Religion Exam 1

emic

inside view

ex: personal experiences

etic

outside view

ex: history or facts

anthropology research (approach to studying religion)

religion is an aspect of culture, organizes social lives, shapes understanding of people’s position in the world, determines relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural order

Karl Marx - sociology approach (approach to studying religion)

said religion is the opiate of the mass

Emil Durkheim - sociology approach (approach to studying religion)

religion is an essential and integral social force, an expression of human subordination to the requirements of society, was an atheist and though of religion as bending order

ex: not killing people is a social rule people follow

Max Weber - sociology approach (approach to studying religion)

religion gives meaning to human life and society in the face of apparently arbitrary suffering and injustice, helps people make sense of life

ex: religion helps to look beyond immediate experience and make sense of injustice like bad people having good luck

psychology approach (approach to studying religion)

Sigmund Freund

the belief of a God or gods is the projection of one’s childhood experience with one’s parents

ex: you attribute security and safety to your parents, and this view is projected onto how you feel about religion

Structuralism - critical theory and religion (approach to studying religion)

Claude Levi-Strauss; a certain number of “given” structures can be identified in myth, language, and the world, structures can be represented naturally

Post-Structuralism - critical theory and religion (approach to studying religion)

no “given” structures, these structures are constructed by all kinds of power, and various hidden positions/perspectives

Michaes Foucault (knowledge is impacted by power)

Jacques Derrida

Michael Foucault

by examining the historical nature of ideas, argued that the ways we think about the world were related to political institutions and regimes of power

Jacques Derrida

argued that our ways of representing the world in texts held hidden contradictions and tensions, because language was unstable and built upon assertions of power and not truth, meanings of words are simply asserted or agreed

critical theory in religious studies

not an abstract and disengaged way of thinking, but an active ethical responsibility for the world and the way we think about the world

knowledge about a religion and categories used to represent a religion are carrying hidden assumptions and stances, with implication for gender, society, politics, and colonial history

knowledge about religion reflect particular viewpoint or bias about the world, shows the link between ideas and political practices

indigenous religion

majority of the world’s religions, population who practices each religion is small, as diverse as the languages spoken, not all are the same, some have been abandoned because of the spread of transcultural or global religions

themes in indigenous religion

sacredness and sacred texts, life and death, human beings and nature

The Talking Drum

related to sacredness and sacred texts theme in indigenous religion, the drum is sacred and equivalent to sacred texts in other religious traditions, transmits the divine message to people

life and death in indigenous religion

cyclical, union of dual energy, reunion with one’s ancestors and the natural environment

human beings and nature in indigenous religion

attitude towards nature; respect, be grateful, worship, and harmonious relationship with nature

India

a country of diversity which can be found in language, race/ethnicity, religion, lifestyle

motherland of many religions