Last year, Open University brought us ‘60-second adventures in thought’ — a fascinating and wonderfully animated series exploring six famous philosophy thought experiments. This season, they’re back with ‘60-Second Adventures in Religion’ — four short informative primers on some major theories of religious studies.

The first introduces Karl Marx and his concept of religion as a vehicle of illusory happiness and a means of oppression and social control:

The second explores religion as ritual through the work of pioneering sociologist Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte

The final installment explores religion as a virus, a concept proposed by Richard Dawkins, who famously coined the term ‘meme’:

via Brain Pickings