Welcome to Crash Course Religions! Over the next 24 episodes, John Green will explore the history and culture of religio | dHNfTzc3SUZld0J4Y2c
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00:00Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to Crash Course Religions. Oh boy, Stan, this is going to be
00:03fun and nobody's going to get offended. Let's start with a few easy questions.
00:07What happens when we die? Why do bad things happen to good people? More importantly,
00:11why do good things happen to bad people? What's the meaning of life, the universe,
00:15and everything? And why am I, like, here, specifically me, here, in this studio? It's
00:21been a while. Why am I hosting this show instead of, say, a scholar of religions or vertical video
00:26sensation Hank Green? Well, I was introduced to the academic study of religion as a freshman
00:31in college when I took a class primarily because it fit into my schedule of not wanting to get out
00:36of bed before noon. I thought the class would be easy. I figured religion was just made-up stuff
00:41and I've always been pretty good at making stuff up. But on my first day, my professor, Dr. Rogan,
00:46said something that's been dogging me ever since. Whether you're religious or not, you worship. You
00:52worship a band, or you worship an economic ideology, or you worship a system of ethics,
00:57or whatever else. And understanding what you worship and why and how that worship shapes you
01:02is an important endeavor, not just for individuals, but for societies. I ended up
01:08majoring in religion and since then have often written about it. I mostly studied early Islamic
01:13history, although I am myself a Christian belonging to a branch of Christianity called
01:18the Episcopal Church that derives from another called Anglicanism, which was created so that a
01:23king could get a divorce. It's good to have such founding stories, lest one take oneself too
01:28seriously. I'm not a scholar of religion, but the Crash Course team has worked with a lot of them,
01:32which is how this series was made. I'm excited to learn more about religion alongside you. In 24
01:38episodes, we'll find surprising harmony and discord in the answers to these big existential
01:44questions, not just across religions, but also within them. We'll learn about traditions where
01:49rivers are people, where people are gods, and where God is everything. We'll think about cults
01:55and magic and the supernatural. And we'll consider whether atheism falls within religion's very
02:01wiggly borders. That'll be a fun episode. And as we unpack the history and culture of religions,
02:07we'll think about how they bring meaning and order, as well as danger, to people's lives.
02:12Because the truth is, religions influence us in forming how we think of ourselves, each other,
02:18and the world. And also, we influence religions, molding and changing them over time. So I'll
02:25warn you, if you hop on this ride with us, you might start to feel like religion is some sort
02:30of ideological oobleck. You know, that science project that's solid one moment, liquid the next.
02:35Religion seems like something firm and concrete, but it oozes out of your grasp as soon as you
02:42think you've got a hold on it. And whether you consider yourself religious or not, religion gets
02:46into all sorts of places. Sex, death, politics, science, pop culture, even taxes. Maybe the best
02:53simile is that religion is like glitter. Gets in everything. We'll begin this series by asking
02:58questions and breaking our brains over what the word religion even means. I look forward to seeing
03:05you then. Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Religions, which was filmed here
03:09in our studio in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was made with the help of all of these nice people.
03:13If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can join our community on
03:18Patreon.