Religious Studies 1

People and intro

Thomas Broughton

1750s, christian cleric

In a moment of crisis for Christianity in 18th century

Tries to rationalize Christianity(its about revelation not just empiricism)

Very biased in his work

Hannah Adams

1817

Argues for Christianity in a more subtle way than Broughton

Says there’s value in other religions as well (Hierarchy; Christianity is still best)

Tries not to pass judgement but critique religion more objectively

Akbar

Muslim Ruler but allowed for peaceful dialogue about religion to try to discern the truth.

Ruler in India

Aztecs

Thought Gods were things to collect/use

Had a completely different respect/notion of God from western cultures

Edward B Tyler

Primitive Culture

His theory of origin of religion says that the “soul” came from dreams which led to people projecting these entities into Gods and worshipping them.

Animism(Everything has a soul, including plants)

He believes that religion came about not through personal experience but through logic and reasoning.

Creates a foundation for origin of religion debates

James Frazer

The Golden Bough

Argued the origin of religion/God came from the inability to manipulate magic.

There we can’t manipulate natural world, someone must be able to logic

David Friedrich Strauss

Jesus Critically Examined

Argued that the gospels weren’t literal but rather fully mythical/theological, necessary to unite the early Christian church.

Argues that the gospels were written to prove OT prophecies

Although his study doesn’t reach modern standards, it opens the scholarly world for debate

Scala Naturae

Great Chain of Being

The idea that there is hierarchy in creation(humans being at the top)

Nicolas of Cusa

Christian Apologist

Argued that humans are exceptional creatures(Christ as example)

Anthropocentrism(belief that human beings are the most important entities in universe)

Lewis H Morgan

Savory to Barbarism to Civilization

Herbert Spencer

Created social darwinism

Getting rid of humans who are inferior/less evolved. Try to create perfect human being.

Ethnographic Upstreaming

Using present day information about a certain culture/religion and tracing it back to try to figure out the origin.

Due to a fragmented history/lack of information of origin

Raffaele Pettazzoni(20th century)

Tries to move beyond Tyler frazer(Origin of religion)

Analyzes what makes a religion(central character, salvation of man, missionary religions, universality).

Shows the need for classification and comparison(hierachy) of religion

• east religion vs west religion(buddhism vs christianity)

  • Buddhism had to contend with existing religions(syncretism) but Christianity did not

Shows how analysis of other religions still depend on Christianity as basis

Mircea Eliade

“The Sacred and Profane”

He thinks that religion has something “sacred”(objective” about it and thats why people believe in it.

• anything can be sacred if it reveals itself in that thing(hierophany)

Humans are Homo Religiosus(wired for meaning/God)

Archiaic(more spiritual meaning) vs Modern(less spiritual meaning)

You can’t grasp the “sacred” through studying it but only through experience

Relies on Rudolf Otto and Carl Jung

Rudolf Otto and Carl Jung

Inspired Eliade

Rudolf Otto

• “Des Heilige”, “The Idea of the Holy”

• Science doesn’t have explanatory power

• Religion goes beyond logic and reasoning, It’s based upon “essence”(something holy) and through experience/intuition

Carl G Jung(Psychologist)

• Collective consciousness(shared experience that all humans have)

  • therefore archetypes(patterns) arise in all cultures bc of collective consciousness.

Eliade vs Tyler/Frazer

Tyler/Frazer

• religions is a primitive tool used to explain the natural world around them and give hope for next life

Eliade(Substantive Religion)

• Religion is an irreducible human experience of reality, driven by homo religiousus. Based upon experience/sacred

Edward Said

Orientailism(the west misrepresenting the east(orient vs oriental))

• Orient dominates and reconstructs the East(West defines east)

  • yet west needs the east to define themselves(“we are not them”)

Dogmas

• Absolute systematic differences between west(rationality, development, morality, hierarchy)

• Abstractions about Orient(Westerns study the ancient Orient rather than modern one)

• Orient is eternal, uniform, and incapable of defining itself

• Orient is something to be feared and controlled whenever possible

Orient are rarely seen as people but a problem/thing to be solved

Overall reveals the imbalance of power between east and west

Max Muller

“Sacred books of the east”; 50 volumes

• translated major asian religious texts

Learns sanskrit to understand buddhism and hinduism

• learning these languages help understand eastern religions

Religionswissenschaft(“Science of Religion”)

• studying religion through linguistics, comparison

What makes a religion?

• scripture, doctrines/beliefs, founders, primacy of individual

Based on his definition there are 8 religions(based upon language)

Study of Religion is inherently based upon power(His religions list doesn’t include small religions/african religions bc they are weak)

• construction of worlds religion list is a product of European colonization

Protestantization

• Creating the world religions list based upon categories of protestant Christianity

World Religions model is based upon(Classification, Comparison, and Colonialism)

Jane Iwamura

Writes the “Oriental Monk in Popular Culture”. How the orientalist reveals itself in popular culture.

The West describes/projects what they want/believe about the east to the East and creates ideals about them not reflecting their truth.

The west portrays their ideals onto the “oriental monk”

Ninian Smart

Says religions have 6(then 7th; one added) dimensions

• ritual(actions about the invisible world, mythological(stories), Doctrinal, Ethical, Social dimension, experience, and materiality

• Smart is different from Eliade, he doesn’t see religion through the sacred but that regions try to explain the world including the “invisible world”

Functional vs substantive religion

Functional(What does religion do for people?)

Substantive(Looking for the substance or essence in religion; argues that this substance is true)

Emile Durkheim

Religious has 4 main C’s

• creed(unified system of beliefs)

• culutus(Practices)

• code(beliefs and practices which unite)

• community(one single moral community)

Liminality

Transitional state for a ritual or rite of passage

Arnold van Gennep

Liminality

From one status to another(childhood to adulthood etc)

3 phases

• seperation —> Margin —> Aggregation

Universal phenomenon of moving from one status to another via rituals

Victor Turner

framework for change

• Structure —> Liminality —> Structure

  • liminality is a place of statelessness, dont have as status yet

• Communitas(deep sense of communion that arises from shared liminal experiences)

  • sacred, in and out of time

Mikhail Bakhtin

Carnivalesque

• during liminality certain things occur such as:

  • absurdity/grotesque humor, symbolic inversion of hierarchy, laughter/ridicule to critique/disarm power

Experience

philosophers think the core of religion isn’t the church but experience

William James

Experiences are fundamental to religion and point to God or invisible world

• grounds religion in experience and sociology(sociology comes from experiences)

Religions should be studied empirically(surveys etc)

• not asking if true but trying to understand how these experiences occur

Mystical experiences

• ineffable(cannot be described adequately by words)

• Noetic(deep certain truths not explained by ordinary logic/evidence)

• Transient(tempoary)

• Passivity(individual feels overcome by power beyond their control)

Ernst Troeltsch

theologian, historian, sociologist

Developed a model for how Christians organize themselves

• Church(promotes kingdom of God; universal, large, hierarchal)

• sect(small groups, deep commitment, opposition to norms/society)

  • based upon interoperation of scripture

• Mysticism(individuals who participate directly with the divine/true reality

  • internal experience with divine, not the norm

Mysticism

Describes what happens to humans as an essential part of religion

Religious ppl fear mystics because they break their norm/different

Abraham Maslow

Calls the mystical experience a “peak experience"

• comes not from religion but through romance and sex

  • tries to explain religion through logic and reasoning

Syncretism

Religions combining to form something new

Compartmentalization

Holding multiple different type of religions without having any contradictions between them

Inculturation

Reinterpreting another’s religion as Christian for the purpose of conversion

Indigenization

presenting chrisatnity from within the local language and form, making their own local form of Christianity.

Dissembling

hiding your religion from those in power(make it look like your following their religion)

Revitalization Movement

When a conquered people combine their personal beliefs and beliefs of the conquering people to create resistance.

• ghost dance(natives)

New Religious Movement

Used to be called Cults

Idea that it has to be feared, monitored etc

post ww2 phenomenon(post 1955)

Richard Niebuhr of religious phenomenon

Works in US only

Church(stable universal, multiple generations)

Denomination(voluntary, democratic, socially respectable)

Sect(only for 1 generation)

J Milton Yinger

Created model of religion

Church(religious arm of the established social/political order)

Sect(In tension with society, charismatic leader, reform movement)

Cult(innovative; new revelation/knowledge)

• new symbols/myths, fictional family, hostile to society, thrive in periods of social change.

Stark and Bainbridge

Created model of religion

Church

Sect

Cult(A natural thing that always occurs)

• audience cult(loose network, consumers, personal transformation)

• Client Cult(therapeutic, “Clients” receiving services, limited community)

• Cult Movement(organized, members, distinct identity, mission driven)

How does one convert?

Intellectual

Mystical

Experimental

Affectional

Revivalist

Coercive