In brief, the lecture and workshop on religion, society and diversity gave me a real insight into the many different aspects of religion in the twenty first century. I learned that each person may have a different deffinition of what they think the term ‘religion’ means, for example a sociologist interrupts the term as meaning something different to a historian. I was also made aware of the three different types of religion as a social institution. Previous to today it never crossed my mind that religion could be categorised as it is, one type being an established religion, the next being a sect and the last type of religion being a cult. Todays lecture gave me true clarification about how broad of a topic religion is in society today and how diversity can affect a community in more way than one.
One of the main concepts that I took from todays lecture is that although there are a vast number of religions in the world today, they all link and have similarities in some ways. Ninian Smart (1927-2001) investigated the common features of different religions and compared them showing that they are all have more similarities than we may initially think. With this evidence and many more I feel that I did truly understand the majority of information given to me to a high enough level. I became aware of the importance of referring to scholars through my work and I aim to improve this for future pieces of writing.
At first I struggled to understand the functions of religion, in particular the latent and manifest. Through further online research when returning home I feel that I am more confident in the topic than I was initially was however I still feel that more work will be needed for me to understand this concept fully. I will visit the library on campus to hope that further reading into the topic will encourage me and engage me more, enabling me to understand and apply this knowledge in the future.
Previous to today I only studied religious and moral education to a low level. I was taught briefly about large religions but nothing to the extent that I believe children should be taught at. I was able to look more in-depth into the importance and negative impacts religious diversity in a community. I was also made more aware of the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ view of religion, this really opened my eyes to see the different points of view between two or more people. This topic in particular is something that I hope to look further into, in order for me to see various religions from a different point of view.
An area that I feel definitely needs improvement is my knowledge of the scholars mentioned in the lecture. I feel like I have a brief idea of the main concepts they believe in, although I am aware that I will need to allocate a lot more time in order for me to apply their thinking to a piece of work. To achieve this I aim to spend more time in the library looking for books regarding this topic, this will improve my understanding allowing me to link scholars to different concepts.
Though what I have learned today I am able to make a clearer link between how religion affects on society and lifestyle. I think that by the end of this block this link will become clearer although I could confidently make at least one or two strong links.
I aspire to teach the children in my future class about the importance of religion, society and diversity. I feel that more emphasis is needed on this topic rather than children mainly focusing on Christianity throughout school. I am already excited about all the opportunities that this topic could offer me as I progress to become a primary school teacher. This lecture and workshop has really gave me an insight into religion, society and diversity, and it has made me want to research and learn more.
