{"id":491,"date":"2013-08-11T14:57:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-11T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html"},"modified":"2014-07-28T15:17:37","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T20:17:37","slug":"why-study-religion-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Study Religion?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div class=\"MsoNormal\"><span class=\"apple-converted-space\"><span style=\"background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;\"><br>\n<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/433\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-fwi38u6gZfA\/UgfIJMuZ9XI\/AAAAAAAADLM\/NL0rijy4Fd0\/s1600\/why+study+religion.png\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/433\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-fwi38u6gZfA\/UgfIJMuZ9XI\/AAAAAAAADLM\/NL0rijy4Fd0\/s400\/why+study+religion.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"250\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>School starts in just a few weeks, so I thought that I would start posting some ideas for the first few weeks of \u00a0religion class. \u00a0In World Religions, we will begin trying to understand why we study religion. I ask students to read two short essays, one from the Academy of Religion, simply called \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/studyreligion.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Why Study Religion<\/a>?\u201d and another by James Carroll, called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1O-qv65J-jHeM4PUlZyi7In3SqFnXM7AnB3nVPF1k2N8\/edit?usp=sharing\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Why Religion Still Matters<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Carroll is a Boston Globe columnist and former Catholic priest. We discuss both essays and come up with a list of reasons why we study religion and why it still matters.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>School starts in just a few weeks, so I thought that I would start posting some ideas for the first few weeks of \u00a0religion class. \u00a0In World Religions, we will begin trying to understand why we study religion. I ask students to read two short essays, one from the Academy of Religion, simply called \u201cWhy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1838,"featured_media":4609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Study Religion?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"School starts in just a few weeks, so I thought that I would start posting some ideas for the first few weeks of \u00a0religion class. \u00a0In World Religions, we\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Study Religion?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"School starts in just a few weeks, so I thought that I would start posting some ideas for the first few weeks of \u00a0religion class. \u00a0In World Religions, we\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"World Religions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-11T14:57:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-07-28T20:17:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/433\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"263\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"191\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"George G. 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Coe\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html\",\"name\":\"Why Study Religion?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-08-11T14:57:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-07-28T20:17:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/#\/schema\/person\/c8608c711b76ea4be3eb28f4ed317e2f\"},\"description\":\"School starts in just a few weeks, so I thought that I would start posting some ideas for the first few weeks of \u00a0religion class. \u00a0In World Religions, we\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2013\/08\/why-study-religion-2.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why Study Religion?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/\",\"name\":\"World Religions\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/#\/schema\/person\/c8608c711b76ea4be3eb28f4ed317e2f\",\"name\":\"George G. 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