What is the Discipline of "Religious Studies"



I hope readers with an interest is the general topic of religion will take very few minutes to watch this video. The young man in the video posts videos about complex issues. This one reviews why there are so many different disciplines that study and publish research in religion. 

He points out many disciplines publish articles about religion including sociology, economics, psychology, history, anthropology, psychiatry and archeology as well as the "hard sciences" of health/medicine and physiology. I probably left out a few.  

The video does not discuss the people who make up a Department of Religion in a university. Many such people in the field of religion argue constantly about what are the "true beliefs" of various religions. Years ago I was on a panel discussion in Fargo about religion that included a physician who is a Muslim. He told the audience anyone who says Islam preaches killing others, infidels, is not part of the legitimate faith called Islam. A few years later where I now live an atheist invited me to meet with a group who studied the Koran. The group picked out passages about killing people and came to exactly the opposite conclusion as the Muslim doctor. They thought, maybe are still meeting and wringing their hands, that the entire faith of Islam wants to kill everyone else. 

Atheism often is not taught in any serious way. I had a friend at NDSU who was the only person in a Department of Religion. He dismissed atheism as "just another religion." A lot of academics in religion say that because atheists meet and have a community, they are just like religions. This seems nuts to me. All kinds if groups meet and have community that have nothing to do with religion.

One thing atheists and religious people agree on is that religion is important. Its numbers are large and its influence powerful. Its importance is that often it is harmful to a society and to individuals in that society. Every society and every generation need to study and evaluate religion. 

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