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- Religion can inspire and provoke, unite and polarize. It is the primary expression of humanity's quest to find meaning and purpose. Understanding this phenomenon helps us explore the most basic questions of our existence. From politics and art to science and war, the study of religion opens a gateway to understanding the world around us.
religiousstudies.stanford.edu/undergraduate/why-study-religionWhy study religion? | Religious Studies - Stanford University
By studying different religious doctrines, rituals, stories, and scriptures, we can also come to understand how different communities of believers—past and present, East and West—have used their religious traditions to shape, sustain, transform themselves.
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Want to grapple with profound ethical and theological questions? Or learn about the ideas, people, and rituals that shape religion? Begin with our gateway course Religion Around the Globe. Or try Is Stanford a Religion?, which examines how the university's culture resembles a religion through its myths, rituals, and taboos, or The Religious Life of...
Our Exploring series introduces the world's great religious traditions, like Exploring Zen Buddhism, Exploring the New Testament or Exploring Islamic Mysticism. Follow up with courses that examine how religion relates to essential aspects of culture, gender, politics, and identity, such as Buddhist Philosophy, the Language of Islam, or Malcom X and...
From exploring sacred sites around the world to participating in lively events on campus, there are myriad opportunities for enhancing your understanding of religion's role in history and society. In addition to events supported by the department, we also work closely with several affiliated centers.Read more about our affiliates.
Students learn critical thought and analysis applied to a variety of issues across cultures and through time. The world’s religions provide thoughtful models of how people have dealt with the fundamental questions of human life: death and suffering, and the meaning and purpose of life, for example.
There is no “set in stone” way that you study religion, which makes it fun and diverse. It doesn’t require the regurgitation of formulas and definitions, but it does require in-depth understanding. It also inspires real life skills that can be tough to teach in a classroom with other types of studies.
I study religion because the roots of our environmental crisis are primarily religious. Religion is everywhere and inextricable from the human condition, so if we're going to understand ourselves and our times, we need to understand religion rather than relying on contemporary prejudices about it that keep us oblivious of the facts.
Jun 20, 2024 · By studying religion, we don't study the divine; we study ourselves. By studying religious traditions, religious belief, and religious diversity, we find ourselves in the center of a robust inter-disciplinary approach that prepares us to think deeply about life's biggest questions.
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Students should understand the intense religious passions that have produced fanaticism and war as well as the political formations (such as separation of church and state) that allow different religious groups to live amicably in a pluralistic society.
