One of the pleasures is the final syntheses from Theorizing Religion. I invite students to put together a synthesis of what they want to take away from the class. It's ungraded (unless they don't do it),
and they're welcome to submit something in a genre which matters to them.In past years I've received paintings, short films, a play, and a pop-up book. This time, I got a powerpoint summary, a poem, a dialogue in heaven, several collages, the drawing at right, an activity book, and several essays of a more and less personal nature; although my classes always assiduously avoid discussions of personal experience and conviction, several students take the synthesis as an occasion for articulating a personal creed. (And there I was thinking this class hated religion! Only in its "organized" forms...) It's humbling to realize that what students learn may be only tangentially related to what you teach (if that) - and yet very important. I hope it violates no confidences to give you a sampling.
Exclusivist- my grandmother is one
Inclusivist- my boyfriend is one
Pluralist- I would like to think that i'm one
I agree with Hume. It is difficult to look to God as an example for ourselves. He is so much more perfect than we are, that we dismiss him as being impossible to emulate. That's why the bible is so important. The characters in it are human. You are meant to relate to them. For example, Moses had great fears about leading the Israelites out of Egypt. He even tried to refuse the task at first. But he persisted in spite of his fears. This story shows the reader that it's ok to have doubts about God; it shows that they should follow Moses' example and persist anyway. Moses is a more relatable idol than God is.
Overall I have learned that religion can be true and most definitely can be good. Religion should be categorized by effects, not its means.
Freud and Schleiermacher, no, characters representing Freud and Schleiermacher are summoned to a manger. There they find the daughter of the local grain salesman - and mistress to both! - dying of influenza. She is in and out of consciousness, mumbling forth fragments of fantastic visions. It isn't clear whom she's addressing. Each man is convinced she speaks to him,
and interprets her words accordingly. Later they find out that she is pregnant. Father unknown. Etc. Etc. Near the end the woman chokes herself on a handful of hay because the two men are so prolix.In studying religion at Lang, I was amazed by how the majority of my Religious Studies professors seemed to hold a personal faith. How could people know so much about the fallacies of a religion - their own religion! - and still believe in their system? I had a difficult time understanding the critical distance they had to maintain in order to keep their Religious Studies classes from becoming a series of sermons, and the fact that they still believed in their faith, regardless of the very incongruities that they were pointing out to me. ... Their examples give me hope of maturing properly, becoming my own person who can digest new information without being completely torn apart by relativism.
I have learned that so much of religious history has been shaped not just by prophets and followers but thinkers who questioned it and attacked it.
do we take the red pill or the blue pill? Why is the choice between what you believe you know and an unknown 'real' truth so fascinating? How could a choice possibly be made? On the one hand you have your life, everything that you know and love. On the other only a promise. The red pill symbolizes risk, doubt and questioning. In this case the red pill is religion, it is the faith in a higher power, [John Caputo's] "love of God". By choosing the red pill you can gamble your whole life, world, and what you know to be true on a reality you don't even know exists and will probably never experience. The blue pill represents reality. However reality may be harsh and limiting. Two aspects that are an inevitable consequence of consciousness. I have always found it bizarre that so many people, since the beginning of time, have chosen the red pill. How can they love God when he is not here?
To put this as metaphorically as possible, this class has given me the sort of diving board that I needed in which to swan dive into the vast and bottomless pool that is religion... I've been googling and exploring so different aspects of life that every night I feel like a significantly different person than when I woke up the morning before. It's such a hard feeling to describe, other
than a daily euphoria, in which I know that it will only get better. So this is a sincere thank you, for pulling the shades up on my eyes, and showing me a world which I thought I already knew, but in reality it was just a virtual matrix, probably one of many, in which I was and am in dire need to escape. I quickly realized that religion does not have to fit into pretty little categories, that it can be messy, unconfined, chaotic, and violent. ... I feel confident so far in my religious studies knowledge to bear the responsibility and pursue the search for understanding of all traditions and all religions, mean and nice, good and bad.
Of all that I have learned, I have kept close to me what resonates in my
heart, what allows me to get nearer an explanation of
who lives there when you say, "religion."
Those who delve into the nature itself often forgo the existence
of feeling. And while our heads are wrapping these complexities, a conclusion continues to evade us, hinting that
the beauty of Truth is that it need not be believed.
Durkheim stretched his legs and tightened his tie again. He didn't want them to see the tattoo he got in Australia. "Alright, I'll ask what I always do. Why are we here?"
