One-Minute Animated Primers on Major Theories of Religion
by Maria PopovaFrom Karl Marx to Richard Dawkins in 60 seconds.
Last year, Open University brought us 60-Second Adventures in Thought — a fascinating and wonderfully animated series exploring six famous philosophy thought experiments. This season, they’re back with 60-Second Adventures in Religion — four short informative yet jocular primers on some major theories of religious studies, offering a fine addition to these essential meditations on faith.
The first introduces Karl Marx and his conception of religion as a vehicle of illusory happiness and a means of oppression and social control:
The second explores religion as ritual through the work of pioneering sociologist Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte, better-known as Auguste, who — like Alain de Botton today — tried to start a secular religion based on values of charity, order, and science:
The third episode paints religion as a mother through Swiss antiquarian and Roman law professor J. J. Bachofer’s theories of matriarchy:
The final installment explores religion as a virus, a concept proposed by Richard Dawkins, who famously coined the term “meme”:
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