Gateway Lectures — 2007: Religion
CHFY 10 - Professor June O'Connor, Department of Religious Studies
"I think religion is the most interesting thing people do."
(Walter Clark, UCR Professor of Music)
Religions are powerful forces that elicit a wide variety of responses: loyalty, hostility, fear, fascination. While for some, religion is the most interesting thing people do, for others it is nonsense unworthy of serious attention. What is it about religion that evokes such dramatically different responses? What about religions is so appealing? What so alienating? How might we learn to learn about religions and talk about them fruitfully in our highly diverse world where people bring unfamiliar religions into our neighborhoods, worksites, classrooms, and, yes, even into our families? In what ways do convictions and commitments close us to people who are different from us? And, conversely, in what ways do convictions and commitments enable us to be receptive to and in dialogue with those unlike us?
These questions (and others to be voiced by students) will launch this course and benefit students in several concrete ways. Addressing these questions will enable students: 1) to become curious and informed about religions as a local and global fact of life; 2) to access news reports more knowledgeably as citizens of the world; 3) to become better conversation partners with people of all sorts (friends, strangers, allies, opponents, relatives, co-workers); and 4) to notice the ways in which religions are present as foreground or background in various courses in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts.
Given the multi-religious society in which we live, knowledge about religions will be a highly valued asset, enhancing understanding of various constituencies such as patients and clients, employers and employees, politicians and voters, friends and enemies alike.