RELS 1102: Introduction to Religion

3 Credit Hours

This course is an interdisciplinary overview of religion in human culture. Students explore how religion provides meaning and structure to human life by addressing basic questions about the body, nature, spirit, community, and time, and how religious concepts and practices are expressed in texts, ceremonies, rituals, and festivals. The course provides a survey of the conceptual and experiential aspects of religion that enables students to engage in informed, critical, and dispassionate conversations about religion.

Course Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

Demonstrate the ability to think critically and solve problems related to religious topics.
Exhibit familiarity with the tenets and practices of the major world religions.
Recognize changing cultural and historical contexts of these diverse religious traditions.
Analyze different elements of religion, including doctrine, ritual, text, sacred space, art/music, etc.
Explore how these traditions are relevant to you and your peers’ lives.
Practice open, ethically sensitive, and informed conversations about (sometimes controversial and often very personal) religious beliefs and topics.
Apply interdisciplinary methods to synthesize and/or assess the audience, intent, value, and context of informational sources and the multiple perspectives they provide.