Non-Christian Online Programs

Lowery Entertainment, Spring 1969, Atlanta Ga. Billy Joe was in the same studio with The Tams, By Young, Be Foolish Be Happy. Joe South played guitar on that record. Produced by Gordy and Hix). Enjoyed working with him through the years! Thanks for the mention! Brother Billy passed in Morehead City, NC in October, 2015. He loved the beach!

 

https://www.wiccanseminary.edu/ [unaccredited, Washington state religious-exempt; the .edu domain is grandfathered from before obtaining one required accreditation. notably direct FAQ answer: "I'm not Wiccan, is this program still for me? Probably not […] classes do assume the student accepts the basics of Wiccan tenants [sic] such as Reincarnation, Energy, and Balance of the Universe."]

 

Fittingly, Jain University in India now offers an online MA in Jainology and Comparative Religion and Philosophy.
https://onlinejain.com/online-ma/jainology-comparative-religions-philosophy

 

Edit: Ope, my thread searching is subpar, this was the first one mentioned. Don't mind me

 

Great find!

Further down the page, I only see a fee for local Indians as well as for students from SAARC nations, but there's no pricing for students from other regions in the world. It might be worth writing them to learn more.

 

Their website calls them "Jain Deemed-to-be-University." It looks to me like they are not an official university, but are counted as such. Does anyone know what this really means?

 

https://www.education.gov.in/en/deemed-university

 

Wikipedia, believe it or not, goes into more detail and explains that the 'Deemed-to-be-University' status is a kind of accreditation in India. From what I've skimmed through, it appears to be for tertiary institutes that aren't directly founded by the central government nor local state governmental bodies. It's an interesting distinction, for sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deemed_university?lang=en

One question might be, what would your diploma say? Oh, and what could you put on your CV thereafter?

 

Jain University vs Jain Deemed-To-Be-University?

 

Genesis University is a DEAC-accredited Orthodox Jewish university and offers AA and BA in Religious Studies and MA in Jewish Studies. Very affordable compared to any other degree I've seen in Jewish studies. Not sure what the course structure is. It used to be the NCCRS provider Association for Hebraic Studies Institute, so maybe similar to whatever format they used then?

https://genesisu.edu/

 

Now that is a great find and new to me. $60 per credit hour is a bargain. Even a Yiddish specialization.

 

The Master's is a little more expensive but still under $10K total. If I wanted to do the BA, it looks like I could get it for as little as $3300 by applying 90 transfer credits (I already have one bachelor's and working on 3 more, lol).

 

The Yiddish aspect might have been something Johann would have found interesting. He seemed to like cultures and languages.

If I recall correctly, I read somewhere that there was a concern that Yiddish was dying out. Which is the case with a number of native languages in Europe where speakers of that language are immersed in countries like Spain, France, and Germany.

 

Emo Phillips:


Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"

Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

 

Yes. Part of it is that the vast majority of Yiddish speakers (everywhere but also in Europe) were killed in the Holocaust, so it stopped being passed on. And it has been diminishing in the U.S. due to assimilation, like many minority languages. Russia gave a lot of state support to Yiddish language preservation after the glorious revolution, but then decided Yiddish speakers were disloyal and not real Russians, so then went the route of repression. Now they are trying to lure back the descendants of Jews who emigrated with a little Yiddish revival: https://www.irreview.org/articles/a-dying-culture-the-demise-and-attempted-revival-of-yiddish-in-russia

Ladino has even fewer speakers.

But I don't even know Hebrew, so *if* I went for the BA I'd focus on that.

 

Wish we could have had some finality with his time on the board. He is very missed.

 

Yiddish has a cloistered existence but it’s not a dead language by any means. Frum communities in Israel and the United States still use it in everyday life inside and outside the home and it remains a fairly common study language. As Michael Wex says, Yiddish speaking communities have babies, so the language isn't going anywhere soon.

I have heard or seen Ladino less than a dozen times in my life. I found a Ladino newspaper's front page online. The masthead was printed in block Hebrew but the texts were printed in Latin characters. Fairly easy to read for anyone familiar with prayer book Hebrew and Castellano.

 

Funny. I saw a 1910 era photo of a labor rally in New York. A big sign was written in block Yiddish (which is slightly different from block Hebrew). I spelled it out to myself and was startled to realize the sign was in English!