Hi, I’m John Green, and welcome to Crash Course Religions.

Oh, yeah, Stan, this’ll be fine and won’t upset anyone. Let’s start with a few easy questions.

What happens when we die? Why do bad things happen to good people? More importantly, why do good things happen to bad people?

What’s the meaning of life, the universe, and everything? And why am, like, I here? Specifically me, here?  In this studio?

It’s been a while. Why am I hosting this show instead of, say, a scholar of religions or Vertical Video Sensation Hank Green? Well, I was introduced to the academic study of religion as a freshman in college, when I took a class primarily because it fit into my schedule of not wanting to get out of bed before noon.

I thought the  class would be easy–I figured religion was just made up stuff, and I’ve always been pretty good at making stuff up. But on the first day, my professor, Dr. Rogan, said something that’s been dogging me ever since: Whether you’re religious or not, you worship.

You worship a band, or you worship an economic ideology, or you worship a system of ethics or whatever else. And understanding what  you worship and why and how that worship shapes you is an important endeavor–not  just for individuals but for societies. I ended up majoring in religion, and since then have often written about it.

I mostly studied early Islamic history although I am myself a Christian, belonging to a branch of Christianity called  the Episcopal Church that derives from another, called Anglicanism, which was created so that a king could get a divorce. It’s good to have such founding stories, lest one take one’s self too seriously. I’m not a scholar of religion, but the Crash  Course team has worked with a lot of them, which is how this series was made.

I’m excited to learn more about religion alongside you. In 24 episodes, we’ll find surprising harmony  and discord in the answers to these big, existential questions, not just across religions but within them. We’ll learn about traditions where rivers are  people, where people are gods, and where god is everything.

We’ll think about  cults, magic, and the supernatural. And we’ll consider whether atheism falls within religion’s very wiggly borders. That’ll be a fun episode!

As we unpack the history and culture of  religions, we’ll think about how they bring meaning and order – as well as danger  – to people’s lives. Because the truth is, religions influence us, informing how  we think of ourselves, each other, and the world. And we influence religions, molding and changing them over time.

So I’ll warn you: if you hop on this ride, you might start to feel like religion is some kind of ideological oobleck. You know, that science project that’s solid one moment, liquid the next? Religion seems  like something firm and concrete, but it oozes out of your grasp as soon  as you think you’ve got a hold on it.

And whether you consider yourself religious or not, religion gets into all sorts of places. Sex, death, politics, science, pop culture… even taxes. Maybe the best simile is that religion  is like glitter – it gets in everything!

We’ll begin this series by asking questions and breaking our brains over what the word “religion” even means. I’ll see you then. Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Religions, which was filmed at our studio in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was made with the help of all these nice people.

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