Political Geography

Mexico

Constitution - Federal Republic

President Felipe de Jesus CALDERON Hinojosa

                China

                Constitution - Communist State

                President HU Jintao

                 India

                 Constitution - Federal Republic

               President Pranab Mukherjee

                                                        

                        Afghanistan

                        Constitution - Islamic Republic

                        President Hamid Karzai

Iran                                                                            Constitution- Theocratic Republic

Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini – Khamnei

                                        

Israel

Constitution - parliamentary democracy

President Shimon Peres

Germany

Constitution – federal republic

President – Joachim Gauck

United Kingdom

Constitution – unwritten, common law

Prime Minister David Cameron

France

Constitution – republic

President Francis Hollande

Brazil

Constitution – federal republic

President Dilma Rouseff

Venezuela

Constitution – federal republic

President Hugos Frias

Saudi Arabia

Constitution – Monarchy

King Abdallah bin Abd al – Aziz Al Saud

Questions For Test

In class today we were discussing good questions for the test that we would be taking Friday. We had to give a question and then tell us the answer to see if it would be a legit question for the test. For instance, one question was what are the three Abrahamic religions? The three Abrahamic religions are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Another question was what percent of India practice Hinduism and eighty percent of India are Hindu. There were a few trick questions like, is Buddhism monotheistic or polytheistic and it is neither polytheistic or monotheistic. Another one was, what was the name of the person who executed Christians but found the holy spirit and started spreading the word and changed his name. That would be Saul and once he found God he changed his name to Paul. There were a lot of good questions but I just named a few.

On Friday we learned about he different religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism  We already went over Islam and Christianity  we only had to learn about three more religions. We learned about Buddhism, the central figure is Siddhartha Gautama. It is not monotheistic or polytheistic, it doesn't have a holy book either, it has Four Noble Truths. We also learned about Hinduism  they do not claim one prophet. Also eighty percent of the people in India follow this religion. That last religion we learned about was Judaism, their sacred books are the Talmud and the Torah. They are waiting for the prophet to come to earth. Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion. After that class I learned a lot of insightful things about religions and it made me have a different prescriptive about different religions.

In class today we wrote some more notes on Cultural Geography. We got some stuff down on ethnic heritage, for example the United States and Switzerland have merged ethnic groups peacefully  Also Korea and Japan have primarily one ethnic group. Another example of ethnic heritage is in Africa where the tutsis and the hutus try to dominate each other. We also got into the religions and the five main religions are Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. We got into a big discussion about Christianity and how Jesus Christ is the central figure. We talked about what he did on the earth. The thing that separate Jesus from everybody else is that he died on the cross and rose from the dead and saved us from our sins. He also performed many more miracles on this earth  He was the only person to live a perfect life. It almost became a religion class.

Religions

Christianity was founded in Palestine around the beginning of 1 AD. It is monotheistic they only believe in one God. Yes they have a book that they follow and it is called The Holy Bible. Thirty-three percent of the world believes in the Christian faith. Jesus is the central figure for this religion because God made himself in a human form. Came on the earth and lived a perfect life and then died on the cross for our sins. This mostly takes place in the Middle East.

 The Islamic faith was founded in Mecca and Saudi Arabia about 622 BCE. They only worship one God so they are monotheistic. The book that they use as their guide is called the Qur’an. 1.3 billion People believe in the Islamic faith. Muhammad was spreading the word to people about the one and true God to a polytheistic world. The geographical Concentration is in Mecca. Buddhism was founded in the location of Northeastern India in 520 BCE.

Buddhism is a polytheistic culture. The book that Buddhist follows is called Tipitaka.  About 360 million people follow the religion Buddhism. Buddha is the central for this religion even though there are other gods. Many people from China, Korea, and Japan believe in Buddhism.  Hinduism was founded in India 1500 BCE.

 Hinduism is also a polytheistic religion. The sacred texts are Vedas, Upanishads, Sutras, and Bhagavad Gita. 900 million people believe or worship the Hindu faith. Belief about a God or gods is not the essential. People in India, United Kingdom, and the United States.

 Judaism was founded in Mesopotamia around 1300 BC. Like the Christina faith it is also monotheistic. The text that they use is Tanakh with the Talmud. 14 million people believe in Judaism. Their god is Yahweh which is their one and only God. Most of these people practice this religion in Israel, Europe and USA.  

I wasn't in class today because I went to the hospital to visit a relative.

In class today we took notes on "Cultural Geography." There are three man points in cultural geography, they are language, religion and ethnic heritage. Today we started talking about languages, today I learned that English is the world language especially for businesses. Also Spanish unites the Hispanic world. Also, Switzerland has many different languages and they still keep peace in the region. After that we got into ethnic heritages,Yugoslavia had many ethnic groups. Once they people in charged died out there was a civil war and they went to separate countries. We also talked about how diverse the United States are. The United States is known to be called a "tossed salad." Tomorrow we will get into religion and take a few notes about that.