DB relgon 175 1

Having Trouble Meeting Your Deadline?

Get your assignment on DB relgon 175 1  completed on time. avoid delay and – ORDER NOW

Do my paper

Part One: Religiosity in America

1. Why do you think that America is such an outlier in religiosity? In other words, why is the United States much more religious (at least in how they respond to surveys) than other developed countries with a similar GDP? You could refer to one of the reasons given in the reading or lecture material, or your own explanation for this!

In your response to this question, you should include at least one quotation from the first two readings for this week.

Part Two: What is something you hope to learn in this class?

1. Everyone is likely entering into this class with their own political and religious views, as well as their own understanding of how religion influences American government/politics and vice versa. What is a question that you have about the relationship between religion and government/politics in the US that you would like to explore in this class? It could be something general, a question about the history of this relationship in the US, or maybe a question about a current situation.

Your initial discussion board response must be at least 400 words long and contain one direct quote from the readings.

So in this first video lecture, we’re going to talk a little bit about why in this course, we are studying religion, government, and politics, why bring these two areas together, right, religion, and then government and politics from the other hand. So we’re going to talk a little bit about the why and then a little bit about the how, right, how we’re going to go about doing that. Because, right, if I have here in the first bullet point, in this course, right, religion, government, and politics in America, we are going to be talking about the two things that you’re never supposed to talk about in mixed companies, right, you may have heard that phrase before, right, the two topics you should never bring up, right, if you’re not, you know, sort of with someone that you absolutely know, has the same opinion with you or same beliefs with you, right, that you shouldn’t bring up the religion or politics in mixed companies. Because there are topics that are very devices that people have very strongly help you about. So it can very easily lead to debate and arguments and conflicts, right, but these are also very important items in our society to talk about in American society, right, so the US, let’s just beginning with sort of the basic fear, right, the US is what’s called a spectacular country which has been having bullet point here. What that means is simply that there is no official or established religion in the United States. And, as long as the United States has been a country, there has never been an established national religion. And, in addition to that, American has protection for religious freedom. They have the protection of religious freedom, I should say. So there is no established official national religion, and American have the right to freedom to believe and practice their religious tradition, no matter what it is, right? So you cannot say that a religion is sort of this religion is allowed, this religion is not allowed, things like that. Those are the very sort of basic broad foundational true about the US. But throughout this course, we’re going to talk about what does that mean, right? What is the sort of more nuanced history of why there is no official established national religion, although as we will see this week, there actually were a few established religions in the colonies, and there were some sort of established religions in some of the states for a little while. But there’s never been a national religion. So we’ll talk about why, why that decision was made in the early days of the Republic, right, as the US Constitution was being drafted, why and how was the decision made to not have an official religion, a national religion? Because that was a very unique stance to take at that time, right? And there have been other areas and kingdoms that have not had an official religion or that have protected religious freedom for people who lived within those boundaries. But really, the United States was one of, it’s not the first modern nation state in which to create a country, create a government in which there was no official religion. For the most part, as we’ll see, there were a lot of people who were very afraid of that. They didn’t understand how that worked. They believed that religion really needed the support of a government to ensure that people would actually care about religion. So for a lot of people, they said, well, of course, you know, if I had to have a national religion, let’s try to make my chair go a little bit, I didn’t work. A country or a society has to have a national religion. Otherwise, people won’t be religious. They won’t go to that religious house worship. They won’t follow the teaching morality, the rules of that religious tradition. So a lot of people really assumed that you had to have sort of this official national structure and national support, especially financial support, for a religious tradition, otherwise religion would simply within and die in society. But one of the reasons that we are talking about these topics together is because in the United States, this was a bold new idea, but it actually turned out to be the exact opposite. That religion did not wither and die in the absence of an officially nationalist supported religious tradition. Religion actually became very strong and very diverse. So in the United States, we are the US, it’s one of the most religious countries, the most religious countries of an equal GDP. We are up there in terms of just sort of religious countries in general, but definitely not in the very top. But we are in the very top in terms of our national GDP, in terms of how wealthy the United States is. Most other wealthy nations, most other developed nations, have much lower level of religiosity than the United States. So this is establishing religion, right? Refusing to have a national or Polish religion has actually created a strong situation for religion. Religion is very popular in the United States. There’s another thing going on in more recently in terms of popularity, but it’s also created an incredibly diverse religious, called the religious marketplace, right? Because of the protection of religious freedom, many people from all different religious traditions around the world have come to the United States, speaking out those protection in those freedoms, and the United States itself has also become sort of a breeding ground of its own homegrown religious traditions. So there are many newer religious traditions that also started right here in the US, and many theorists, sort of sociologists of religion, really do see those protection giving rise to an environment in which new religions are allowed to sort of emerge and grow and prosper. So we live in an incredibly religiously diverse country as well. And because we live in such a religious country and religiously diverse country, religion had continued to influence and shape our government as well as our political system, right? So the government in turn, so we’re going to talk about the mechanics of the US government and how religion has shaped that, and then of course how government also shapes religions. We’ll talk about that later on in the course,

and also politics, right? So because there’s so many people in the US who identify with our religious traditions, right? Many different religious traditions, many different kinds of religious affiliations, understanding how religion influences political views, political allegiance, things like that. It’s also very important in terms of understanding our political system, right? So those are kind of the basic reasons why we’re going to talk about the two topics together, even though yet they can be very sensitive and very divisive issues. But it’s really important because it’s really difficult to understand the religiosity and the religious diversity of America, which is really hard to understand. Religion in America is a unique circumstance of religion in America without understanding the political environment that has created that religiosity and religious diversity. And vice versa, it’s very hard to understand our government and political system. If you don’t understand how religion influences individual people within that system, right? So that’s kind of a little bit about sort of why you know America is, of course, a particular country, there’s no established religion. And these two topics are both very important to understanding America, American history, and contemporary American society. And it’s hard to understand one without the other, right? Because there really is a lot of mutual influence between the two in American society and that’s what we’re going to look at in this course. Yay. Okay, so in this video lecture, I’m going to switch it to we’re going to do one other slide here, which is very important. I’m going to move my little icon over here, but I’m not in the way of the wording. But we do want to just spend a few minutes talking about sort of specifically how we are going to analyze the relationship between religion and politics, religion and government in the US, and how we’re going to do that knowing full well at the very beginning that these are very sensitive topics, right? These are topics that people have strongly healthy on. Strongly healthy on religion. Strongly healthy on politics. And strongly healthy on what is the proper relationship between the two, okay? So of course, if you’ve taken any other religious studies course with me, you know that we kind of start out with some sort of basic foundational understanding of the discipline of religious studies, because it can be a less well understood discipline, it’s not for one of the major history and ecology and all these sorts of things. And oftentimes people can use religious studies with basically with theology or with religious instruction or religious education or something like that. But that is not what this discipline is. You have other things in the course, or mutation module that go over this as well, but just very briefly, right? Religious studies is a discipline subject matter that attempts to study the phenomenon of religion in the world. So scholars of religion within the field of religious studies attempt to understand religion from an unbiased, secular, non-religious viewpoint. So it is not the sort of teaching of one religion over another. It is not theology, it’s not judgment of religious position. It is simply accepting the reality that religion is incredibly popular in our world today, most to be identified with a religious tradition. And that religion is incredibly powerful. It influences and shapes most other societal institutions within our world, right? Religion has affected history and literature and the arts and politics and religion and society and culture and heritage, all these sorts of things are touched by religion, and are influenced by religion. So religious studies simply take seriously the reality that religion is a major part of our world and it’s a powerful part of our world. So it is something worthy of study, worthy of understanding on its own terms, right? What are the religious traditions that are practiced in the world? And how does religion influence those other aspects of society? Because if we don’t understand that, it can lead to ignorance, it can lead to misunderstanding, it can lead to conflict, it can lead to violence and to war, right? So this is something that is worthy of our study, worthy of our time as scholars that we try to understand religion, and its role in the world today, and directly to the record. So that’s a little bit about what religious studies is. So what we’re going to do in this course, some of the basic plan for this course, is that we are going to study the founding documents of the United States. So we’ll get more into it next week, but we are going to look at the founding documents of the United States, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and then several of these sort of documents that led up to that, right? So we’re going to start by looking at what I call the road to religious freedom, sort of the setting the background stage in terms of what’s going on in Europe before the American Revolution, what’s going on in the colony, what’s going on in the history of contact and counter and violence between European and Indigenous people, and how does all of that get us to the point of those founding documents, right? Through the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and what it says, what it guarantees about religion, right? The day that there’s no, no established religion, but also protecting the freedom of religion. So we’re going to look at sort of how we got to that place, we’re going to study the founding documents, and then we’re going to look at the history of interpretations of the relationship between religion and politics in the U.S. We have these founding documents, we have these founding texts that lay out in written language, right, what are the protections of religions and what are the protections from religion in the U.S. But of course, after that, we have an entire history of interpretation and use of those words, right, use of those words. So we’re going to look at the way that the different branches of government have used, utilized and interpreted those guarantees of legal protection. Because of course, people have not always agreed on exactly what those words mean, right? What does it mean to not have an established religion? You know, is what comes close to an established religion? Is it okay to come close to that, right? And if everyone has the freedom, the freedom of religion, right, freedom to believe and practice their own religion, what happens when a religion is very unpopular? What happens when a religious practice is usually very unpopular? What happens when individuals claim that someone else’s religious practices are harming them, right? So these are the questions that we’re going to look at, these are the sort of tension points that we’re going to look at in terms of how does this Supreme Court interpret these documents? How has the presidency, right? How have different presidents understood religion in their own right? What do we know about their personal religiosity? And what do we know about their history of policy? And how would influence by their own religious belief? And then also legislative branch, right? We will look at the history of legislation that has to do with religion, law that Congress had passed. Trying to also sort of guarantee religious freedom and some laws that have violated that religious freedom and then how that was interpreted. So we look, we’re going to look at the role of religion within our government and our political system, whereas as scholars of religion in religious studies, we’re going to look at history, we’re going to look at religion through the lens of history, society, and the political dynamics of the U.S. But it is important to make note of what we will not do, right? We already talked about in over the next eight weeks, we’re going to be talking about two topics that are incredibly controversial, are incredibly sensitive that can cause, you know, tension and debate and divisiveness and conflict between people. So we also want to lay the ground rules in terms of what we will not be doing in the past, right? We are not making determination about whether religion itself is good or bad, okay? Religious studies at the outset accept the reality that religion exists in our world, right? You could, you could think that religion is a wonderful thing, you could think that religion is a terrible thing. But what you cannot think is that religion is not part of our world, religion is absolutely part of our world, right? Most people in the world are religious. So we are not trying to determine whether religion should or should not exist, whether religion is a great thing or a terrible thing. We are simply starting with the acknowledgment that religion is here, religion is a major and popular part of our world. We’re also not trying to determine if any religious traditions or religious beliefs are true or untrue, okay? We’re going to look at, especially when we look at the history of the American presidency, and we can’t go through every single president, unfortunately, but we’ll look at a couple very important pivotal presidents in the history of the U.S. What we know about their personal religious beliefs, and what we know about how they utilize those beliefs, what did they say about those beliefs, what did they say about how they believe, influence their policy, and also how did they utilize religion in the public space, right? Because religion is a powerful motivating factor to gain support, to allegiance to those things like that. So we’re not trying to determine if anyone, you know, anyone’s particular religious beliefs are true or untrue, right? We’re not saying religion is true or untrue, we’re not saying it’s a particular understanding of religion is true or untrue, right? And we’re going to be looking at different religious traditions and different interpretations of those religious traditions in the past. We’re also not trying to promote a particular political ideology or a religious belief system, right? So this class is for everyone. No matter if you think religion is great, religion is terrible, no matter if you think there’s one true religion or you think there are no true religions, no matter whatever political party affiliation or none, you may have, right? This is history for everyone to learn, and it’s for people of any religious background, right? I always start by telling my students that religious studies is for everyone. It’s not just for religious people and it’s not just for non -religious people. It is for everyone because we are all a part of this world in which religion is incredibly popular and incredibly powerful, okay? So we’re not trying to promote any sort of particular political beliefs, political ideology, political party affiliation, or a particular religious belief system. We’re simply trying to understand the history of the United States as a secular country and how that secularism has played out in the public square in the history of the US. Okay, so that’s all for this video lecture, and next up we’re going to talk a bit more about the intersection of religion and politics.