{"id":9084,"date":"2023-12-12T12:38:39","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T20:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=9084"},"modified":"2023-12-12T12:41:02","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T20:41:02","slug":"religious-studies-professor-speaks-on-agnostic-beliefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2023\/12\/12\/religious-studies-professor-speaks-on-agnostic-beliefs\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious studies professor speaks on agnostic beliefs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article was originally published by The Daily Barometer<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Hannah Lull, News Contributor <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine you\u2019re an expert in a career, yet you\u2019re not associated with it at all. You\u2019re devoted to your line of work and passionate about its teachings, though you never incorporate it into your personal life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the case for agnostic Eliza Barstow, a senior instructor and associate director of religious studies at Oregon State University is particularly intrigued by how religion helps people and how it\u2019s always changing, never \u201cstatic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Barstow enjoys teaching religion, she describes herself as agonistic. She continues to question her beliefs, even though she leans towards atheism. She says her brain isn\u2019t \u201cwired\u201d to fit a certain religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(Religion) seems so great for a lot of people,\u201d Barstow said. \u201cI am a little bit envious of people who can comfortably fit within a religion because it just doesn\u2019t work for me, but I totally respect it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barstow has worked for OSU since 2016, and worked for Ohio State University before that. She\u2019s currently teaching United States religion and an online class on U.S. and white supremacy and white nationalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up, Barstow dabbled in religious concepts during middle and high school, particularly Liberal Protestantism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Dialogue Institute<\/a>, a peer-reviewed Journal of Ecumencial Studies, Liberal Protestantism is an adaptation of Christianity that incorporates modernized ideals of science and knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany religious people see the world through both religious and scientific perspectives, and these are not always at odds; sometimes they are very much complimentary,\u201d she said, listing off branches of Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam as examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barstow decided to stray from the church as she didn\u2019t believe some of the deeper theological concepts being discussed, though she still found them interesting to learn about. Instead she found answers through science and finds scientific ideas compelling, such as evolution and astronomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for afterlife, Barstow doesn\u2019t really believe in it, but finds afterlife interpretations appealing, as well as terrifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI find it all terrifying,\u201d Barstow said. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s the infinite that\u2019s terrifying, like you\u2019re going to Heaven or Hell infinitely \u2026 and reincarnation, the length of time you\u2019re in that (cycle) and the number of lives you would have, would be utterly miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barstow isn\u2019t sure if fear keeps her away from accepting the afterlife, but the idea overall just doesn\u2019t speak to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce when I was a kid, I did ask if our pets would go to Heaven,\u201d Barstow said, chuckling as it\u2019s a typical question to ask as a kid. \u201cSo when a minister told me \u2018no,\u2019 I wasn\u2019t so sure about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Barstow doesn\u2019t believe in some of these concepts herself, she doesn\u2019t promote agnosticism among students. Within the religious studies department, Barstow said OSU\u2019s professors hold a range of different beliefs, and her colleagues don\u2019t\u200b\u200b promote religion either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all scholarly about it,\u201d Barstow said. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s great we come from different perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked if there were any subjects that make teaching religion difficult due to her beliefs, Barstow said occasionally there are a few topics that don\u2019t make her feel as comfortable to talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are (religious) groups where the ideology seems more harmful and I do struggle slightly talking about it and guiding conversations sometimes,\u201d Barstow said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of what Barstow does enjoy teaching, she finds the diversity in various forms of Protestantism in the U.S. fascinating. She also finds religion intriguing as it can help people cheat community norms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m particularly interested in people\u2019s experiences when they leave religion because community is such a big part of it,\u201d Barstow said. \u201cSome people find it liberating to leave but sometimes liberation is combined with a profound sense of loss because they lost a part of their community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She noted the most satisfying classroom conversations are those discussing tensions between religious commitments and various civic laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA (discussion) example would be Oregon\u2019s attempt to ban Catholic schools \u2013 a law backed up by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s \u2013 and the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to overturn the law and protect parental choice when it comes to education,\u201d Barstow said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other areas that make teaching worthwhile for Barstow include stimulating students with new ideas. She added that students get partially excited when talking about Scientology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m awfully excited when we have people majoring in engineering or math who find a class so exciting that they decide to minor or double major (in our department),\u201d Barstow said. \u201cThey see that this is something that\u2019s actually totally useful for living in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barstow plans on continuing to excite students with new ideas, as she hopes to be at OSU for another 20 or 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel fortunate to be here now and have no desire to leave,\u201d Barstow said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published by The Daily Barometer By Hannah Lull, News Contributor Imagine you\u2019re an expert in a career, yet you\u2019re not associated with it at all. You\u2019re devoted to your line of work and passionate about its teachings, though you never incorporate it into your personal life. This is the case for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13603,"featured_media":9085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,1163399,82,1048851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-courses-faculty","category-features","category-homestories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9087,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9084\/revisions\/9087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}