Text:  Michael Molloy, Experiencing the World's Religions: Tradition, Challenge, and Change, Mayfield Publishing Company, 1999.

Course Requirements, Grades, Attendance Policy, and Related Issues:

Requirements: Two examinations/tests and quizzes are required.  Tests largely determine your grade for the course.  Tests will be "objective" in format.  Remember that there is more to a course like this than memorizing terms and dates - much more.  Understanding is absolutely essential.  Tests will be announced prior to their administration (as well as listed in the syllabus schedule, below).  Tests will be based on readings and lectures completed or assigned prior to the date of their administration.  Both tests are sectional tests.  Tests count equally in determining your final grade for the course.  Quizzes may be given at any time; they will count collectively, as given, as 20% of your final grade.

Click here for important information about academic integrity.

Grades and Grading Scale: A, 90-100; B, 80-89; C, 70-79; D, 60-69.

Attendance Policy: Attendance is strongly encouraged and expected but it is not considered in determining your grade for the course.  You do not get "credit" for showing up for class - being in class is (one would think) a given.  Much of the material covered in class may not appear in the text.  Though I will not take attendance on a regular basis (or at all), your participation in class and your attentive presence can and will make a very significant difference in your appreciation of the issues, problems, theories and subject-matter we will discuss - and in your grade.  If you miss a class, you are responsible for obtaining notes and any other information or assignments you missed.  Office hours are held to clarify issues, to provide assistance, and otherwise attend to academic matters relevant to this course.  They are not held to repeat a lecture already given in class.

Missed Tests: If you are not present on a day on which the first test is administered and if you have missed class for a good, legitimate, and verifiable reason, you may make it up within 3 days of its initial administration.  Be aware that a test taken late may be in a different format from the one given on the original test date.  After 3 days, you may not take the test and must either forfeit the grade (in other words, you will receive a "0" for that test) OR you must write a 15-page paper due no later than 1 week after the administration of the test you missed.  Paper topics must be approved by the instructor or course assistant and the finalized paper must be typed and double spaced, containing appropriate references, ordinary font size, and substantial content.  If you miss the first test without a good, legitimate and verifiable reason, your only options are to write a paper (described above) or receive no credit.  There is no provision for making up the last examination.  Don't miss it.  Quizzes cannot be made up if missed.

Extra Credit:  Extra credit is NOT available.

Note 2:  The schedule below is meant only as a guide.  Changes and alterations in the schedule, scheduled topics, or test dates may be necessary to facilitate completion of all major sections listed below.  Also note that additional material may be added from time to time, either through lectures, Internet sources (such as additions and links within this syllabus), journal articles, or any other appropriate sources.  If they are to be added, they will be announced in class or noted in this syllabus as needed.

Schedule:
    Note on Review Questions:  The text provides a list of key terms at the end of each chapter.  Some review questions based on chapters of the text and additional material added in class may appear in links in this on-line syllabus.  Review questions, when they appear, are designed for review of major concepts presented throughout the course and do not necessarily reflect actual content, format, number or sort of questions that will appear on examinations.
    The link below was created for use in this course and others I am teaching this semester  as an on-line forum for discussion of review questions between and among people registered for this course and the others.  I occasionally check the message board and perform maintenance on it, but do not necessarily contribute to your on-line discussions.  When and if you use the board (it will be populated by people discussing philosophy courses as well as those of you in this class), use your REAL NAME and put your e-mail address in the appropriate field.  Anonymous postings or notes posted with the use of an alias should not be used on the board and will be deleted by the board's administrator.  Please do not use any person's name but your own when you post messages, answers to review questions, questions of your own, or any comments.

    Message Board Link

8/28:  Introductory meeting, course requirements; general information about the course and its contents.

9/4:  LABOR DAY HOLIDAY

9/11:  Background information on understanding world religions, major features of religion; distinctions and commonalities.  Chapter 1, pp. 1-24.  Why do people subscribe to religious beliefs?  Add William James's The Will to Believe.  Discussion of Spinoza's (see especially Pt. II) position that there can be only one God, and that all things are modes or attributes of God.  See also Plato's Euthyphro Notes.

9/18: Hinduism,  pp. 55-86.  Cause-effect relationships/karma. Reincarnation - some commentary from the work of Plato (the Phaedo).

9/25:  Buddhism,  pp. 101-149.  Some affinities to Stoicism and Epicureanism.  Add Epictetus and Epicurus.

10/2: Jainism and Sikhism, pp. 163-181. Atheism (or non-theism) within religion in Jainism and Buddhism.

10/9:  Taoism and Confucianism,  pp. 187-222 and Shinto, pp. 235-251.  Yang and Yin - see also Plato's argument from opposites regarding the immortality of the soul from The Phaedo.  Friendship (Confucianism) and some comments on Aristotle's concept of friendship (books VIII and IX of Nicomachean Ethics).

10/16:  MIDTERM EXAM

10/23:  Judaism, Christianity and Islam and Some Philosophical Aspects of Problems in Religion.  Arguments for God's Existence, The Problem of Evil, and Understanding the Characteristics of an Ultimate Being, etc.

10/30:  Judaism,  pp. 263-294.  The Ten Commandments and the Problem of Divine Command (theory).

11/6:  Judaism continued.  An Introduction to Christianity via Jonathan Edwards and Thomas Paine from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" and Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason (Part 1 only) - see the links below for the full texts of these works.

11/13: Christianity, pp. 319-379.  More Commandments (text, p. 327).  Catholicism and Protestantism (and the dizzying number of varieties of Protestantism).  Add Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

11/20:Christianity continued.  Add Thomas Paine's Age of Reason (selections TBA).

11/27: Islam, pp. 401-437.

12/4: Closing Comments and Chapter 11, pp. 455-488.  Women's Rights; Human Sexuality; and Science.  WE MAY OMIT CHAPTER 11 AND USE THIS CLASS MEETING DAY FOR A REVIEW OF MAJOR CONCEPTS FROM THE MID-TERM TO THE FINAL EXAM.

Final Exam Week:

This page was last updated on 08/28/2000.