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>> Basically, welcome everyone to our first Elluminate session. Hopefully, you've all
checked in at Moodle and you've seen kind of what this course is
about. We're in the first week, so things are kind of starting slow,
so we will be picking up the pace as the semester goes on, but basically, this is just going
to be a brief introductory lecture just to talk about mechanics.
And so, welcome to this class, welcome to those of you who
made it into the Elluminate session and just to answer Tiffany's [assumed spelling] question
as she typed in, there is a check and a minus--no, there's
a check and x beneath everybody's name so there is a name box there
and that allows you to do polling, but it's okay if you didn't do that. You'll figure
things out as we go. So basically, let me just say what we're going
to do today. This is this morning's agenda. We're only just probably
spend our introductory in two minutes. Hello, welcome everybody, I'm Randal Cummings. I'm
the professor for this course. I'm going to talk about the overview
and objectives of this course a little bit and then I'll talk about
the text and I'll tell you about the meeting options after the first three meetings. You're
now in the first of three mandatory meetings. We'll meet again
next Friday at 11 a.m., we'll meet again the following Friday, 11 a.m.
and I will from time to time have optional lectures, which you don't have to attend in
real time, but because I do record this, I will expect you to watch the
archive. So, here's the course overview. If you've got the syllabus you
basically have seen this that and I won't read this to you. I'll let you come back and
look at them, but just let me talk about the particular points that basically,
we are taking an approach to religion that is probably embedded
in the social sciences, it's history, sociology, anthropology, even psychology or at the background
of what we are trying to do when we study religion. We are
looking at religion as a serious human phenomenon, but we are not
really--this isn't a theology course, so we are not trying to actually explore issues
of faith except as we can view that scientifically and objectively. So, this
isn't a theology course like you would take in a seminary. This is
actually looking at the phenomenon of religion and the related phenomena that we call religious.
And so, as you'll see in the second point there, I want you
to become conversant with scholarly theories, criticisms, hermeneutics,
et cetera. And that you'll get a kind of a good conceptual understanding of the vocabulary
and terminology that's associated with the study of religion. You'll
probably, in your adult life, you'll probably attend cocktail parties
or gatherings or corporate retreats, whether in your leisure time the subject of religion
will come up and you'll find out that the thing that makes a difference
between the people who have an opinion and people who really know
what they are talking about is vocabulary. So, this is a very vocabulary-rich course.
You'll learn a lot of words and the associated concepts, which you probably
haven't been exposed to before. And I'll talk more about that when
it comes to looking at the text. But basically, as you see that through all the bullets and
points that you're going to learn quite a bit in this course already
in the third bullet--the third bullet point actually, you can see that
there is a number of terms and concepts that where we talk about religion, religious, myth,
ritual, symbol, community, code, creed, philosophy, all those things
are, you know, rich when it comes to the study of religion. And we'll look
at various functions of religion in society, some overt and some covert, some very plain
and clear, and some are very conventional and traditional, but some are
camouflaged and you'll learn a lot about that. One of the things about this
course, it's really driven quite a bit by the bulletin boards. I will post on Moodle
what I expect you to do and I will also have bulletin board assignments where
I expect you to follow the bulletin board description very clearly and then
respond. Sometimes, I'll have you watch movies or take a look around. I think I've already
opened up the bulletin board that I call the environmental scan, which
is basically just an exercise and observation to look around for things that
strike you as religious. Anyway, so that's kind of a course overview. You can read that
in the syllabus and you can get a better idea of what we're going to do in
this course. Let me move on to the next phase with this. Here are the texts
and there are three texts in this course. They are not really expensive. I try to get
you in and out under 100 bucks. When I was in grad school, man, it would cost
me $500 to $600 to take a course at UCLA, so I think I'm doing a good job
at keeping it down to three. The Sacred text, the fifth edition would be sort of the primary
orientation. I have some other supplemental materials that I put on
the Moodle site. One of them that you should start into right away is called
Methods and Madness through the Study of Religion in which I basically give you my categories
for how to study religion and there is a quiz associated with that for
your first graded things. So--oh cool, thank you Pierre [assumed spelling]
that you can rent these texts. The Sacred Quest is a pretty small book, but it actually
is densely packed. And so, you'll need a dictionary to go along with that, but
hey, thank God for Google, huh. Ten Theories of Human Nature--man, that's a
fun course. That will cut across at this one. If you get that book under your belt, it will
be like a magic carpet through all the humanities and social sciences you
take for the rest of your life. These are the basic theories about what human
nature is about. The third book, it is going to be kind of a pay off. It's part of the
common readings. I always participate or I get this course involved with the common
freshmen readings. This book is being read all over campus, The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and you might wonder, well, what does that have
to do with religion. Believe me, by the time that you get to read that book, which
will be the last book you'll read, you will see religion in everything.
And so, that's will be kind of a test case for how well you've assimilated the concepts
of this course, how well you've incorporated them into your way of interpreting
reality. You should be able to read that book and see all kinds of things
jumping off the page for its religious significance. Plus, if you're reading it in another--if
you're reading it in another class, you will have insights and concepts
that will amaze your instructor and your fellow classmates. I guarantee it. So,
basically, that's kind of what I had in mind for today. I really didn't have too much of
a meaty discussion. I think that this is enough of an introduction to get you going.
I do want to take any questions that you might have though. So, does anybody
have any questions about things? There is kind of a schedule, I don't know
who you are RS112 2010, so because you didn't log in with your name. I don't know
who you are, so you probably not actually get credit for coming to class. Is this class
considered difficult? It depends on who you ask. I try to make it as user friendly
as possible and if you're going to start reading, I'd start reading the
Sacred Quest. Basically, the assignments are going to be driven by the bulletin boards.
So, I will and if you go though the bulletin board as I open them up, you'll
see what I want you to do and where you should be. I'll tell you on the Moodle
page exactly where I think you ought to be. I will have a kind of a suggested assignment
schedule, but because this is an online course and it's mainly--we do have
these little meetings ons, but there's only three mandatory meetings and will be
just a couple of other optional meetings, it's basically are at on your pace. And yeah,
that's what I was just saying, Jane [assumed spelling], I was saying that I would
alert you. I would put that on the Moodle page and I would definitely alert
you to it and it should be obvious and available on Moodle as what to do when assignments are
due, et cetera. But, the thing is to pay careful attention to the bulletin
boards that are open. When you read the bulletin board it kind of tells you what
hoops I want you to jump through. And if for some reason I think everybody's fallen off
task, you know, that you're forgotten that you're in an online course, I will send
out a collective email and I will remind you that this is an important course and
that you are in it. So, yeah, you should be able to look on Moodle. I have an assignment
schedule that I'll put up that's sort of--I kind of hesitate to be too demanding
on that because I think you're adults and I want you to be able to manage
your own time. But I think there is a kind of a self sabotage dynamic in contemporary
college students that they are just out to screw themselves. And so, hey, if that's
your karma, I don't want to *** with that either, so, anyways.