Final Essay

At the start of the semester in the first discussion after you introduced yourself to the class, you were asked to respond to” “We already know a lot about religion, how would you define it? 

Now, I hope you have learned a lot more about religion(s).  Write an essay about 1. How you would define religion now – or if you think you can’t define religion, discuss the reasons why; 2. What you think must be kept in mind about how to study religion(s).

I expect to see how you “should” think about religion after finishing this course.  Please support it with examples of “what is there” from our class.  It would be good to do some comparisons between examples of at least 2 religions but they cannot both be 2 of the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

You may want to return to that first discussion and see what you wrote then and now see if you have changed.  You don’t have to return to your original definition.  The point of the essay is show what you have learned about how to study religion and about actual religions themselves.

The essay can be up to 6 pages, double spaced, 12 pt. font, with all sources cited by either MLA style parenthetical references (Dao de Jing, #5) or by footnotes.  A bibliography of all works cited is required – but won’t count for one of the 5 pages.  Citations from what I have written can be sourced as (Kerze, Buddhism, History).  Sources from web pages must give the actual website name – that means you must go to the website and provide the actual: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/world/eid-al-adha-2019-intl-scli/index.html (Links to an external site.) and not www.ebesco/61#9%?/……etc……….etc……..etc………../html. (Links to an external site.)

I need to be able to go directly to the actual website and not through whatever search engine you might have used.