INTRODUCTION TO RELIGION |
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ORGANIZING QUESTIONS 1. What is the difference between the religious and social scientific perspectives on religion? 3. What are the different sociological approaches to conceptualizing religion? 4. How can magic be distinguished? 5. What is the difference between being "religious" and "spiritual"? RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON KNOWLEDGE ABOUT RELIGION
Deity created religion through the process of revelation All human beings are born with a fundamental awareness of the divine, a rudimentary knowledge that some greater power is ultimately responsible for what they experience (Wonder and complexity of nature, beauty in the universe, experience of the seasons, complexity of life forms) SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVES ON KNOWLEDGE ABOUT RELIGION ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE Study of primitive religion arose within the context of evolutionary theory. Basic assumption – complex, heterogeneous present arose out of a simpler, more uniform past Animism - belief that inanimate as well as animate objects possess a life principle or soul of some kind that are conceived of anthropormorphically (Must be deferred to, can be placated, are dangerous)Edward Tylor Tylor defined religion as the "belief in spiritual beings." Dreams, possess, reflections lead humans to posit a spiritual entity - a soul - separate yet connected to the bodyMax Muller Since prehistoric people saw other people cause events, they reasoned that everything that happens must be caused by other human or humanlike agents A. R. Radcliffe Brown Religion expresses the prime values of a society and helps to perpetuate these values and the society itself. Things that have social value are elevated to having spiritual value E. Franklin Frazer Mental progress evolved from magic (sympathetic and imitative) to religion to science Sympathetic Magic (drinking the blood of an ox for strength) PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Walter Huston Clark
George Spinks
Sigmund Freud "Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities." It is a dramatization, projected into cosmic order, of sentiments, fears and longings that develop from the relationship of child to parents. "If one attempts to assign religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity." Religious practices are the expression of unconscious psychological forces. Humans also have a basic desire to control the terrifying forces that surround them SOCIOLOGICAL
Emile Durkheim A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things (things set apart and forbidden) which unite into a single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them Karl Marx Economic forces are the principal factors in shaping human behavior. Ideas, values, and beliefs are shaped by economic forces DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION Substantive Definitions: Focus is on the substantive, essential characteristics of religion
Issue of whether referent should be gods, beings, powersFunctional Definitions: Focus is on what religion does, how it functions for individuals and groups
Substantive Definitions: Melford Spiro -- Religion is an institution consisting of cultural patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beingsFunctional Definition
Substantive and Functional Definition
Other Types of Definitions Felicitas Goodman -- Religion is an ancient part of human culture. It shares cross-culturally a set of universals, namely, ritual, the religious trance and its attendant ecstasy, the alternate reality, ascription to the alternate reality of changes in fortune and rituals of divination, a system of ethics and a named category. CLASS DEFINITION OF RELIGION Religion is the social form that is the product of the social construction of a transcendent realm (world, sphere, level, plane, power, force) that possesses qualitatively different attributes, the sacred, which distinguish it from the profane, everday realm. The social construction of religion involves creating narratives that describe the relationship between the sacred and profane (myth), procedures through which a relationship of the sacred and profane is maintained (ritual), and social collectivities through which adherents organize themselves (church). The social construction of religion involves the mobilization of symbolic and organizational power that operates as a system of meaning, order, and control.
RELIGION VERSUS MAGIC
No church or group consciousness involved 2. Moral ethos, or a system of ethics to guide behavior No moral ethos or systematic pattern of ethics 3. Rites are meaningful; they reinforce patterns of belief Rites not necessarily meaningful; they are used to cast a spell or make something happen 4. Rites occur calendrically Rites occur at critical (crisis) times 5. Functions for both the individual and the structure Functions only for individuals, not for social structure 6. Participation is open; leader leads entire group in performance of ritual Leader is only one to know ritual and how to perform it; others present are passive Manipulation of impersonal, transcendent power for utilitarian reasons THE POLITICAL CONSTRUCTION OF MAGIC AND RELIGION The category “magic” was constructed during the “Long Reformation” (1400-1700) The reformations that occurred during this period involved the restructuring of both Protestant and Catholic religious traditions In pre-modern Europe there was no clear boundary between sacred and profane There was no clearly designated sacred space that was set apart and used solely for religious purposesIn the post-reformation, modern Europe, the sacred and period, the sacred and profane were partitioned Sacred and profane space were separatedOne important aspect of establishing church control over sacred power was distinguishing “religion” from “magic” Religion and magic had been previously intermingled (blessed candles)There are three basic types of relationships among humans as well as between humans and the sacred (Coercive, Utilitarian, and Normative) Utilitarian relationships with the sacred are defined as magic and normative relationships are defined as religion Designating utilitarian relationships with the sacred that can be controlled by practitioners as magic is a means of politically defining and controlling “true religion”
Unchurched Americans are not all alike Spiritual - concerned with spiritual issues but pursue them personally, outside of formal religion
Belief in some type of Higher Power Desire to connect with the Higher Power Interest in rituals and practices that foster that connection Engage in church attendance and prayer less frequently Are more likely to have had negative experiences with organized relgion
Prestige of science Cultural relativism
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