Religion was, as already mentioned, established as a university subject in the late 1800s and early 1900s several places in Western Europe. But the coming into being of the academic scientific study of religion is the result of a long historical development, and it has many forerunners. The discovery of the New World, especially after Columbus' voyages, made a huge impact: It led to a lot of new material about a lot of new or hitherto unknown peoples, cultures and religions. Before, this knowledge had not been accessible.
It caused some disturbance in the old world, where a majority still believed that the biblical story of creation and Adam and Eve was historically true, and where the true religion, of course, was Christianity. Were these “savages“ and their religion examples of a degeneration of the original religion of Adam and Eve, some people asked? Were these "savages", others pondered, really human beings, and if so, were they like children and sort of living in a paradisiacal state? Was their "primitive" religion, the original religion of humanity? It thus, as indicated above, became common to compare Christianity and ancient religions (e.g. ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman religion) with “primitive” religions. What did they have in common? What was different? What religion did the first human beings have?
The Reformation Period in the 1500s led to religious pluralism and religious wars, something that also forced many to think about differences and similarities between and within individual religions. Philosophers of the Enlightenment thought critically and rationally on religion and on its nature and origin, and they often put their own religion in a critical light. Slowly they began to study religion as a human, cultural phenomenon, rather than treating religion as something only religious experts and religious institutions had the power and opportunity to speak authoritatively of.
The academic study of religion is also a result of the secularization that was part of the Enlightenment heritage. As (especially) the Christian churches got less power and influence in the European states, it was possible to examine all religions analytically and critically.

METHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM AND THE STUDY OF RELIGION
In the study of religion, religion and religious phenomena are studied with the use very different empirical data and many theories and methods. When it developed into a university subject during the 1800s, it was especially linguistic methodology and historical theories and methodology that were used.

LINGUISTICS
Linguistics was and is important because analysis of religions is dependent on researchers being able to read the texts in their original languages or speak to the worshippers in their own languages.
The comparative linguistics by which different languages were compared, also led to comparisons of religions, whose notions of gods and rituals were expressed in these languages. It was attempted to find similarities and differences independent of time and place, and in some cases deduct a mutual original concept and practice. The linguistic work itself helped create a general survey of language families, structure and grammar in language, and it served as an inspiration to do the same with the religions and religion. It thus helped foster a comparative study of religions focusing on various kinds of similarities and differences between whole religious traditions and between religious phenomena (e.g. myths, rituals, religious specialists; see ahead) from various religions and cultures and times.

HISTORY
Similarly, the historical methodology was and is basic to the subject. History research was needed to understand the origin and development of the different religions. Due also to the historical methodology, the study of religion is often perceived of as critical of religion. Obviously, when the sacred texts of a particular religion are studied as historical texts, the result is different from studying them as texts with a divine status. An example: the first researchers, who worked this way, wondered why Moses was considered the author of the Bible’s Pentateuch - when Moses died and was buried in the last one. Or: How could Jesus’ disciples and followers be believed to be the authors of the New Testament gospels when these are written in elegant Greek, while the same gospels describe his followers as farmers and fishermen who would probably not know any other languages than the Aramaic they spoke – which they could barely read and write?
The historical approach to religion is basically about studying religious texts based on the same criteria as any other texts: texts to be put into a historical and social context. Texts written by human beings not divine beings. Texts inspired by and influenced by their social and historical contexts, by the people writing and using them.

ANTHROPOLOGY
Departments for scientific studies of religion were introduced at several universities in Western Europe in the latter half of the 1800s and the early 1900s. It was also during this period that the sociological and anthropological theories and methods were born, making a big impact on the scientific study of religion.  Previously, researchers had been limited to working with reports from missionaries, explorers, colonizers and the like. But with new research fields such as anthropology, which required methodical fieldwork to qualify as proper research, they got more and better descriptions and analyzes. In addition to giving the scientific study of religion methods that could also be applied on the study of contemporary religions, they also provided them with empirical material (data) on what was then called 'uncivilized peoples religion', 'primitive religion', 'heathen religion' or the like, today referred to as indigenous people's religions. This knowledge could be used to compare these and also pre-historic religion and religions of antiquity to the large so-called world religions and their scriptures. Not least: the new empirical data contributed to an important expansion of the very concept of religion, a concept till then and to some degree also today for a large part heavily biased by the insider notions of the dominant Western religion, Christianity, not least protestant Christianity.

SOCIOLOGY
Also sociology (of religion), its theories and methodology were established in the late 1800s and became part of the growing study of religion.  The early sociologists of religion wanted to examine how religion contributes to society building, and how religion can maintain power structures or affect the development of a society. The difference between the official and the unofficial version of a religion is also a main issue: The official religion, as it is expressed by a religious elite through rituals, dogmas, sacred texts - and which society supports through official holidays and the religious instruction in the school system - is different from unofficial religion. Sociology of religion is interested in the relationship between the individual and society. This is reflected in the classical methods in this aspect of the study of religion: It is particularly qualitative methods such as participant observation, interviews and fieldwork and quantitative methods as surveys, that are used in this approach.

OTHER SUBJECT-RELATED APPROACHES
Historical, comparative and sociological studies of religion are supplemented  by psychology and psychoanalysis, including the theory of the unconscious. Since the establishment of the study of religion, even more approaches have appeared. One of the most recent additions is the cognitive science where the issue of religion’s origin and development again is a main issue. In cognitive science, not only the methods of the human- and social sciences are used, but also those of the natural sciences, including psychological experiments, brain scans and computer simulations; biology and research in evolution are also included in order to explain how and whether religion has played a role in the survival and development of the human species and culture.

Comments to Source 1:
HOW IS THE STUDY OF RELIGION CRITICAL OF RELIGION?
The general and inescapable critical aspect of the scientific study of religion is given with the naturalistic, historical, analytical, comparative, and pluralistic approach to religion. Elements of religion, seen as unique and uniquely true by worshippers -  for example, that there is only one god, that one prophet is the last and final true prophet, that one religious text is absolutely authoritative, that the world and mankind was designed and created in one and only one way by that religion's god(s) -  are in the science of religion seen as something human, historical and social, something that may be equally true or false, something  postulated by several religions in several different ways.
The critical approach is thus not ideological, but methodical.  The aim of the study of religion is not to ‘reveal’ that the truth claims of religions are false. It is not an anti-religious aim or effort to eradicate religion. Its only goal is to study religion scientifically as a historical, human and social phenomenon. But where a historical and sociological approach is usually not controversial when it comes to studying political parties, music, or gender roles, the study of religion is often perceived as anti-religious by worshippers, precisely because it inevitably has to work with religions and gods and truth claims and claims, gods and religions constructed by humans and human societies and not by gods.
To treat religions neutrally is often called methodological agnosticism or methodological atheism. This designation implies that when studying religion scientifically then the scholars neither rejects nor accepts the ontological existence of a religious dimension. He or she can be religious one way or the other in his or her personal life. But when performing the task as a scholar of religion, he or she puts aside his or her own religious or anti-religious convictions. The core of the matter is not whether Jesus Christ really was both man and god, and really rose from the dead. The core of the matter is the fact that there are human beings who think so, who performs rituals in accordance therewith, and built morals, as well as social and political institutions linked to their ideas and rituals. The study thus is of humans and societies and their way of living and thinking.

Comments to Source 2:

INSIDER AND OUTSIDER
In the study of religion it is thus important to be aware of the point of view. An important distinction is the one between, on the one hand, the point of view of the insider (emic), the religious person(s), the worshippers, and, on the other, the point of view of the outsider (etic), that is the scholar or researcher.

Such a distinction is important because the science of religion demands that all religions and religious phenomena can be analyzed and compared neutrally and impartially - even the one the researcher grew up with herself.

Some believe that it is the foremost and special task of the academic study of religion to use the point of view of the outsider and that scholars should not worry about whether the insiders are able to recognize themselves in the explanations and analyses made by the researchers. Others insist that scholars of religion have not done their job properly if they have not (re-)described and interpreted the religion in such a way that members from the inside can recognize themselves. The most common compromise is: the research process should attempt to carefully re-describe and understand how insiders express themselves and perceive things. However, the scholar must also go further and interpret and explain religion in other terms and other ways than the insiders want to or are able to do.  Research of religion must analyze and explain religion in terms of more general theories of man and society and also in the light of the knowledge of other religions and religious phenomena.

SUMMARY: THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

The scientific study of religion seeks to subject religion and religious phenomena to an analytical, critical, pluralistic and comparative examination.

Analytical – critical means that the religions and the notion of religion are studied, interpreted and explained in a historical and cultural contexts, and that religious statements, texts, institutions etc. are not taken at face value but subjected to the same examination as any other statements, texts and institutions would be. This means that the original purpose of a text must be reestablished: How and why was it written and how was it understood and used back then? How did later generations, including the present ones, interpret and use the text in new and different ways? With such an approach it becomes clear how successive generations in different historical contexts, and how different kinds of people (scholars and common people, men and women) ‘create’ the religion through their active interpretations and different usage of the texts. Subsequently, the science of religion portrays religion as a dynamic, historical, and a group- as well as an individual phenomenon.

Pluralistic and comparative means that the science of religion basically studies all religions.  It is not assumed that one religion is true, nor are the studies based upon one religion’s understanding of itself or its idea of what true religion is. All religions are treated equally, both qualitatively and methodically. And with an analytical and conceptual framework that is not characterized by one religion but is the result of pluralistic, cross-cultural and comparative studies of several religions and religious phenomena. Phenomena such as rituals, myths, religious authorities, religious texts and concepts of life and death are studied comparatively. The analysis and interpretation of a religious phenomenon in a specific historical context (e.g. the Christian baptism) require that the concrete phenomenon is put into the context of the class of similar phenomena (e.g. rites of passage or initiation.)  And comparisons are not used primarily to recognize the similarities between the historical and cultural contexts, but just as much to spot the differences due to the different religious and historical- cultural contexts.

One of the first scholars of religion, the philologist and orientalist Max Müller (1823 – 1900) is famous for the words: 'he who knows one, knows none ' - meaning that if you only know your own religious tradition, you do not know what you are talking about. You are limited by the categories and points of view that exist in the culture you were raised in. Religious expertise requires that you can 'translate' between the many different religious languages. The science of religion is based on this. But today there is an increasing awareness that if religion is seen as a “language”, it is a language with numerous variations, lots of slang and mutually unintelligible words. It is a language ​​that is spoken very differently by the religious top ranks and the general public, in rural and urban areas, in today’s- and the ancient world, or in Asia and Europe.

Didactical proposals

Task 1 Emic or etic perspective
Find different quotes from insiders and outsiders of different religions. Place them all in a document and discuss the insider/outsider perspective with the students.

Further suggested task: Make your own religion
This task could be the last task to “introduction to religion”. Here the students are using the knowledge they gained from task 1-3 and they are doing it a creative way.

Task 2: Make your own religion

1. Make a poster (on paper or electronically) where you are making a new religion
2. Include the categories you found in task one in page one in this module in your description
3. What is the name of the religion
4. Give two statements about the religion; one from an insider perspective one from an outsider perspective
5. Prepare a short presentation about your new religion. How would you “sell” it?