1. Why Study Religion? Read “Finding What Brings Joy” on page 29 of your text book.

2. Insight into Religious Tradition Studying religion can help us understand values, relationships, personalities, and human creativity.

3. Insight into what Religions Share Ms. Johnson’s favorite….We can see how religions are more similar than they are different!

4. Insight into People Understanding people’s religion may help us to understand their attitudes and values.

5. Tolerance and Appreciation of Differences Variety is a fact of nature. A person who can enjoy variety- in religion and elsewhere- is a person who will never be tired of life.

6. Intellectual Questioning Religions make claims about truth, yet some of their views are not easy to reconcile. For example reincarnation/atman versus heaven/personal soul. Studying religion can help us examine important intellectual questions more closely.

7. Insight into Everyday Life From arguments over war, abortion, politics, the calendar, etc. religion rules our everyday life. By studying religion we can begin to comprehend the reasons behind it all.

8. Appreciation for the Arts Many of the greatest works of art, the great artists, and patrons of art were inspired/led by religious beliefs.

9. Enriched Experience of Travel By studying religion we can understand the locations and traditions of the world!

10. Insight into Family Tradition Our views of education, individual rights, gender roles, sex, time, money, food and leisure are almost all influenced by religion.

11. Help in One’s Own Religious Quest For anyone involved in a spiritual quest it is important to study a variety of religions. Stories of others experience may give us insight into our own!

12. THINK PAIR SHARE First- THINK to yourself: What do you want to achieve in this class? In other words, what do you want to get out of this experience? Second- PAIR up with a partner your thoughts and discuss your reasoning, add to your list. Third- SHARE with the class as we create a class list of our goals for the year.

13. How To Study Religion: A Multidiscipline Approach to the Study of Religion

14. Each group will read one of the multidisciplinary approaches and report back to the group! Ready …Set …Go!

15. Psychology

16. Mythology

17. Philosophy

18. Theology

19. The Arts

20. Anthropology

21. Archeology

22. Linguistics and Literary Theory