Crash Course Religions

Rituals aren’t meaningless actions. They can mark time and space, create new identities, and connect people to something bigger than themselves. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we explore the rituals that shape our lives—whether religious or not.

Sacred texts mean different things to different religions—sometimes they’re essential to belief and practice, and other times, not much importance is placed on them at all. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we dive into the different ways religious texts are used, debated, and venerated across various traditions.

Atheism is far from new, but the various ways that people say “no thank you” to belief in gods, deities, or particular religions are so diverse that they’ve had a huge impact on world belief systems. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we break down the different flavors of atheism and nonbelief and ask the question, “Is atheism a religion?”

African religions include Islam and Christianity, but also hundreds of diverse and complex indigenous religions. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we explore those traditions and how, when forced intro adaption-mode as a result of the slave trade, they became a unique blend of cultural influences in the African diaspora.

Many Muslims believe it’s their religious duty to pray five times a day in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. But how do they do it in space? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we dig into the beliefs, pillars, and spread of Islam, from the astronomers who charted stars hundreds of years ago to the Malaysian astronaut who took his faith to space.

Christianity isn’t just about Jesus. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we explore the many faces of the world’s most popular religion—its denominations, commonalities, and complexities.

A large proportion of Chinese people believe in a god—yet most report they don’t belong to any religion. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll learn about two of the Three Teachings of China—Confucianism and Daoism—and explore why Chinese religious practice is much more fluid than the question “What religion do you follow?”

What does it mean to be Jewish? Is it being part of a religion, a people, a culture, a nation? All of the above? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll uncover how Jewish identity has been shaped by centuries of debate and deliberation.

What does it mean for a river to be a person? An ancestor, even? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll learn how Indigenous religious traditions’ emphasis on place, kinship, and diverse spirits challenge the dominant assumptions of the Western worldview.

What does it mean to be Hindu? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll learn about the surprising history of the term “Hindu,” what the word “karma” really means, and how this vast, sprawling tradition contains more than one version of a story.

The word “magic” has dubious, demonic connotations. But is there really a difference between magic and religion? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll explore the history of magical practices and discover how modern-day witches, brujas, and Hoodoo practitioners are reclaiming the label.

What is a cult? How are cults different from religions? And why do many religious scholars say we shouldn’t even use that label? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll learn why the line between cults and religions is much fuzzier than it seems.