Before starting this unit, I knew of multiple religions besides the major religions, but I never thought if those were considered “major”, then other religions must be considered “minor”. When listening to the Keeping It 101 podcast, they discussed how some of these minor religions tend to be “left out”. As a Christian, I remember filling out which religion I am affiliated and seeing so many denominations (around if not more than 20) of Christianity. I don’t remember other religions getting these many options and even noticing some religions being excluded and needed to be written in after selecting “Other”.
Another thing the podcast addresses is that when labeling religions, we set an image of what “religion” looks like. This is not good because it leads to stereotypes and make people assume how people who practice a certain religion look and how their practices should look. An example of this would be Sikhism. I have friends who are Sikh and they have told me how people think they are “terrorists”, which by that they mean Muslim, or Hindu because they are Indian. Because Islam and Hinduism are two major religions, and Sikhism would be considered a “minor” religion, it is evident how the labeling of religions as “major” or “minor” are harmful to all religions, the ones being misinterpreted and the ones being attributed wrongfully.
