Millions of people in a number of countries celebrate Halloween on October 31st each year.
According to Wikipedia, the festival on the eve of All Hallows Day may possibly have had its roots In a Celtic Harvest festival.
All Saints’ Eve (Hallowe’en), All Saints’ Day (also known as All Hallows’ Day), and All Souls Day have been celebrated as Allhallowtide by Christians from October 31 to November 2 for hundreds of years. Halloween traditions such as dressing up as ghosts are likely to be rooted in the Christian rituals of remembering and praying for the dead at Allhallowtide.
What Does This Have to do with Online Learning?
What about trying out a course about religion? Class Central lists 129 courses: https://www.class-central.com/search?q=religion. Not all are in English or currently available, but here is a selection that might be interesting.
A Course About the Bible
The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future
This six-week course is about the Bible, rather than about religion. Part of the course information includes “…the biblical authors left a literary legacy that has been intensively studied until the present day…”
It is rated close to five stars by course participants on both Coursera and Class Central. In the words of one reviewer: “It [this course] is for people who are sincere believers, sincere doubters or confirmed skeptics.”
Do Humans Have a Soul?
Soul Beliefs: Causes and Consequences
This series of three courses looks at “the causes and consequences of various beliefs about the soul and its prospects of surviving the death of the body.” Each course takes 11 weeks and a substantial amount of material is covered. The first course looks at Historical Foundations, the second covers Belief Systems and the third addresses the question How Does it all End? Is there an afterlife?
Unlike the Bible course mentioned above, this course series scored a wide range of ratings from students, from one star up to five stars. Take a look and make up your own mind. It is an online offering of an undergraduate course at Rutgers University School of Arts and Sciences. Lectures were recorded during the on-campus class.
Philosophy, Science, Religion. Are They Compatible?
The University of Edinburgh also has a three-course series, on Philosophy, Science and Religion. Are these modes of thinking compatible? Each course is five or six weeks long.
While we are looking at the compatibility or otherwise of scientific and religious modes of thinking, what about Science & Religion 101 from the University of Alberta? The evolution vs creation debate is addressed here, among other topics.
Several of the above courses take the Biblical or Christian perspective of religion. You can, however, also learn about other religions through MOOCs.
Other Religions
EdX has several courses available about various religions. These were originally released by HarvardX as the World Religions Through Their Scriptures XSeries Program. Although I could not find a dedicated Program page, the courses can be found by searching edX for the words through its scriptures. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism each have their own short self-paced course. A related introductory course is Religious Literacy: Traditions and Scriptures, also by HarvardX. These are all self-paced courses.
I could go on. There are many other related courses available, but now all my spare time has again disappeared as I look at these interesting courses.
A Final Thought
Whether or not you celebrate Halloween, you can always use the day as an excuse to take another online course or two.
By Pat Bowden, published October 30, 2018.
