Beliefs and Believers is designed for students of sociology, anthropology, and religious studies, combines the best elements of the first version of the course, with new footage and interviews. Included in this edition is a lesson on Native American Spirituality and a case study of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment.

The program also features exclusive footage of:

• a Muslim Sufi sheik in Israel
• a Coptic Orthodox Christian Monk absorbing the silence of the Egyptian desert
• a Taoist priest honoring ancestors in San Francisco
• an interview with Imam W. Deen Muhammad, world leader of African American Islam
• witches
• pagan-priestesses
• fundamentalist Christians
• and many, many other fascinating believers who speak passionately about their belief systems and the impact of religion on their respective communities

Also included are in-depth interviews with experts in the field of religious studies. The course offers a global perspective and a greatly enhanced thematic and organizational approach to the course concepts.

COURSE MATERIALS

Study Guide: Beliefs and Believers Teleclass Study Guide  by J. K. Simmons. Dubuque, IA:Kendal/Hunt. 2007. (ISBN #0-7575-3307-8)

Faculty Manual: Beliefs and Believers Teleclass Instructor’s Guide by J.K. Simmons, Second Edition, University Park, IL:Governor State University, 2007. (This manual includes an overview of the course, sample student examination questions, essay assignments, and discussion topics.)

PROGRAM LESSON DESCRIPTIONS

Class 1: What is Religion?
Outlines the course goals and objectives, and focuses on the benefits of examining major beliefs and worldviews. . Students gain the analytical skills needed to appreciate religious diversity and understand religious paths. The class emphasizes the difference between teaching religion and teaching about religion.

Class 2: Six Dimensions of Worldviews
Focuses on the six dimensions of worldviews upon which the course is structured: experiential, mythical, ritual, doctrinal, ethical, and social. In this class, students are introduced to the experiential dimension in Christianity and become acquainted with such concepts as hierophany, axis mundi, and the "sacred and profane" in religious life.

Class 3: Boundary Questions: Rites of Passage
Delves into the reasons, motivations, and instincts that have inspired the cultural expressions we now call "religion". Students explore archaic religious systems, the eternal search for answers to profound life questions, and various religious styles.

Class 4: The Religious Experience
Explores the difficulty in labeling what constitutes a religious experience. Students discover the ways in which extraordinary or parapsychological events are shaded by language, interpretation and culture. Also included is discussion on the relationship between religion and science, and a series of interviews with religious seekers that puts a human face on unique aspects of human experience.

Class 5: Mystics and Meditation
Focuses on believers who have chosen to devote their lives to worship, prayer, or meditation. A study on monastic life provides the foundation for this lesson, which includes enlightening interviews on the topics of mysticism and meditation with a Coptic Orthodox monk and a Hindu swami.

Class 6: Religious Experience: Hinduism
Focuses on the experiential dimension of Hinduism. The class features interviews with Swami Prabuddhananda from the Vendanta Society of Northern California and Shankara Pundit of the Chicago Hare Krishna Center.

Class 7: Religious Experience: Buddhism
Explores the Buddhist view on the relationships between religious impulse, profound life questions, and the experiential dimension.The lesson explains such fundamental Buddhist concepts as "The Four Noble Truths", "The Eight Fold Path", egolessness, karma, dharma, and reincarnation. Featured is a Zen Buddhist from the San Francisco Zen Center and Tibetan Buddhists at the Dharmadatu Temple in Chicago.

Class 8: The Religious Quest: The Ramtha School of Enlightenment
Explores key class themes such as the religious process, the pervasiveness of religion, seeker style, boundary questions, rites of passage, and the many types of religious experience. The lesson delves into the motivations that compel students to study at the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, a provocative new age center in Yelm, Washington.

Class 9: Myth and Ritual: The Dimensional Triangle
Probes how profound life questions arising out of the experiential dimension find answers in the great myths and paradigm-laden narratives of the world's religions. Also discussed are the ways in which these answers shape religious activity among believers. Feature interviews include a Hindu describing the "Myth of the Ganges River," a Christian fundamentalist discussing the importance of the baptism ritual, and a discourse on death as a religious motivator in the Jerusalem graveyards above the Holy City.

Class 10: Mythic Dimension: Judaism
Describes the three great myths in the Torah—creation, liberation, and the making of the covenant on Sinai—that undergird and inspire all Jewish religious activity. Features an explanation of the Talmud by Dr. Lorberbaum of the Hartman Institute, and an interview with a Hasidic Jew conducted at the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Class 11: Civil Religion
Analyzes the use of symbols, describes different types of symbolic activity, and observes how symbols play a key role in all human cultural activity, including religion.The class also explores Civil Religion, a form of myth that validates the social order. Key questions are posed about American myths, the "liturgical cycle" of American holidays, and other related issues.

Class 13: Primal Religions 2
Features Cynthia Jones and Patricia Storm, co-founders of the ritual-magic group Diana's Grove.Myth, magic, ritual, and experience are all part of the recovery of primal religion, a spirituality that is earth-centered as opposed to heaven-centered. Cynthia and Patricia discuss ritual-magic, Wicca, and neo-paganism.  They also offer insights into what motivated them to establish Diana's Grove.

Class 14: Doctrinal Dimension: Christianity
Calls upon Christianity to help illuminate the doctrinal dimension.This introductory program to the doctrinal dimension stresses the inter-relationship of the six dimensions. The lesson explores traditional Christian doctrines, the relationship between certain sacred Bible texts, and Christian doctrinal interpretation.

Class 15: Doctrinal Dimension: Conservative Christianity
Explores the religious doctrines that define religious beliefs and practices.The class takes a look at existing tensions between believers of differing doctrines through an examination of basic Christian fundamentals, Protestant sects in Israel, and the biblical book of "Revelations."

Class 16: Doctrinal Dimension: Sacred vs. Secular
robes how believers use doctrines (i.e. beliefs about the sacredness of reality) to create a religious lifestyle designed to keep the secular world at bay.Amish and Mormon believers provide a means of comparison as to how their differing patterns of doctrine-inspired behavior control life in their respective communities.

Class 17: Doctrinal Dimension: Islam
Focuses on the study of Islam and considers the "second dimensional triangle" formed by doctrine, ethics, and society. Students see how Islamic doctrines and ethical practices work together to shape Islamic society.  Key Islamic concepts covered in discussion include "The Five Pillars of Islam" (a.k.a. The Five Articles of the Islamic Faith), shirk, shari'a, jihad, the holy Qu'ran, and the meaning behind the prayer ritual.

Class 18: Doctrinal Dimension: African American Islam
Offers insights into the Nation of Islam and highlights some of its key figures. Imam W. Deen Muhammad, one of the most influential religious leaders in African American Islam today, explains openly and candidly how his father, Elijah Muhammad, took traditional Islamic doctrines and reinterpreted them to empower and raise self-esteem in African Americans living in a racist society. Also explored is the power struggle between leading figures within the Nation of Islam.

Class 19: Ethical Dimension: Ethical Conflicts 1
Probes the ethical dimension in an effort to understand what motivates believers to behave according to their beliefs. Tangible results of belief practices are observed in the building of religious monuments such as pyramids and cathedrals, the observation of prayer rituals, and the committing of terrorist acts, to name a few.  The lesson compares religious ethics (proper patterns of action) and rules of ethics in society (law, custom, morals).  It also attempts to discern how obligation, responsibility, and punishment are present in religious ethical systems.

Class 20: Ethical Dimension: Ethical Conflicts 2, Middle East
Explores ethical conflicts inspired by a volatile mixture of religion and politics in Middle Eastern societies.Examples of this conflict are offered from two different countries – Israel, with its mix of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and Egypt, where Christian believers clash with Muslim believers.  Students also learn how ideas taken for granted in the U.S. - such as freedom of religion, property rights, and sovereignty – tend to fuel ethical conflicts in the Middle East.

Class 21: Far East Religions
Explores the relationship between the ethical and social dimensions as demonstrated by East Asian religions.  Included in this study are the religions of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Japanese Shintoism, and a mixture of ancient folk religious practices that dates back to prehistoric times. This class investigates the six dimensions of Chinese religion, the ethical and social dimensions of Confucianism, the "radical" quest for balance and ethical harmony in Taoism, and  the difference between Eastern and Western religious/spiritual perspectives.

Class 22: Social Dimension: Religious Diversity
Focuses on issues that emerge from religious diversity. Students hone the worldview analysis skills introduced at the beginning of the course by applying them to the "religious ecology" of the United States – the most religiously diverse country in the world. Factors contributing to religious diversity are outlined in opening lesson segments. Investigative interviews with religious leaders reveal the sociological factors that often result in dilemmas behind the institutionalization of religion.

Class 23: New Religious Movements
Applies sociological methodology to establish a neutral ground for understanding sect and cult formation.  The lesson further investigates emerging religious institutions such as the Ramtha School of Enlightenment and Diana's Grove.  Topics of discussion include the "cultic impulse", and outlines the many profiles of religious organizations, including church, denomination, sect, and cult.  Students explore the  impact of secularization of established religious institutions.

Class 24: Religion: New Directions
Concludes the study of religion by looking toward the future. The lesson examines the role of religion and religious leaders in a world where society is becoming increasingly religiously pluralistic, and raises the question of how adherents of different worldviews might respond in an expanding religious landscape.

Class 25: Update A: “Putting It All Together"
In this follow-up review class, we revisit the six dimensions of religion and consider different ways of exploring the relationship between those dimensions. A second dimensional triangle has been added in order to more accurately present the relationship between the doctrinal, ethical, and social dimensions. We review key class themes such as boundary questions and rites of passage and discuss how real religion is common in all human experience, across temporal and cultural lines.

Class 26: Update B: Where the Dimensions Meet: Violence, Science and Spirituality
This class takes on three of the most important and challenging issues regarding religion, today: religion and violence, religion and science, and religion and spirituality. In this class, we try to track some of the changes that have spawned our unsettling times as we look to a future in which scientific knowledge and spiritual insight can form a partnership.