REL 106 - Understanding Religion

4 Hour(s)
General Education P1

We can describe religion; we can compare our own experiences with one another; we can watch other people when they are being ‘religious’; we can see films, listen to music, look at advertising and watch news reports to discover where religion shows up, but what does it take to actually define religion? To begin the task of defining religion in this course, we will consider what religious people do, including: creating rituals, reading sacred texts, making sacred spaces, using special language, behaving ethically and sometimes behaving violently. We will look at ideas and practices across religious traditions but this is not a course in religions of the world. Rather, it is an introduction to the big ideas and common practices that help define what religion is.

FA, SP