RELG 255 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Ambrose Bierce, Religious Education, Chosen People
22 May 2019
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Document Summary
Definitions are one of the many issues of a researcher. "religion: a daughter of hope and fear, explaining to ignorance the nature of the unknowable" (ambrose bierce, in r&h, p. 4) "religion is a smile on a dog" (edie brickell, in ibid) Whatever we perceive as a positive thing in the animal world can reflect the arbitrary things people believe in. Religion is not limited to the human world. "religion is whatever we as individuals do to come to grips personally with the questions that confront us because we are aware that we and others like us are alive and that we will die" (c. d batson and w. l. "religion is an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings" Religious education: the teaching of religion and the norms of a tradition; a practice performed by insiders to a tradition for those inside that tradition.
