At the time of this writing, I'm a senior majoring in biology, planning on attending dental school next fall. As a highly analytical, left brain thinker, scientific disciplines have always most fascinated me. Even as a child, I have always been extremely curious about why and how things occur. This questioning mentality is the essence of science and is what lead me to pursue a career in the health sciences. One of my favorite things about science is its objectivity. Science is an based on observation and experimentation of the natural and physical world. Theories in science can be tested and replicated numerous times before being accepted as valid. A stark contrast to scientific reasoning is religious faith. Science is based on reasoning by evidence, whereas, religion by revelation and belief.
I grew up in a mixed religious home; my Father was raised Catholic, and my Mother Jewish. In the Jewish religion, that meant I was Jewish, which was how my parents decided to raise my siblings and I culturally. I think that having two extremely passionate loving parents from different ideologies played a large role in my views on religion. However before I came to Emory, I knew very little about Judaism, let alone much about religion. I pretty much thought of religion as a cult-like practice that divided people over different made-up supernatural ideologies. When I came to college, I began attending Shabbat dinners with my friends as it was a social activity and slowly began to learn more about my religion. My curiosity lead me to do a Jewish learning program called Maimonides, which than lead me to attend a 10 day trip to Poland, where we visited the remains of the concentration camps and ghetto's where my Jewish ancestors had been persecuted during the Holocaust. Going to Poland and seeing and learning about the historical tragedy first hand, was by far one of my most meaningful experiences in life.
Although I would still not consider myself a "religious" person per se, I feel that my scientific reasoning skills and my knowledge of the Jewish religion will help aid me in the course as a historian perspective learning about the Jewish Roots in Southern Soil.
I grew up in a mixed religious home; my Father was raised Catholic, and my Mother Jewish. In the Jewish religion, that meant I was Jewish, which was how my parents decided to raise my siblings and I culturally. I think that having two extremely passionate loving parents from different ideologies played a large role in my views on religion. However before I came to Emory, I knew very little about Judaism, let alone much about religion. I pretty much thought of religion as a cult-like practice that divided people over different made-up supernatural ideologies. When I came to college, I began attending Shabbat dinners with my friends as it was a social activity and slowly began to learn more about my religion. My curiosity lead me to do a Jewish learning program called Maimonides, which than lead me to attend a 10 day trip to Poland, where we visited the remains of the concentration camps and ghetto's where my Jewish ancestors had been persecuted during the Holocaust. Going to Poland and seeing and learning about the historical tragedy first hand, was by far one of my most meaningful experiences in life.
Although I would still not consider myself a "religious" person per se, I feel that my scientific reasoning skills and my knowledge of the Jewish religion will help aid me in the course as a historian perspective learning about the Jewish Roots in Southern Soil.