The Uncool Subject (R.E.)

Member Name: sarashaw100

Product:	R.E.
Date:	22/11/01 (136 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: interesting, enjoyable, looks good with universities

Disadvantages: hard work, need to be at writing essays

I’m not religious, I was raised as a Church of England Christian and attended church but now I am older I choose not to follow the Christian faith. In fact I am an atheist. When I tell people I take RE for A-level they all think that I want to be a nun when I grow up, but this is far from the truth. I am going to talk about the AS level RE which I am taking now.

Since primary school I have studied RE (religious education) and have enjoyed it. From tales of the Bible to more unusual religions it has been really fascinating to me.

For my GCSE’s I got an A. You had a choice at my school with RE. You can take it as one lesson a week and get ½ a GCSE or you can go to a lunchtime lesson a week and the other lesson and take it then as a whole GCSE. I took the lunchtime lesson.

I didn’t really know if I wanted to study RE for A-levels. I was considering to college and taking philosophy, and a few other subjects. Laziness got me and I decided to see what my school offered. Philosophy was not on the list however when I read what was studied in RE I was amazed that about 1/3 of the first year is philosophy, so I took it.

So what do I study? Well I have four lessons a week of which each is an hour. I have two teachers in this time and I study different topics with them. In total there are three topics. With one teacher we are doing philosophy and with the other we are looking at St John’s gospel in the Bible. Later on we will be doing coursework as well then it is the end of our AS.

Philosophy
This is the hardest thing I have ever done. We have been given loads of books by our teacher (which the school has paid for, although this differs from school to school I’m sure). I have four philosophy books, three of which are called philosophy of religion. So what do we study?

THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXSISTENCE OF GOD

THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXSISTANCE OF GOD
This is
explaining how the universe has signs that God created it. Trying not to baffle you with long words or get you confused I’ll explain one of its theories.
The cause theory is the idea that everything has a cause. This goes back through and through the universe from one cause to the next. This cant however go on for infinity so there must have been a first cause, one that started the chain. This is believed to be God creating the universe.

THE DESIGN ARGUMENT FOR THE EXSISTANCE OF GOD
This is idea that the world is designed. The universe has so many rules (in science, like gravity) that all this could not of happened by chance, and thus must have been designed by someone – God.

EVIL AND SUFFERING
This looks at why there is suffering in the world and if God were all good would he let this happen?
RELIGION AND PSYCHOLOGY

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

RELIGION AND HUMANITY

MIRACLES
Miracle is a very over used word. We look at what a miracle is and if it can really happen. We then try and find examples of what is a miracle and what isn’t a miracle and justify them

LIFE AFTER DEATH

Most people view philosophy as a subject where any answer is right because nothing can be proved. This is wrong; I can’t walk into an exam hall and write my opinions. With each of these topics I learn I have to know what great thinkers such as Plato though and write about them.


St John’s Gospel
There are four gospels in the Bible; Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Mathew, Mark and Luke are called the synoptic because they are so similar in fact there are over 300 verses word for word the same in them. John’s gospel is the exception being its own unique piece of work. We look at who wrote it, when and what they were trying to do.

There are many parts we look at and examine. We look for authorship because it is believed that the early church rewrote some of the bi
ble to suit the times. Therefore we can criticise the writings in some places. So what do we look at?

The ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus.
In the Old Testament Moses found a burning bush. The bush spoke and turned out to be God. In this conversation Moses learned God’s really name which in translated English today is ‘I am’ or Jehovah (as in the annoying people who knock on your door).
Jesus in John’s gospel says ‘I am’ a lot. This is a divine claim so we look at all the divine claims Jesus made and see what he is saying with them. We look for references to other stories as well. I.e. ‘I am the bread of life’ is also referring to Holy Communion where Christians eat bread.

The Signs
John never said the world Miracle instead he called them signs. We look at these signs and see why they were important and what they mean. An example of a sign is a story where Jesus turns water into wine. We worked out in class how much wine he made and got it down to 2000 bottles. I would of loved to have been at that party or set up a brewery with Jesus would you?
Women
We look at the role of women in Jesus time. We don’t know how women were viewed at the time of Jesus but from later evidence we can guess. They had no role in life and were just there. We look at how Jesus treated women with respect and how important this is.


Coursework
There are a lot of titles to choose from. You have class time to write on your topic and can get guidance to do this. You need to be good at writing though because essay style does become important in a-levels like RE. I have taken English Literature so I am all right although one of the girls in my class isn’t very good at English (she got a D at GCSE) and is struggling with her Essays.

Conclusion
If you want to learn about religions then I don’t recommend this A-level for you. This is nothing like what you have lea
rned in RE before its very new and different. Class sizes are small (my class started at 4 people but has since grown to 7 – average class sizes in my school for subjects go up to 16 pupils) which is good as it is easier to learn.

I have enjoyed what I have learned so far and want to continue RE next year. If you can write essays well don’t mind learning interesting but hard topics then this could be good for you. You don’t have to have taken GCSE either as I am the only person in my class who did take it. Enjoy…

Sara

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