Chapter 2 Intro to Religious Studies
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Morgan State University *
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201
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Philosophy
Date
Jan 9, 2024
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docx
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1.
What variables might affect our study of religion, especially as we begin?
a.
Some variables that might affect our study of religion may include our own religion, our own biases against other religions, or even as the texts suggests, simply being in the course of studying religion for the grade. Adding to the idea that your/our own religion could affect our study of religion, former religious trauma could also affect your study and create bias our make you unwilling to listen or study objectively. Another variable that could affect our study of religion as implied by the text, could be the possibility of not being open to the idea of or knowledge from other religions. Just one of of these variables could heavily affect our own study of religion, but most times, we carry at least two of these biases/variables majority of the time. Even if we were to recognize these variables, it would be hard for us to be able to separate our biases from ourselves in order to objectively study religion in full.
2.
What are you own learning goals for the study of religion?
a.
My learning goals for the study of religion are to first understand why I decided to study religion because when registered for the class it was more of a spur of the moment, "I hope I learn something new or interesting" deal. But as I attend class, I've come to develop other learning goals for my personal study of religion which includes my desire to learn more about religion itself and how it developed, to further my understanding of fear based religious teachings, and to have more academic talks and acknowledgements of religion, especially the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I think the main reason that these are my learning goals are partially in line with the text in its statement
that "I thought my students understood that the study of religion was a valuable to consider the questions of ultimate reality..." but also because I want to as stated earlier, learn more about religion itself and how it developed in the context of splintering off into different sects of the same religion. In the Abrahamic religions alone, of which there are 3, there are at least 15 separate denominations, at least 3 in Judaism, 3 in Christianity and in which is further broken down into different groups, and at least 2 major groups of islam. I want to be able to understand why each group splintered from its main branch to be able to have academics about such.
3.
What aspects of the academic approach to religion do you find problematic? Why?
a.
Aspects of the academic approach to religion that I find problematic come predominantly from the idea that a lot of the academic study, particularly of the Bible, leaves one to have to decide if history matches to the "historical events" in
the bible and if what is in there is literal or myth despite what history says. Furthermore, what i find slightly problematic about the academic approach to the study of religion is that each approach varies ever so slightly and can even counteract each other. For example, while the phenomenological and psychological approaches have similarities to each other, they both vary heavily from the anthropological approach. Additionally, the anthropological approach can differ vastly from the feminist approach, just as the feminist approach can vary vastly from the ecological approach. That is not to say that they all vary to
much for them to be similar, for example, while the sociological approach focuses predominantly on the network of relationships that can transform an individual into a member of a group, which then can serve as the basis for the individuals identity (
Dr.Debra Majeed, Introduction to Religious Studies
), the predominate focus of the feminist approach is to study and reinterpret the role of women in religious traditions as well as their encounters with God or other forces considered sacred. One say that these studies are inter-connected.
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