Religion plays a “very important” role in the lives of most Americans; a proportion unique among developed nations
The main religious preferences in the Unites States include (in order): Christianity, unaffiliate, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
Why did Buddhism emerge when and where it did? Are there other historical parallels to the emergence of Buddhism?
Core spiritual ideas of Buddhism by way of comparison with ideas from the Hindu Upanishads.
Introduction to Siddhartha Gautama Buddha and Buddhism.
It's perfectly human to grapple with questions, like 'Where do we come from?' and 'How do I live a life of meaning?' These existential questions are central to the five major world religions -- and that's not all that connects these faiths. John Bellaimey explains the intertwined histories and cultures of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. Lesson by John Bellaimey, animation by TED-Ed.
Philosophy is many things to many people and so writing a general introduction to philosophy textbook is bound to itself be an exercise in meta-philosophy. Because this is so, there will be disagreements not only about what is in the textbook, but also about what it leaves out. In the process of editing the chapters for this text, the philosophers in my department (Paul Jurczak, Christopher Schneck, and Leanne Kent) had occasion to hash out some of these disagreements. I believe the resulting textbook is better for it, not to mention that we as philosophers are all better for it. As will perhaps be obvious for those who read the textbook, the different chapters have very different styles. We consider this diversity a virtue of the textbook, although we understand that it does make it bit more unwieldy. For example, Paul and I have very different backgrounds in philosophy. Paul reads French very well and knows a lot about Merleau-Ponty; I read no French, but am fairly engaged with the cognitive sciences. Paul knows a lot about history, literature, and film; I don’t, but can tell you more than you’d like to know about what’s wrong with Jerry Fodor’s asymmetric dependence account of mental representation or why Saul Kripke’s causal account reference is important. As philosophers may infer based on these descriptions, I was schooled within the “analytic” tradition of philosophy, whereas Paul’s interests lie more within the “Continental” tradition of philosophy. These differences speak to the diversity of what philosophy is and they are reflected in this textbook.
An introduction to the major schools of Buddhist thought--Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism.
An introduction to Zen, a form of Buddhism that emphasizes seeking one's own Buddha nature through meditation.