“Religion, it must be understood, is not faith. Religion is the story of faith. It is an institutionalized system of symbols and metaphors (read rituals and myths) that provides a common language with which a community of faith can share with each other their numinous encounter with the Divine Presence.” ― Reza Aslan
Question: What is the nature of reality? Why are we here? What is religion?
Religion – a system of beliefs and behaviors that formulates and answers questions that are important, recurrent, and must be answered.
"It’s the idea that, no matter the students’ own religious/spiritual identification of birth or choice, as scholars, their job is to study each tradition within an academic framework and from a place of understanding...The goal is for students to not only to grasp the learning outcomes, but to learn that proximity to story reduces prejudice." -J. Dana Trent
https://sojo.net/articles/teaching-empathy-world-creates-religious-others
There is an entire TedEd Channel on YouTube called "Mythic." It has videos that tell the stories of a wide range of myths.
ABOVE: We will watch parts of this film to more closely examine the nature of myths.
BELOW: Two short clips that look at how many mythic themes show up in The Lord of the Rings.
From J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" books. A modern myth?
If you're interested in learning more about Hinduism, check out this documentary.