Crash Course Religions | show | 2024 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

Welcome to Crash Course Religions! Over the next 24 episodes, John Green will explore the history and culture of religio | dHNfTzc3SUZld0J4Y2c

Transcript

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.