What is the difference between studying a religion and studying about a religion

Schempp , a case involving daily prayer as part of a Pennsylvania school's opening exercises. The Court found the school's practice of daily prayer unconstitutional, concluding that mandated religious exercises in public schools were in violation of both the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses. However, the Court drew a distinction between religious instruction and instruction about religion , noting that while the former was unconstitutional, the latter was not, and indeed should be encouraged in public education.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clark asserted that one's "education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization.

The academic study of religion is an inherently interdisciplinary field, incorporating textual studies of the world's sacred texts, language studies, art, history, philosophy, anthropology, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, comparative literature and literary studies, cultural studies, gender and ethnic studies, legal studies, and other approaches in order to better understand, compare, interpret, and analyze those beliefs, practices, traditions, communities, artifacts, and other phenomena we call "religious.

A minor in religion is a chance to explore why religion matters to people. Studying religion helps you understand different cultures. Ever seen a man wearing a turban? Ever notice the variety of churches in your neighborhood?

Ever read a newspaper story about a new temple in town? Religion surrounds our daily lives and studying types of religion can help you understand many types of differences that are visible all around you. Religion is one of the primary disciplines for investigating the boundary questions of life and death, of love and hate, that characterize the human condition.

All persons crave for self-transcendence in one mode or another. Religious Studies provides the opportunity to understand, with depth and nuance, the many beliefs and rituals that move persons to appreciate the alternative world of the religious reality.

Religious Studies is academically enriching because it is a transdisciplinary mode of inquiry that engenders deep intercultural literacy. Serious study of the world's religions inculcates unique cultural sensitivities among students. Since it straddles the boundary between objective evidence and subjective experience, religious studies is methodologically diverse, globally aware, and academically transgressive.

Religious studies is rigorously and playfully open to a multicultural and international way of being that bursts the boundaries of the conventional and the everyday.

Religious Studies is personally meaningful because it raises questions of purpose and value along with developing important life skills. Religious studies enables the development of crucial aptitudes -- critical thinking, communication competence, interpersonal awareness, and intercultural literacy -- necessary for success in a global society. How do we explain human suffering and injustices?

The answers different religious traditions give to these important questions are many and varied and often contradictory. But the questions themselves are ones with which humans throughout time have grappled, and probably will continue to grapple with into the indefinite future. Thus, one of the first reasons to study religion is simply to deepen our understanding of others and ourselves, even as we pursue other realms of knowledge.

More than ever before, the world we live in is both multicultural and global.