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What is Religion?

What is Religion?. Methodological Approaches to the Study of Religion. Historical. Religions “evolve” Animism: Nature is alive Naturism: Nature Worship Polytheism Monotheism Metaphysics Discredited. http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=21846.15. Theorists.

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What is Religion?

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  1. What is Religion? • Methodological Approaches to the Study of Religion

  2. Historical • Religions “evolve” • Animism: Nature is alive • Naturism: Nature Worship • Polytheism • Monotheism • Metaphysics • Discredited http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=21846.15

  3. Theorists • Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) • Herbert Spencer (1896-1909) http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/richard.robbins/Belief/anthropology_and_religion-iimages.htm

  4. Psychological • God is a projection of human needs • Wish-fulfillment • We created God in our image, not the reverse http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.artchive.com/artchive/m/michelangelo/creation.jpg&imgrefurl=http://artchive.com/artchive/M/michelangelo/creation.jpg.html&usg=__7I_aRH0KHztB_GaTHRmL5YDkKuo=&h=657&w=1152&sz=200&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=EEZCne1Khno46M:&tbnh=120&tbnw=210&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcreation%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1204%26bih%3D665%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=125&vpy=135&dur=4748&hovh=169&hovw=297&tx=164&ty=84&ei=fO8lTaiFL8T68AaYy9XZDQ&oei=fO8lTaiFL8T68AaYy9XZDQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

  5. Theorists • Sigmund Freud • Karl Marx • Carl Jung • William James http://www.enchantedmind.com/html/creativity/inspiration/creative_power_myth.html http://www.nndb.com/people/736/000029649/ http://www.nndb.com/people/569/000087308/

  6. William James http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/sites/pew.htm • Founding theorist • Drew important distinctions: • Institutional and personal religion • Healthy-minded and sick-minded religiousness • Healthy-minded individuals tend to focus on the positive and the good, ignoring or de-emphasizing the evil • Hypothesis of pragmatism: if it works, people do it http://toilet-shoppingmall.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

  7. Freud • Religion is Pathological • Religion exists because of human psychological needs and processes • Fear of death, loneliness, meaninglessness • Oedipal Complex • “God” arises from individual experiences with primary caregivers • Oedipal Development leads to image of God as Father http://www.paredes.us/edipo.html

  8. Carl Jung • Agnostic: Impossible to know whether God exists • Theory: Collective Unconscious is source of “archetypes” • Collective Unconscious: an inherited awareness of human experience • Source of dreams • Archetypes are basic images that are universal in that they recur regardless of culture • Religion arises from the irruption of these images into consciousness • Also the source of artistic creativity http://semantink.com/wordpress/tag/collective-unconscious/

  9. Contemporary Theorists Psychology of Religion • Allen Bergin • Robert Emmons • Kenneth Pargament • James Hillman http://www.jungatlanta.com/DecodingHillman.html http://thinkinginamarrowbone.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/allen-bergin-encounters/ http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Emmons/ http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/44/23/33.1.full

  10. Sociological Approach • Examines the role/purpose/ function of religion in society • Examines the relationship between religion and all aspects of society (interconnected and mutually reinforcing) • How does religion function? • Provides language for identifying and understanding relationship between religion and society (Denomination, Sect, Cult) http://www.whyguides.com/why-is-sociology-important.html

  11. Sociological • Theorist: Emile Durkheim • Religion arises from collective (social) needs and processes (vs. individual) • Thus religion “functions;” every aspect of it serves a purpose • Every culture “produces” religion • Thus to study religion is to study society http://www.phillwebb.net/topics/society/durkheim/durkheim.htm

  12. Marx • Religion is pathological • “the Sign of the oppressed creature, the opiate of the people” • Spirituality may arise from psychological processes, but RELIGION is created and used by the elite to control the masses • Economic and political influence religion, which alters culture http://www.green-blog.org/2010/02/19/karl-marx-and-the-metabolic-rift-theory/ http://www.independentamerican.org/2008/08/04/government-schools-“the-opiate-of-the-people”/

  13. Contemporary Theorists Sociological • Peter Berger • Robert N. Bellah • Thomas Luckmann • Rodney Stark • Robert Wuthnow • Christian Smith • Bryan R. Wilson • Catherine Albanese http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&biw=732&bih=690&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=sociological+theor&aq=f&aqi=g2&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

  14. Phenomenological • Accepts that religion is real • Focuses on accurately describing religious experience • Emphasis on adherent’s language/perspective • Assumes that religion is comprised of different components • Assumes that comparing religious components across diverse religious traditions helps us gain deeper understanding http://www.murray-gordon-consulting.com/Reality_and_Fantasy_in_Online_Groups.htm

  15. Phenomenological • Theorist: Micea Eliade • Theory of Hierophanies (manifestations of the sacred) • Distinct from Theophanies (manifestations of God) • Religion exists because of the interplay between the sacred and the profane • Theory of “Eternal Return” • Myths and rituals not only commemorate hierophanies, but also enable adherents to re-enact/ participate in them http://www.alternativaonline.ca/Mircea%20Eliade_the%20sacred%20journey.html

  16. Structuralism • Universal Brain Structure • Human culture the product of universal cognitive developmental processes and stages • Context and experience creates diverse details, but underlying patterns that create, shape, and sustain religion are universal • Patterns emerge through close observation and comparison

  17. Claude Levi-Strauss • The “savage mind” is structurally identical to the “civilized mind” • Myths present a paradox: Specific features of mythic narrative are diverse and seemingly arbitrary, yet overall myths are remarkably similar across different cultures • Proposed: Universal Laws (of cognition) arising from human brain structure must govern mythical thought http://geopolicraticus.wordpress.com/category/strictly-theoretical/page/2/

  18. Myth http://www.fitnesscafe.in/web/ • “Mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution” • Structurally, myths consist of Elements that: • Oppose/contradict each other • Mediate/resolve those oppositions • If myths, as examples of the most fantastic/ arbitrary products of religion, are developed according to universal cognitive laws, then ALL areas of human thought are governed by universal laws

  19. Analysis of Trickster myths • Trickster= mediator • Contradictory and unpredictable personality • Raven or coyote • Mediates between polar opposites-- Life and Death • Agriculture/Hunting • Herbivore/Predators • Ravens and Coyotes eat carrion-- neither predator nor herbivore

  20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Levi-strauss1.jpg Mediation of Opposites

  21. Concluding Remarks • Post-modernism has challenged all these approaches • Each has validity • Each is limited • Most productive to employ multiple methods http://orrinwoodward.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/1/4/3446241.html

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