Portal talk:Religious studies

Religious & Mystical Geography

What on earth is 'Religious & Mystical Geography?' It sounds like it can go in 'Comparative Religion.' Anyone saying religion is not mystical does not know; mysticisim is appropriate for advanced or elective Comparative Religion, which already has epistemology and metaphysics.--Dchmelik 22:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove Department of Christian Studies

hey, I was sprucing up a few things over in the School of Theology when I noticed that the Division of Christian Studies is in both that school && religious studies. Judging by the content, I think that the Division of Christian Studies tends to focus on adherents to Christianity, not the unbiased study of it. So I wanted to suggest removing it from this division, and replacing it with a comparable NPOV department. (sorry, 4got to sign) --Opensourcejunkie 03:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

You may as well say that about any single religious dept.. Perhaps having the dept. of Comparative Religion is enough.--Dchmelik 22:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

yeah, that and perhaps the dept. of Inter-Religious Conflict Studies - only those things that have to do with NPOV study of religions. That's how I see the division, anyway. --Opensourcejunkie 03:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. The secular study of any religion is just as needed as the secular study of religious structural composition (Comparative Religion) and as a conflict study area. And why is there no sociology of religion present? The sociological, social-anthropological and similar approaches are hugely influential in the academic study of religious phenomena. You can't study a religion as a scientist of religion with a POV - then you're a theologian of that religion (which is noble and all respect to those guys) - but we, as scientists doing research on this (and in this forum, communicating current research on the topic) need to adapt a methodological atheism, albeit not necessarily a personal one (Cf. Weber, Berger). I thus suggest the following structure (based in part on the BA curriculum in the Science of Religion at University of Copenhagen):

*Sociology of Religion

* Comparative Religion

* Cognitive approaches to Religion

* Theory and Method in the Study of Religion

* Area studies: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. Melpomenon 22:49, 27 October 2009 (UTC)