What is God? Who is God? Is Yahweh the same as the Christian God? What about Allah? How do people come to see, hear, or feel God? Belief in God is a core tenet of all monotheistic religions, yet the figure of God is elusive and contested. This course offers an introduction to the study of religion and to how the discipline has engaged with the figure of God. Issues covered include histories of God (including proclamations of the “death of God”); psychological and anthropological views on prayer, divine interventions, and God-human relations; God and empire/colonialism; feminist (and other subversive) re-imaginings of God; and atheism. Regardless of their own belief, students will learn to grapple with an inescapable figure, will learn about lived Islam and Christianity (and to a lesser extent Judaism), and will gain insights into a range of thinking tools offered by the study of religion.
What is God? Who is God? Is Yahweh the same as the Christian God? What about Allah? How do people come to see, hear, or feel God? Belief in God is a core tenet of all monotheistic religions, yet the figure of God is elusive and contested. This course offers an introduction to the study of religion and to how the discipline has engaged with the figure of God. Issues covered include histories of God (including proclamations of the “death of God”); psychological and anthropological views on prayer, divine interventions, and God-human relations; God and empire/colonialism; feminist (and other subversive) re-imaginings of God; and atheism. Regardless of their own belief, students will learn to grapple with an inescapable figure, will learn about lived Islam and Christianity (and to a lesser extent Judaism), and will gain insights into a range of thinking tools offered by the study of religion.
