seeking practitioners of various religions

[allli.livejournal.com]

Hi,

I am a high school Humanities teacher at a small charter school in Dorchester. My class is currently studying world religions. I'm looking for practitioners who wouldn't mind sharing their faith in an academic, personal, and respectful way with my students.

Ideally, someone would come in who considers themselves a practitioner of one of the top 6 world religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Judaism, ranked by # of adherents- and yes, I know atheism would be #2) and speak to my class for 15-20 minutes about their beliefs and how they practice. The students are seniors and are curious and respectful. I'm sure they'd love to ask questions. Probably 30 minutes would be the maximum.

I am not looking to create a "panel" of speakers coming in all at one time. Just a few visitors coming in at some point between 9 and 5 on a week day, some time during the next two weeks.

My bias here is towards members of the religions with the largest number of adherents, as quoted in the CIA World Factbook and other sites. No offense is meant to other faiths.

Thanks for any and all help. Comment here if you or someone you know may be able to come in!

Comments

[jimmyfergus.livejournal.com]

I do see your point, and you may be right (though you did insert the "religious" before "beliefs" that the original question did not have, but that's splitting hairs).

There's a lot to being an atheist - an entire belief system of how the world works based only on reason has to be explored. Morality is a question founded only on conscience rather than dogma... I'd say it's a very rich subject, rather than the null subject you imply. It is, as you imply, a topic which starts by discussing what it isn't, but that leads to interesting discussions on what remains, which is a lot.

... and yes, I agree that atheism is not a religion - by definition. I'd say it is a religious group though. Atheism is, however, a faith. Agnosticism isn't, and is the only purely reason-based position for someone who doesn't believe in gods. You cannot prove a negative; to assert that you believe that no gods exist is unprovable, therefore it is a statement of faith.

[wandelrust.livejournal.com]

I did oversimplify, perhaps somewhat snarkily, and I apologize (to both of you). I agree wholeheartedly that atheism/secularism/humanism are (or can be) very deep topics that spark a lot of discussion and introspection, but I think it's a different discussion than the beliefs and practices of the world's most popular religions, which is what it seemed like the poster is looking for.

One can also make the point that it's the conversation he should be having with his students, but again, that's another argument.