home

Welcome to the Year 10 RE Professional Learning Team. The purpose of this wiki is to engage in professional dialogue about our practice. The wiki will provide an opportunity for teachers to collaborate and provide feedback about the development of the unit on Wolrd Religions. From Ryan

In a Sunday Age, May 3 2009 article entitled 'God Delusions Cloud a World of Wonders', Michael Coulter argues that if we spent less time finding, or focusing on, or building up our connection to religion (and religious institutions) our world, our environment and our minds/psyche would be much healthier. He uses the actions of fanatics (in all forms, including Jihad invokers and evangelical proselytizers) as an example of why the world is in such a desperate mixed up state. He doesn't seem to blame religion [please forgive me if I have gotten this slightly escewed, as the article is at school, I am at home on Saturday and it costs to purchase it in electronic form], but challenges those free thinkers to question why they adhear to religious paradigms and not commune with the stuff of life. He believes that when we celebrate our connections to nature and justice (and the life) then we should flourish. This intimate connection be to the benefit of ourselves and to others, not to mention the environment with which we engage.

Once I get back to school I will re-read the article. I noted in the Sunday Age today (Sunday 10th May) that a number of people commented on Coulter's article.

I realise this is completely outside the above reflection, but it occurred to me that while comparison between religious traditions is not ideal, for our students to identify what is similar and what is different in both or all religious traditions is important for their understanding of each individual tradition. I do not believe we are entering into some form of relativism, but acknowledging that some symbols are universal across every religious tradition.

There is something important that I cannot recall we mentioned, or at least elaborated on, at our first meeting. I believe it is important to remember that this subject of World Religions is an academic persuit, not a spiritual one, for our students. I don't think we need to fear their loss of faith or potential conversion or complete confusion. All of this and more is the place of learning. As a consequence, and I say this with all due respect to my Catholic heritage, I think it is unhealthy to say that 'every religious tradition contains truth, but ours contains the complete truth'. Truth is experienced when the human being meets complete and conscious peace; in what-so-ever form this comes - God/YHWH/Allah, Jesus, Nirvana manifest.

It also occured to me yet again as I was watching Compass, ABC Sunday 10th May, that all religious traditions are about finding peace; peace at the centre of ourselves and peace in the world. It is not about meaning making, although 'meaning' for responding to the world in peace might be found, but about coming to consciousness in God; the God of peace. Even for Buddhism and Hinduism entering into enlightened consciousness is about finding and celebrating peace in self and the world. Meaning making is the persuit of the mind and not of the heart, even though as rational/sentient beings we come to awakenness (consciousness) through the facility of the mind, heart, spirit and soul in concert with one another. Without the whole person entering into this place of peace, then peace will not be achieved.

What am I now saying about those people who have not God or no religious tradition? Am I infering that they will never have peace? No, I don't believe I am.peace comes when all parts of our being are in according with the creation/world. This does not mean that there needs to be perfection and bliss, but that every element in the persuit for peace (including tension, anxiety, confusion, doubt, pain and loss) join with the great organic dynamic that is the creation/world.

Off to bed now!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ryan From Ryan... I feel it is important to acknowledge that human beings came before religion. That religious traditions are an expression of both our meaning making and our experience of mystery and things unexplainable. My sense is that in the 21st C, people search (and in some cases depth) various religious traditions to help them make meaning/sense of their lives (as humans have done throughout the centuries), to encounter others and the absolute other in a unique way, and to have a means by which (or a framework through which) they can express themselves and give back, give thanks, respond in kind, feel complete/whole.

My sense is that religious traditions bear witness to the core business of the human person through the traditions' understanding of the relationship between self and other. This core business is about life, unity, growth, death and enduring essence. Religious traditions act as a conduit between the 'actor' and the existential other. How this plays itself out is unique to each religious tradition; despite inextricable similarities, root origins and concurrent end-hopes.

From Ryan - Sunday 31st May From Ryan - Wednesday 3rd June From Ryan - Tuesday 9th June
 * After our conversation on Friday afternoon, and with a desire to acknowledge that this unit is about World Religions, I have reflected a little more and want to add these comments
 * That religious traditions (World Religions) offer the human person a framework through which they can search for meaning (in all its facets)
 * That religious traditions (World Religions) offer a safe place where difference (people/culture/etc) can dialogue deeply
 * That religious traditions (World Religions) reveal and mediate the divine/God/creator-energy/absolute-other
 * Given that we are in a Catholic School...
 * That the Christian tradition holds Jesus Christ up as the exemplar of humanity, the source of authentic dialogue and the way to God
 * I have been thinking that the importand thing to reflect on is...
 * How do "I" make meaning of my life/story/reality/history, etc? Therefore, who am I?
 * Who are "you" and how do I relate/celebrate/dialogue with you? Therefore, whose am I and who are we?
 * Who and how is God/pure-essence/One/absolute-other for you and me? Therefore, who and what is the absolute other at which we aim/desire?
 * Through this interconnectedness, how do we move forward AND for what reason? Where are we going? Who is with us?
 * It occured to me over the long w/e that as each world religion presents God/absolute-other/energy/spirit-of-creation as their first premise, we must acknowledge and present this when we are learning/teaching about each religious tradition.
 * I would also like to affirm that as students/teachers of this unit we must honour the fact that none of the Standards and Goals expects us to evaluate the religious tradition, therefore there should be no threat of 'forced' or 'accidental' convertions or loss of faith in Christianity.