Why are we here? What is our purpose in life? What happens after death? How do the major world religions answer these seemingly unanswerable questions? Join Professor Robert Oden on this ideal starting point for considering how religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism address these and other questions. These lectures approach religious belief and ritual as possible answers to difficult and enduring issues that have occupied humanity for thousands of years.
God and Mankind: Comparative Religions
Discover how religious beliefs and rituals serve as possible answers to difficult and enduring issues that have occupied humanity for thousands of years.
01: Why Nothing Is as Intriguing as the Study of Religion
The series is introduced with a definition of the word religion. Why should we study it? Dr. Oden establishes how we should best study and compare religions.
48 min
02: Orienting Humanity—Religions as Spiritual Compasses
The many ways religions explain the origin of the universe are compared. The effects of different theories of origin on other aspects of religious belief and even religious architecture are also analyzed.
47 min
03: Religious Heroes 1—Gilgamesh and the Dawn of History
With a brief review of the elements of religious myth, Dr. Oden discusses elements of the Mesopotamian myth "The Epic of Gilgamesh." Gilgamesh's encounter with his equal Enkidu, the spiritual crisis brought on by Enkidu's death, and its resolution.
40 min
04: Religious Heroes 2—Moses and Jesus
Dr. Oden proposes that we should understand the lives of religious heroes in the framework of a rite of passage—the movement from ignorance to crisis to post-threshold awareness. Gilgamesh, Moses, and Jesus all fit this scheme. Jesus' argument is that life itself is a crisis presaging the threshold. Hindu and Buddhist belief are included in this analysis.
43 min
05: Pondering Divine Justice—Do We Suffer for Naught?
How can a benevolent God permit needless human suffering? The five answers of religion to this question are discussed, as is the Book of Job.
43 min
06: Defending Divine Justice—Religious Accounts of Suffering
Continuing the discussion begun in Lecture 5, Dr. Oden explains and examines the responses of St. Paul, Calvin, and Hindu and Buddhist theologians to the problem of human suffering in a world with God.
46 min
07: Religious Rituals and Communities
Dr. Oden first reviews the importance of ritual in defining a religious community. He examines the historical development of religious practices and how they are organized into distinct churches; the inevitability of sects which split off from the church and how these sects become churches; and the intriguing ways Buddhist and Hindu religious practices address the tensions that give rise to sects.
39 min
08: Bringing It All Back Home
This lecture explores the extraordinary impact of religious belief and thought on the American character. Dr. Oden makes clear the central importance of Luther, Calvin, and Puritanism on American political behavior, religious fundamentalism, and even career choice anxiety.
43 min
Overview Course No. 616
About
Dr. Robert Oden is the former president of Carleton College and Kenyon College. He earned his bachelor's degree in history and literature magna cum laude from Harvard University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Oden earned a Th.M. and Ph.D. with highest distinctions from Harvard Divinity School, as well as earning the Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities. He also earned an honorary master's degree from Dartmouth College. Dr. Oden is the recipient of the Dartmouth College Distinguished Teaching Award, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the Detur Prize, the Harvard Honorary Scholarship, and the John Harvard Honorary Scholarship. He was named Outstanding Senior Scholar, Dudley House, and was the Marshall Scholar to Cambridge University. At Cambridge, he earned an additional bachelor's and master's degree in religious studies/theology as well as the Cambridge University Hebrew Prize and Bethune Baker Prize. He was also Elected Scholar of Pembroke College. Dr. Oden is the author of many articles and several books, including Studies in Lucian's De Syria.
