A letter from one of my Coursera students, who granted me permission to post. When you have 20 students, you should not make any assumptions. But when you have 27,000, you should not make ANY assumptions. (I am glad that Zeus is still worshipped though.) Dear Professor Wright, I hope you dont mind that I am contacting you. I was one of your students in The Bibles Prehistory, and I loved it. You can ask any of my friends or family, I was talking their ears off for weeks about the amazing things I learned. Thank you. All of that being said, there is something that I want to bring to your attention. In your last lecture, you said something very important about how Jews and Christians should give atheists and agnostics and other religions the space to appreciate the Bible as a work of literature and philosophy that has valuable messages for all people. You went on to draw a parallel with ancient Greek philosophy, saying that the Greek philosophers have important messages for us regardless of their religion. While I thought your comparison was very astute, it left me feeling crestfallen, because you stated quite clearly that no one in your class believes in Zeus. I am a Hellenistic Polytheist - my faith centres around sincere worship of the Olympian gods. Since I am sure it was never your intention to exclude anyone, I wanted to let you know that were out there, and were attending your classes. Again, thank you for the wonderful course. I would love to take more of your courses in the future, if I have the opportunity. Warmest regards, XXX
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 16:52:46 +0000
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