REL 1.04 Beginnings and Ends of Time
This course examines the visions of the emergence, decline, and extinction of the world in several religious cultures: Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Daoism, and contemporary USA. After investigating different ideas of how the world came to exist and various views of the end of time, we will compare different notions of salvation by which various religious cultures tried to assuage fears of the end of the world. With expectations for messianic redemption or visions of power these catastrophic imaginings and ideas of salvation served as the basis for missionary work and conversion as well as impetus for social and political transformations, rebellions, wars, imperial programs.