Religion and Ethnic Diversity
Denise McDonald
ETH/125
July 12th, 2015
Ramona Taitano Loughran

Religion and Ethnic Diversity Everyone in the world comes from different backgrounds, has different religions, and overall has different beliefs, morals, and views. I am white with a Roman Catholic religious background. I will be discussing the Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) religion as well as the Pacific Islander (Polynesian Descent) ethnic group. It will show the differences that these two groups face when compared to other religions and ethnic groups. According to Biola Magazine (1996-2015),” the overwhelming emphasis in the Mormon scriptures is on earning salvation through obedience to commandments and refraining from sin”. In most other religions you are born with original sin and in the Mormon religion, they do not believe that. Sin does not occur until a person is old enough to be held accountable around the age of seven and older. In the Catholic religion, we are taught that it is “The father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” whereas in the Mormon religion it is “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”. A majority of the Christian population believe that Mormons are not Christian while Mormons disregard that and state that they are. Non-Mormons still believe that Mormons still participate in Polygamy even though it has not occurred since the 1860’s. Many people believe that Mormons spend a lot of their time as teens walking door to door to try to recruit people to come to their religion. Others do not agree with Mormons not being able to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, which is considered a sin in the Mormon religion. There are more Mormons in the United States of America than any other country and is the fastest growing religion. It has contributed to American culture by increasing in size with the amount of people that follow this religion. It has added colleges, Brigham Young University being its biggest. Most importantly, it created The Book of Mormon. The biggest example of discrimination or prejudice against a Mormon would be when Mitt Romney was running for President of The United States. People would simply not vote for him because they did not want to have a Mormon President. The same people that were against it believe that the religion is a cult of sorts and that the U.S. was not ready for a Mormon President. The sources of this discrimination and prejudice were the American people who do not believe in the Mormon religion and do not believe they are Christians. Therefore, it could be other Christian followers as well as Catholics and so on. From what I have learned and seen from friends of mine that are of Mormon religion, I have learned a little bit more than I already knew. The biggest problem with people not understanding this religion is that they are not knowledgeable about it, nor do they do the research to learn what this religion actually stands for. When you do not know anything about it, you tend to assume and stereotype based on other people’s opinions.

References biola magazine. (1996-2015). Retrieved from http://magazine.biola.edu/article/12-summer/what-are-the-key-differences-between-mormonism-and/