Tapestry

Harvard's free online course promotes religious literacy

Diane Moore, a senior lecturer in religious studies and education at Harvard University, helped to develop a massive open online course to help promote religious literacy. Her goal: to diminish prejudice and bigotry. The response: huge.

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Enrolment numbers are huge for a MOOC (massive open online course) launched this month at Harvard University.  

When you think about religion as world views or values - how you engage the world, how you interpret the world, how you understand your place in the world - it's an incredibly rich way to consider the questions of human existence and fundamental questions meaning.- Diane Moore

Diane Moore, a senior lecturer in religious studies and education at Harvard, helped develop the course. Her goal is to help people develop a better language to talk about the roles religions play in the world.

She believes when people have a deeper understanding of religion, they are more likely to have positive interactions with people who are different than them. And that could mean a reduction in prejudice and bigotry.