What is the essence of religion? What makes religion so important to people? What benefits does religion have?

Some of you have asked about the research paper.  It will be worth 1/4 of your grade–so please take it seriously.  

You will earn points for writing a research paper, due at the end of the semester, at the same time as the last day of the final exam.  Here are the instructions for the research paper:

1.  Your paper must be between 2,500-3,000 words.  You can single space it, or double space it–whichever you prefer.  

2.  You can choose the topic, within the following guidelines:

Your topic must be on something that is not covered in much detail in the textbook or by my videos.

Your topic should be off the beaten path.  Look for something interesting and unusual.  

Your topic should NOT be covered by ANY of the quiz questions. 

You should use AT LEAST 5 academic sources (internet sources are ok, as long as they are NOT .com sites–so look for .org or .edu).  You may certainly begin research with wikipedia–but you should not use wikipedia as one of your sources–this is not an academic source.

Some people have trouble choosing a topic.  That is normal.  But don’t let that discourage you.  The ultimate aim of the research paper is for you to do some learning on your own.  I want this to encourage you to spend some time searching different topics in a religion of your choice, and to find interesting things.  I think you will need to spend many hours finding a good topic.  When I say many hours I mean as much as 15-20 hours searching out topics in a religion of your choice.  Finding a topic is the hardest part of this assignment.  Here are some answers to frequently asked questions:

1.  I can’t find a topic, can you give me one?

Answer: I will not provide you with a topic.  Part of the aim of this assignment is to encourage you to do a lot of research on your own.  If you are having trouble finding a topic that is ok–that means you need to start searching.

2.  How do I find an interesting topic?

Answer: Start with a religion you are interested in.  Then start google searching it.  Look for a key word or idea that is new to you, and then start searching that.  When you find some more interesting things from that search, look for a more specific thing that interests you even more, and search it out.  You should continue doing this–go deeper and deeper with your searches and get more an more specific.  For instance, you might start with an interesting person (say Gandhi).  So you start searching out Gandhi. And maybe you will read that Gandhi got his idea for nonviolent resistance from a book by Leo Tolstoy, called the Kingdom of God is Within You. And so then you start searching Gandhi and Tolstoy, and you might find that he read the book while in South Africa, and that he first began practicing non-violent resistance in south Africa.  Then you might look into Gandhi’s first non-violent protest and learn about how that went.  At that point you might have a topic specific enough to write on–because you will be able to say something that has definitely not been covered by the book, and is narrow enough to write a 3-5 page paper about.  That topic would be Gandhi’s first effort to practice nonviolent protest.  But you might go in a different direction and check out Tolstoy’s book.  You might discover something interesting about Tolstoy and his movement.  You might find other people who read his books and did remarkable things–people you have never heard about and did not know lived.  You might find someone in particular you think others should hear about, and you’ll right your paper on someone you had never heard of before you began your research.  The point is that you will need to spend a lot of time, and you will need to be curious.

3.  How specific should my topic be?

Answer: Your topic should be really, really specific.  Do not write a general paper about some person.  Do not write a general paper about some practice.  You should write a paper that is narrow in its focus–a specific time or place or person at a time and place.  

4.  What if I absolutely cannot find a topic on my own?

Answer: You need to relax and become curious.  There are so many interesting things in the world of religion.  If you cannot find something specific and interesting to you, then you are brain dead or just not doing any research.  You can be curious–and you should easily find  many topics that interest you.