How I Became a Religious Studies Researcher 

Glad you found me! RU-vid algorithms don't always favor small channels.

@@ReligionForBreakfast Well, its favoring you right now because I'm on a binge too!

Same process for me: found this channel, loved it, binge watched it till death.

Discovered your channel yesterday. Started from the first video. The binge continues. Great channel!

@@ReligionForBreakfast i have question. Do u affiliate to any religion?

Thanks! It means a lot to hear that. Glad you're liking the channel.

ευχαριστώ! Huge fan of your channel!

Yay! The people I like on RU-vid like each other on RU-vid! I don't know why I think that is important but hooray!

Thanks for reminder of Kalos kagathos - to be balanced and all embracing, a more complete person in thought, action and creative expression. So hard to get the idea across in English.

Please do a colab video one day

@@ReligionForBreakfast Do you have a religion? Do believe in a god? Or are you an atheist?... agnostic? Why don't you say?

Thanks for the encouragement! I plan on posting a video about my dissertation eventually. Sounds like you've had an interesting academic journey too.

Can't wait to see the vid on your dissertation :) I hope you can post your dissertation somewhere, if allowed, for us to read. Yeah, it's been a bit of an Academic mess :) But it was a fun mess :) I stopped after M.A. but someday I would like to continue to a terminal degree.

This is petty and pretty late, but... *tenets of faith. A tenant is a person who occupies land or property rented from a landlord

@@techniqueswithtodd hows ur journey thosyear sir? Did you survive covid-19? Hope you still alive

I suspect many young people became interested in religion by playing video games. I'd love to see the numbers.

oh wow, so whatre you doing now, this is something im thinking aswell. im planning to get into the study of religion soon (undergrad) and wanna know ur experience

Thanks!

Yeah the PhD is definitely not for everyone. So cool that you were a religious studies major though! I hope you enjoyed it.

ReligionForBreakfast I loved learning about religions. Hope you did too! It really opened my mind to a lot of different stuff and I continue to be opened minded to this day.

I first discovered the topic when I wrote a major paper during my last year in college. I wrote the paper on late antique bishops condemning the use of amulets. I’ve continued my interest in the topic because I’m drawn by the sheer existentialism of magic: the fact that humans will try anything to try to augment their ability to deal with sickness or death...even resorting to rituals that we moderns consider “weird” or “pointless.”

Thank you! You are such a gifted teacher and presenter. I can't wait to see what good things the future holds for you.

Thanks for the encouragement! i'm glad you've liked the channel. As for suggestions....languages, languages, languages. If you're going to do ancient history, start studying the languages now! In your case: Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic, or maybe Greek (if you do later 2nd Temple Judaism for your research). One of my biggest regrets is not starting my language study earlier. PhD programs will accept you or decline you based on how many years of the relevant languages you have studied and mastered.

ReligionForBreakfast okay, dually noted. Currently, I'm learning Arabic at University for one of my modern languages (french being the other) & I intend do learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew afterwards. Hopefully that'll be enough for what I need. Thanks for the suggestion! I look forward to more videos :)

I am writing this from my home state in India, which is Kerala. The historic Christian community in Kerala, the Syrian Christians, are not all Catholic. They are divided approximately 50%-50% into Catholics and Eastern Churches. The Syrian Christian community in Kerala is at least 1200 years old, and quite possibly 1700+ years old, but there is scant evidence for the Apostle Thomas legend, that is, there isn't much historical data to support the claim that it was Thomas who converted the ancestors of today's Syrian Christians. I do enjoy the Religion for Breakfast channel's clips on the full panoply of religious beliefs of our species!

Greek! better you than me!

In a certain way You have responded part of my questioning through the video What is the Difference Between Theology and Religious Studies. Thanks

I've flipped through Wright's book (its so long!). Most of my research is late antiquity though, so I don't spend much time in New Testament scholarship.

I find the New Perspective on Paul to be quite refreshing.

*?

Now a days academics is a difficult field to be in. Many professors do not get tenure and those who do find that tenure is not as secure as it used to be. Professor friends of mine have to piecemeal jobs together to make their work full time and have to work at different universities. Money is a big issue for religious studies because many original major sources like mainline denominations are shrinking and may be non-existent in 20 years and evangelicals for the most part aren't interested in a non-religious-based academic approach. As Andrew implies in his talk, the competition in academics can be very tough and you don't always end up where you first want to be.

He'd rock the Tour Guide thing.

He said that he'll work on it Tackling Manichaeism is very tricky due to the scarce direct source of their main theology, let alone it's reported of sects existence which diverged from Persian Manichaeism, Roman manichaeism to Uyghur and Chinese Manichaeism, some of them has major differences of perception on their understanding of cosmos, for example that Roman Manichaeans considering "The Seal of the womb" as the prohibition of reproduction while the Persian Manichaeans viewed it as an allegory of part of cosmic wars between Kingdom of Light (lead by Zurvan and his son Ahura Mazda, literally taken from Zurvanite zoroastrianism but re arranged into absolute dualism rather than mitigated dualism) and Kingdom of Darkness (led by Ahriman and his children Ashaqlun, the latter is taken from Gnostic entity Saklas which is seen as far animalistic inferior being akin to Old Jewish Testament God), their mishmash of cosmos is taken more complicated with Chinese Manichaeism acquire heavily on Buddhism to further separate theological and cosmological differences from other branches which using Mani as an image of Buddha and taken complete nirvana instead of blending with Cosmic dualist kingdoms from traditional Manichaeism And I'm just talking about it's general cosmology of Manichaeism, not even talking about their historical adherence which has it's branches not just in former ancient Roman and Uyghur region, but also active in Baghdad prior to certain Caliphs like Al Mahdi forbidding their teaching and forced them to take changes of centre in Samarkand Manichaeism is literally a lost religion that has major significance in the foundation of Western perception of life subconsciously, they unawarely turning Satan figure in Christianity into literal being through Manichean conception of God vs Satan conception as dualistic contention for humanity, despite it's changed of reverence from dualistic view to Monotheistic and existentialist view of humanity's hopelesness and incapability to see through free will due to endless cosmic tragedy within Manichaean genesis and human dualistic nature on material sense, all of this through the former Mancihaean hearer St.Augustine in his "confession" which had still a lot of cosmological influences in his mind, even his "Civita di Dei vs Civita Diaboli" (City of God vs City of Devil) has dualistic tone even though he's ashamed of his Manichaean past

+olly chapman Manichaeism is high on the priority list!

I hope you'll take your time and made parts on different aspects on Manichaeism though, I personally wanted to see some experts or scholars commentary on it's theology, especially compared to Gnosticism and Zoroastrianism, even they have it's own "Mithra" akin to Holy Spirit and prophets they acknowledged

My ideal situation would be sitting down with a scholar of Manichaeism as a co-host since it isn't my subfield. As of now, I'd make it one 20 minute video (similar to my Mithras vid), but some day I'd love to expand on all of these topics into 3 or 5 video series.

You're in luck. I've already filmed an Intro to Islam video which is currently in post-production! Look for it in late September or early October.

ReligionForBreakfast excellent ! Thanks bro.