The next submit is the second of a three-part collection on college students’ reflections written as a part of a ultimate task in Prof. Vaia Touna’s REL 100 “Introduction to the Study of Religion” in Fall 2022.
Elise Justice is initially from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a freshman double majoring in Finance & Accounting with a minor in Economics.
A very powerful factor that REL 100 has taught me is to be open-minded to topics and concepts that I’m not accustomed to. This course has allowed me to department out and think about different views relating to the topic of faith. Particularly, the subject of ‘what characterizes one thing as a faith?’ just isn’t one thing I’ve ever given a lot thought to. Previous to enrolling on this course, I figured {that a} spiritual research class would speak about various kinds of religions, akin to Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, and so forth. and what their beliefs are. However this course was a lot completely different than I anticipated relating to what the course materials would cowl. It has been fairly fascinating to study in regards to the precise fundamentals of the examine of faith and that has fully modified the best way that I view spiritual research. Again to the primary week of this course in August, the subjects that we talked about at school, akin to the thought of rituals and if “brushing your tooth” could be thought-about a ritual by some, was very fascinating to me and never one thing I’d have imagined to be mentioned in a non secular research class. I additionally actually loved studying in regards to the variations between emic and etic, and I discovered it very fascinating that emic is about how insiders of a tradition perceive issues and their particular cultural behaviors whereas etic focuses on outsiders, principally students who use completely different theories to check and analyze these completely different cultures and cultural behaviors. I discovered it essential that we didn’t concentrate on merely various kinds of faith, however as a substitute, questions on what society perceives as a faith. All these questions have actually sifted the best way I perceive, now, what faith is and, modified what I believed I knew about this topic vastly.
As a normal introduction to the tutorial examine of faith, REL 100 focuses intimately on the issue of defining faith, the insider/outsider drawback, theories of faith, and the implications of classification. The course has 90 college students enrolled and as a ultimate task they needed to reply three questions. Every reply needed to be between 250-300 phrases the place college students needed to critically synthesize issues that they realized within the class by making reference to the category’s studying materials. One of many questions that college students needed to reply was to mirror on one factor they realized that has modified the best way they perceive spiritual discourses. Whereas most of the college students’ responses mirrored on what their assumptions have been about faith, that’s, previous to taking the category, every of those chosen for this collection properly exemplify what they now perceive to be the examine of faith. The course makes use of Russell McCutcheon’s Finding out Faith and his co-edited quantity with Aaron Hughes Faith in 5 Minutes.
