Crash Course Religions

Is Star Wars a religion? What about belief in UFOs or QAnon? In our final episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll explore how religion shapes pop culture, and pop culture shapes religion right back.

We might agree religious freedom is a good thing—but can we agree on what it really means? This episode of Crash Course Religions explores ongoing debates over where the limits of religious freedom lie. We’ll discover why this ideal enshrined as a constitutional right proves so tricky to apply in the real world.

It’s the end of the world as we know it. Or is it? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we explore end-of-the-world predictions across time and faith traditions. It turns out that, more often than not, those predictions have been more about a group’s present problems than any future calamity.

While race and religion may seem separate, they are inextricably linked. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll unpack racism’s roots in religious colonialism, its presence in Indigenous boarding schools, and its effects on our world today.

How many genders are there? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll learn how religious communities construct ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality, and why these concepts aren’t as timeless or unchanging as they might seem.

Religion and science have had some famously messy fights, but do they always have to be in conflict? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll look at some ways religion and science are more than just enemies.

Angels, aliens, and ghosts—oh my! In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we figure out how the paranormal and supernatural shows up in our religions, and outside of them. If you or someone you know identifies as “spiritual but not religious,” this one’s for you.

Everybody dies—and then what? In this episode of Crash Crash Religions, we’ll explore how religions around the world have formed answers to a question nobody knows the answer to. We’ll also discover how concepts of Heaven and Hell have changed over time.

From priests to imams, from rabbis to gurus, religious leaders play a big role in shaping religions today. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll dig into what makes a religious leader and how people can take the power back.

Rituals aren’t meaningless actions. They can mark time and space, create new identities, and connect people to something bigger than themselves. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we explore the rituals that shape our lives—whether religious or not.

Sacred texts mean different things to different religions—sometimes they’re essential to belief and practice, and other times, not much importance is placed on them at all. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we dive into the different ways religious texts are used, debated, and venerated across various traditions.

Atheism is far from new, but the various ways that people say “no thank you” to belief in gods, deities, or particular religions are so diverse that they’ve had a huge impact on world belief systems. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we break down the different flavors of atheism and nonbelief and ask the question, “Is atheism a religion?”