hi I'm John Green welcome to crash course religions oh boy Stan this is going to be fun and nobody's going to get offended let's start with a few easy questions what happens when we die why do bad things happen to good people more importantly why do good things happen to bad people what's the meaning of life the universe and everything and why am I like here specifically me here in this studio it's been a while why am I hosting this show instead of saying a scholar of religions or vertical video sensation Hank Green well I
was introduced to the academic study of Religion as a freshman in college when I took a class primarily because it fit into my schedule of not wanting to get out of bed before noon I thought the class would be easy I figured religion was just made up stuff and I've always been pretty good at making stuff up but on my first day my professor Dr Rogan said something that's been dogging me ever since whether you're religious or not you Worship You worship a band or you worship an economic ideology or you worship a system of
Ethics or whatever else and understanding what you worship and why and how that worship shapes you is an important Endeavor not just for individuals but for societies I ended up majoring in religion and since then have often written about it I mostly studied early Islamic history although I am myself a Christian belonging to a branch of Christianity called The Episcopal Church that derives from another called anglicanism which was created so that a king could get a divorce it's good to have such founding stories lest one take oneself too seriously I'm not a scholar of religion
but the crash course team has worked with a lot of them which is how this series was made I'm excited to learn more about religion alongside you in 24 episodes we'll find surprising Harmony and Discord in the answers to these big existential questions not just across religions but also within them we'll learn about traditions where rivers are people where people are gods and where God is everything we'll think about cults and magic and the Supernatural and we'll consider whether atheism Falls within religion's very Wiggly borders that'll be a fun episode and as we unpack the
history and culture of religions we'll think about how they bring meaning and order as well as danger to people's lives because the truth is religions influence us in forming how we think of ourselves each other and the world and also we influence religions molding and changing them over time so I'll warn you if you hop on this ride with us you might start to feel like religion is some sort of ideological oble you know that science project that solid one moment liquid the next religion seems like something firm and concrete but it oozes out of
your grasp as soon as you think you've got a hold on it and whether you consider yourself religious or not religion gets into all sorts of places sex death politics Science pop culture even taxes maybe the best simile is that religion is like glitter gets in everything we'll begin this series by asking questions and breaking our brains over what the word religion even means I look forward to seeing you then thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course religions which was filmed here at our studio in Indianapolis Indiana and was made with the help of
all of these nice people if you want to help keep crash course free for everyone forever you can join our community on patreon [Music]
