Religion and Science

After reading chapter 15 Religion and Science, Bridging Hindu/Muslim Divide, I agree with Sikhism.  There shouldn't be your God or my God, religion was created by humans.  The caste system was created by humans who were well off, more wealthier or educated than others.  The Hindu book, Bhagavad
Gita, does not mention the caste or the status of a person, instead it states that all human beings should treat each other equally.

Hindu's in Fiji Island, does not believe in the caste system.  In 1800's when British took Indian's from all over India to Fiji, to work on the sugar cane plantation.  The caste system was dropped, because we had no connection to India.  Fijian -Indian's follow the religion but there has been a lot of changes.  Our food is heavily influence by Nepal, and the dialect has changed as well.

Chapter 9 The Messenger and the Message

The rebirth of a new religion was by an individual name Mohammad Ibn Abdullah.  When he was a child he lost his parents, so his uncle took care of him.  In order to stay with his uncle he had to work as a shepherd.  As Mohammad got older he became a trader and traveled as far north as Syria.  When he turned 25 he married a rich widow and fathered her six children.  He was deeply troubled with religion.  Later, he strongly believed that he was Allah's messenger to Arabs.

As the messenger of god, Muhammad presented himself in the line of earlier prophets, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and many others.

Chapter 7 Commerce and Culture

What was the impact of disease along the silk roads?

People were exposed to unfamiliar diseases to which they had little immunity or effective methods of coping.  The spread of some particular epidemic diseases led to deaths on a large scale.

Greek city-state of Athens in 430 – 429 B.C.E. was suffering from a new disease that had entered Greece through seaborne trade from Egypt.  It killed about 25% of their army and weakened the city state.

Between 534 and 750 B.C.E. outbreaks of bubonic plague spread the coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea through the black rats that carried the disease arrived through seaborne trade with India.  The capital city of Byzantine Empire, lost thousands of people per day. 

In the fourteenth century the Black Death, identified variously with bubonic plague, anthrax, or a package of epidemic diseases, swept away nearly 1/3 of the population in Europe, China, and the Middle East.

Some people were benefited from the disease which increased appeal to religions-Christianity & Buddhism.
Tenant farmers/urban workers demanded higher prices and became wealthy.