malorynye.com

RELIGION THE BASICS

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE AND RELIGIONa simple introduction to the cultural debates

Malory Nye

This is me, Malory Nye

author of the book Religion the Basics

I live in Perth, Scotland

…for more about me, see:malorynye.com

published by Routledge:

first in 2003

and second edition in 2008

a new edition will be available some time next year, 2015

malorynye.com

RELIGION THE BASICS BOOK

What is it about?

Religion …doh! ;-)

How to understand religion in today’s world

What you might learn if you did a college course in the subject of ‘religious studies’

Religion and Culture

malorynye.com

RELIGION THE BASICS

Contours of the contemporary study of religion

The study of religion is a dynamic field, a lot is going on

Religion is relevant not only to the past

But also to the contemporary world

You can’t avoid it… it pops up, often in unexpected places

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RELIGION THE BASICS

We need a sophisticated approach to understand religion today

I try to avoid the familiar term ‘religious studies’ (if I can)

Instead I use a more nuanced alternative:

‘The study of religion and culture’

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RELIGION AND CULTURE

It’s what humans do

… and so we study that (i.e., what humans do)

Takes a human-centred approach

Not faith centred or god centred

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RELIGION AND CULTURE

If you have a particular faith, that’s great…

If you don’t, that’s great too…

But I look at how faith (if you have one) can be understood by relating it to a range of issues

Related to what makes you the person you are:

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RELIGION AND CULTURE

Where you were born...

The society you grew up in ...

The values of that society ...

The language ...

The influences on you from school, friends, family, church/mosque, and other places ... and much more …

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RELIGION AND CULTURE

In all aspects of your life…

… you practice and take part in your particular culture (and religion)

Some things about this are ‘religious’ more than others

e.g., going to church… reading particular texts… sitting meditating… what you eat… or what you wear… or how you think, etc.

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RELIGION AND CULTURE

This approach is not about whether there is any ‘supernatural’ or spiritual reality beyond the ‘here and now’

INSTEAD we ask other questions…

There are plenty of other interesting things to learn and think about religion…

*** without presuming or refuting an alternative reality ***

malorynye.com

Bear with me, it will make sense

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RELIGION AND CULTURE

I am not asking you to leave your faith at the door, when you come into this virtual classroom

Just leave at the door any expectation that there will be some simple answers to the big issues of faith

(e.g., why are we here? what’s it all about? what is god’s plan for us? why is there evil? etc).

I am not going to cover these :-)

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RELIGION AND CULTURE

Not only about asking questions on how to distinguish religion from culture (if indeed that is possible).

It is also about exploring religion from a cultural perspective:

= religions, religious traditions and practices

As a means by which culture and cultures can be understood

malorynye.com

RELIGION AND CULTURE

Studying people through the lens of the religions that they live

Studying religions through the people who live within them

malorynye.com

RELIGION AND CULTURE

Thanks for watching

In my next video I will say something about how this builds up into a whole course…

What sorts of things can we study to get a better idea of religion and culture?

See you there?

malorynye.com

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video: malorynye.com

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