Today was the first class in the Society and Lifestyles module and it was focused on Religion, Society and Lifestyles. I really enjoyed the lecture and workshops and found them both very interesting and informative. I had previously done RMPS in high school as a higher and so I did have some previous knowledge on the subject already. However, my knowledge was greatly expanded from today’s lesson as it was aspects of religion and society that I had never looked at before.
From the lecture, I was able to grasp an understanding of what religion actually is and how so many people in different professions would define it. I found this very intriguing as I was unaware to how many definitions there were regarding religion and I certainly want to look a lot more into how religion can and is defined. I feel like the definitions that I related to the most were the Sociologists and Anthropologists view.
From that, we also discussed how when we as students speak and learn about religion we are taking a scholarly approach opposed to a believers approach. This was something I had never really thought about before in detail but found very interesting when we were speaking and learning about it in the lecture. A part of the lecture that I feel that I will need to do a lot of further research into from religious studies or books is the theorists. We were able to learn about different thoerists and how some of their views and findings supported religion. We spoke about four of them in particular: Smart, Malinowski, Durkheim and Bourdillon. When it came to one of the workshops, we were to research one of the theorists in more detail which was very helpful as it allowed me to gain a deeper understanding. However, I do feel like I will need to research these theorists in a lot more detail so that I can gain a deeper understanding of their viewpoints.
I would also like to deeper my understanding on functionalism. I found that I got a bit confused at this section, however once I read over my notes I started to understanding it a bit better although I do think I will need to do further readings to fully understand this part.
I really enjoyed today’s lectures and workshops and felt like they were very engaging, interesting and eye-opening. I feel like this particular module will be very useful and helpful for my progress as a learner and a teacher.
