Religion

1. Religion

2. What is religion? • Any set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices pertaining to supernatural power, e.g. forces, gods, spirits, ghosts, or demons • The supernatural elements are outside the observable world • Non-empirical • Accepted on faith • The supernatural elements differ within and between societies

3. The etic approach • Anthropology’s concern is not which religion is superior • Its concern is WHY religions exists and HOW and WHY it varies from culture to culture

4. Origins and Reasons for Religion • Neandertal & early Homo sapiens • Burial of the dead, art, decoration

5. Reason #1: The Need to Understand • Edward Tylor & R.R. Marett • Religion was born as people tried to understand conditions and events that normal experience could not explain • Dual existence: physical/visible and psychic/invisible • Animism: the belief in souls • Animatism: the belief in the impersonal supernatural forces • Preceded the creation of spirits

6. Reason #2: Reversion to Childhood Feelings • Freud • Totems and taboos represent projected oedipal desires

7. Reason #3: Coping with Anxiety and Uncertainty • Bronislaw Malinowski • Religion helps us deal with death, stress, and anxiety • Can be a very therapeutic, positive aspect • Jung, James, Maslow

8. Reason #4: The Need for Community • Emile Durkheim • Communitas • Religion is social • It helps us feel part of a community • Affirms our place in society • Enhances feelings of community • Gives people confidence • Fights alienation

9. Reason #5: Social Control • Religion mobilizes people and their emotions • Crusades • Jihad • The Taliban • Witch crazes

10. Elements and Variation in Religion • Supernatural forces • Mana: a sacred, impersonal force (i.e., luck, karma) • Taboo: things not to be touched, places not to be entered, animals not to be killed, etc. • Gods: named personalities, often anthropomorphic • Spirits: beneath gods, closer to humans • Ghosts: beings that were once human (ancestors)

11. Monotheistic vs. Polytheistic • Monotheistic Religion: One supreme god • Polytheistic Religion: Many gods, none supreme over all others

12. Rituals and Rites of Passage • Rituals • Convey information about the participants and their traditions • Generally very formal • Rites of Passage • Customs associated with transition from one stage of life to another

13. Interacting with the Supernatural • Prayer • Physiological Experience • Simulation/Divination • Getting the supernatural to provide guidance • Ouija boards, fortune tellers • Feasts • Sacrifices • Magic • The belief that a person’s action can compel the supernatural to act in some particular way

14. Witchcraft • Witchcraft: using thought and emotion to evoke supernatural malevolence • Sorcery: using materials and objects to evoke supernatural malevolence • i.e., voodoo doll

15. Religious Practitioners • Priests: full-time, usually male • Highly educated and specialized • High standing in society • Can communicate with the supernatural • Shamans: part-time specialist, generally a healer • Often enters into trances to communicate with gods or spirits • Mediums: generally female, thought to heal while possessed or in a trance • Sorcerers and Witches: low economic or social status, generally feared in society

16. Religion and Adaptation • Syncretisms: cultural mixes • Cargo Cults • Fundamentalism (or anti-modernism) • i.e., the Taliban • Revitalization • i.e., early Christianity, the Protestant Reformation

17. Religions of the World