the community was mainly full of white converts. It wasn’t a rare thing that this community was mainly white converts but a normal thing for new converts. After a
11/27/12
Religion 101
Religious Phenomenon’s
When reading both of these articles the one that really stood out to me in terms of interest was the article Women & Islam: The rise and rise of convert. This article really stood out to me because of the staggering statistics about how many of the converts was women. During the last decade 100,000 Britons have converted to Islam from their previous religion and seventy percent of the converts were women (Peppiatt 1). This statistic is up from the previous decade which only 60,000 Britons had converted (Peppiatt 1). It is so curious to why there is such an increase in the number of converts into the religion of Islam and why so many of them are women. In the article it describes the different difficulties these women go through as they have converted from their previous religion to their current religion, Islam.
In Smarts book worldviews there are six dimensions that he talks about and on the one that applies to this article is the Experimental dimension. The part of the experimental dimension that is relevant is the numinous experience. A numinous experience is an experience that is awe-inspiring. This applies to the reading, specifically one of the stories towards the end of the article. In the story of Nicola Penty-Alvarez, she talks about how she got into the religion, what it meant to her daily life, and what happened to her beliefs later down the road. Nicola said she was always interested in the meaning of life and when she came across the religion of Islam she said “It all just clicked” (Peppiatt 3). This was the numinous experience that sent Nicola’s life into the direction that she thought it should go and left her in awe. Nicola felt very welcomed by the Muslim community. The reason she felt so welcomed was because of the community was mainly full of white converts. It wasn’t a rare thing that this community was mainly white converts but a normal thing for new converts. After a