A short overview of my book, Religion the Basics. For more details see my website, malorynye.com

1. malorynye.com
RELIGION THE BASICS
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE AND
RELIGION
a simple introduction to the cultural debates
Malory Nye

2. This is me,
Malory Nye
author of the
book Religion
the Basics
I live in
Perth, Scotland
…for more
about me, see:
malorynye.com

3. published by
Routledge:
first in 2003
and second
edition in
2008
a new edition
will be
available
some time
next year,
2015

4. malorynye.com
RELIGION THE BASICS BOOK
 What is it about?
 Religion …doh! ;-)
 How to understand religion in today’s world
 What you might learn if you did a college course
in the subject of ‘religious studies’
 Religion and Culture

5. malorynye.com
RELIGION THE BASICS
 Contours of the contemporary study of religion
 The study of religion is a dynamic field, a lot is
going on
 Religion is relevant not only to the past
 But also to the contemporary world
 You can’t avoid it… it pops up, often in
unexpected places

6. malorynye.com
RELIGION THE BASICS
 We need a sophisticated approach to understand
religion today
 I try to avoid the familiar term ‘religious studies’
(if I can)
 Instead I use a more nuanced alternative:
 ‘The study of religion and culture’

7. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 It’s what humans do
 … and so we study that (i.e., what humans do)
 Takes a human-centred approach
 Not faith centred or god centred

8. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 If you have a particular faith, that’s great…
 If you don’t, that’s great too…
 But I look at how faith (if you have one) can be
understood by relating it to a range of issues
 Related to what makes you the person you are:

9. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 Where you were born...
 The society you grew up in ...
 The values of that society ...
 The language ...
 The influences on you from school, friends,
family, church/mosque, and other places ... and
much more …

10. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 In all aspects of your life…
 … you practice and take part in your particular
culture (and religion)
 Some things about this are ‘religious’ more than
others
e.g., going to church… reading particular texts…
sitting meditating… what you eat… or what you
wear… or how you think, etc.

11. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 This approach is not about whether there is any
‘supernatural’ or spiritual reality beyond the
‘here and now’
 INSTEAD we ask other questions…
 There are plenty of other interesting things to
learn and think about religion…
 *** without presuming or refuting an alternative
reality ***

12. malorynye.com
 Bear with me, it will make sense

13. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 I am not asking you to leave your faith at the
door, when you come into this virtual classroom
 Just leave at the door any expectation that there
will be some simple answers to the big issues of
faith
 (e.g., why are we here? what’s it all about? what
is god’s plan for us? why is there evil? etc).
 I am not going to cover these :-)

14. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 Not only about asking questions on how to
distinguish religion from culture (if indeed that is
possible).
 It is also about exploring religion from a cultural
perspective:
= religions, religious traditions and practices
 As a means by which culture and cultures can be
understood

15. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 Studying people through the lens of the
religions that they live
 Studying religions through the people who
live within them

16. malorynye.com
RELIGION AND CULTURE
 Thanks for watching
 In my next video I will say something about how
this builds up into a whole course…
 What sorts of things can we study to get a better
idea of religion and culture?
 See you there?

17. malorynye.com
music: ‘African Safari’
from: music4yourvids.com
video: malorynye.com
please visit us for more information