The World As It Should Be

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

If your religion could run the world, what would it look like? Would we be living in the Kingdom of God if Catholics could remake the world according to Catholic Social Teaching? Would such a world look very different from an ideal Islamic caliphate? What are Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Indigenous, and Confucian visions of the good life, and how would they be any different from secularism, if we are all to flourish together in pluralist societies? This course is a tour de force in religious literacy for global affairs, predicated on the need to answer the question: Could it be that in order to make one world, we must first come to know many? We will journey through different worldviews, religions, and philosophies, engaging each on its own terms with narrative empathy. Can these many worlds coexist side-by-side in harmony? Are they destined to vie for dominance? Or, must they coevolve in a new synthesis for our modern technical age? Academics pride themselves in researching "the world as it is." Take a break. Let's have a conversation on "the world as it should be."