The study of religion is important to me because I wish to gain a deeper understanding of my own faith and the faith of others in history. This will enabled me to come to a better understanding and gain deeper insights into how different cultures or eras believe, and what those beliefs mean to contemporary faith and religion. By studying religion I also hope to forge some transcendent connection among all religions, be it animism or Catholicism. At their core, I believe all religions promote peace and harmony in connection with a higher power through right living. Whether that power is nature or God, a deeper understanding of diverse religions will benefit my own faith and development. There are a number of lessons learned from the first five chapters that were new to me. One is that I learned some religions are not truly categorizes as religion, like animism or totemism. I used to think that the totemism of the Native Americans was, indeed, a religion. I also did not realize that basically all cultures
9 
)
= 706
= 3 (250 words per page)
