Blog Task 2: Faith, Religion, and Belief

Singh (2016)‘s talk at Trinity University mentions how stereotypes emerge in society, with the analogy of “painting entire communities with a single brush”. My take on the talk is to challenge stereotypes by showing differences and engaging with differences in classrooms. This view has prompted me to look at works from Simran, including a quick read on the abstract of Simran’s book The Light We Give, which “speaks to those who are inspired to take on positive change but don’t know where to begin”, to me it seems worthwhile to read.

The blog post from Jawad (2022) describes the tensions that arise between Western, secular sporting frameworks and Islamic values on modesty in dress and sex segregation, with a call for greater inclusivity in sports policy, education of coaches and administrators, and the need for role models and leadership opportunities for Muslim women in sport.

The article from Rekis (2023) argues for an intersectional framework to better understand how religious individuals suffer epistemic injustice. It echoes Jawad’s call for greater inclusivity, together they show how marginalisations emerge when religion intersects with race and gender, such as the racialisation of Islam or assumptions about Muslim women who wear the veil. From the article, I learnt the critique on secular academic contexts, that is, epistemic harms arise when the theological insights of marginalised individuals are dismissed. And this can dominate religious norms that silence and marginalise these intersecting identities.

Appiah (2014)‘s talk shows how religion can be an intangible and hard-to-define concept in society because there are so many nuances and differences in it. In my opinion Kwame’s view is a seamless joint between religion and science, and there are parallels and intersections between these two subjects in large parts of the world, and now they have become inseparable.

Building on Kwame’s perspective on science and religion, I would like to share how my understanding of religion and my considerations on the subject have evolved as I began my career as a teacher in creative computing.

I grew up in China where religions can be shaped by political interests and religious activities are officially prohibited in schools (Fujiwara, 2025), it has been an invisible topic in the earlier education I received. When I first moved to the UK as a student in 2018, I often found myself facing “the fear of saying the wrong thing” as a non-religious taking a secular approach.

However, as I engaged in my study and research in the UK, I had experiences similar to what Kwame said in the TED Talk, religions and science are not separate, and people come from places where religion occupies different roles. As I began my role as a teacher in creative computing, I realised that openness to faith, religion, and belief had become even more important in my classroom to promote equality in science and technology. Last month we had Darci Sprengel, a guest speaker to the class, to share research on Decolonising AI in the Middle East (Silverstein and Sprengel, 2021), as well as insight into how technologies under the Western framework and epistemic (such as music recommendation and streaming services) are developed in regional religious groups. We also encouraged students to connect to the technical materials in the course to their own races and religions. I felt that this critical aspect of computing should be more actively engaged in my future teaching for an open learning environment.

References

• Appiah, K. A. (2014) Is religion good or bad? Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2et2KO8gcY (Accessed: 28 May 2025).
• Fujiwara, S. (2025) ‘Religion and Education in East Asia’, in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Education. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198869511.013.32 (Accessed: 28 May 2025).
• Silverstein, S. and Sprengel, D. (2021) ‘An (Un)Marked Foreigner: Race-Making in Egyptian, Syrian, and German Popular Cultures’, Lateral, 10(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.25158/L10.1.13.
• Singh, S. J. (2016) Challenging Race, Religion, and Stereotypes in the Classroom. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CAOKTo_DOk (Accessed: 28 May 2025).
• Rekis, J. (2023) ‘Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account’, Hypatia, 38(4), pp. 779–800. doi:10.1017/hyp.2023.86 (Accessed: 28 May 2025).
• Rustamova, F. (2022) ‘Islam, Women and Sport: The Case of Visible Muslim Women – Religion and Global Society’, Religion and Global Society – Understanding religion and its relevance in world affairs, 22 September. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2022/09/islam-women-and-sport-the-case-of-visible-muslim-women/ (Accessed: 28 May 2025).