Exploring the diverse religious traditions contributing to New Zealand society

ALL 2024 TERM 4 EARTHDIVERSE COURSES BEGIN THE WEEK OF MONDAY 21 OCTOBER 2024

This series provides an in-depth look at the world’s main religious traditions, and goes into much greater detail than the information provided in the introductory Discovering Religious Diversity series. Over an entire Term of eight sessions focused on a single belief tradition, we’ll examine the history and development of each tradition, key figures associated with its founding or development, its sacred texts, contemporary beliefs and practices, and the major festivals and commemorations associated with each. During the final session of each Term, we’ll view a representative film for each tradition that accentuates and highlights the main points discussed during the Term.

Any Term course can be taken independently of the others and at any time and in any order. There are no prerequisites for any of the Religious Diversity courses.

All classes are taught from an objective point of view. These are classes about religion and religious behavior, taught from an anthropological point of view, and are designed for participants to get a greater understanding of the depth and scope of the diversity that exists within the world’s various faith and belief traditions.

NOTE: January 2024: EarthDiverse is working to create pre-recorded on-demand versions of all courses at lower price points in the Religious Diversity series. These will be made available over time and will begin in 2025. For the time being, these courses are not currently available as live in-person courses delivered in Hamilton, New Zealand, but will be available soon as on-line video-only courses.

The courses offered in this series are:

• RD301: “Understanding Judaism”
• RD302: “Understanding Islam”
• RD303: “Understanding Hinduism”
• RD304: “Understanding Buddhism”
• RD305: “Other ’Isms”

LOCATION: All in-person classes are held at the EarthDiverse Centre at 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton (located just north of the Hamilton Central Bus Station) (entrance is located on the side of the building). Those looking for parking for our evening classes can park just in front of the building in any of the available car parks. Daytime parking can be found in our dedicated car parks, or free 2-hour on-street daytime parking can be found just in front on Anglesea Street.

DISTANCE-LEARNING OPTIONS AVAILABLE: In addition to our regular Hamilton in-person classes, we offer ‘Distance Learning’ options for all of our Religious Diversity courses. Distance-learning options have been added for those living outside the Waikato or for those unable to attend our in-person classes in Hamilton. If you are a Distance-Learner you have the option of joining our regular live classroom sessions via Zoom at the regularly scheduled class time, or you can watch a video-recording of the Zoom classroom session at your leisure and learn at your own pace.

For more information on each specific course and the topics covered, please click on course name above, or on the course respective tiles below.