Gods, Myths Religion in a secular age

Hermanutics

How we interpret knowledge, interpretive lens

interpretation of knowledge through a cultural lens

Epistemology

How we know what's real

Knowledge

Ontology

What is real

Etic

outsider, experience distant

emic

insider, experience near

exclusivism

suggests that a single religious tradition has an exclusive claim to that constitutes religious truth, and truth is not found in other religions

Inclusivism

suggests that while the complete and definitive truth is exclusively found in a single religious tradition, other traditions are included in some way in that true tradition

relativism

the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute. states that truth is not absolute and is constantly changing. No universal claims to truth, all truth claims are relative to time, place, and situation

Pluralism

acceptance of the concept that two or more religions with mutually exclusive truth claims are equally valid. number of religious truth claims that are true, all religions make viable truth claims and there isn't a religion with an exclusive claim to what is true

theism

belief in a god or gods

myth

religious stories within religion used to covey a deeper truth

social constructionism

categories, classifications, and definitions that give a group an identity. giving value or meaning to something that otherwise would not have value

essentialism

something behind the words that are real, not just constructed. substance or essence within things that make them what they are

naturalization

the nature of something is why it acts the way it does. internalize and think it is part of yourself (not constructed). coming to believe that identities are essential

sacred/profane

elides idea that life is lived in 2 types of time, sacred time (religious, transcends normal time) and profane time (normal time)

canon

Authoritative, can't be added to or taken away from. Objective idea in religion that sacred text is truth.

May also refer to what the "correct" sequence of events is within a sacred text (i.e. Genesis->Revelation in the Bible)

Can be open or closed

Agreed upon texts in a religion

genre

a category of literature. Interpretation style is different for each genre

Laws, teachings, prayers, stories, parables, fables, verses, letters, speeches, proverbs, poems

symbole

participate in the reality to which they point

Habitus

the deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that we possess due to our life experiences.

Barbara king

Wrote A Provocative View of the Origins of Religion

Settles on the idea of belongingness as a necessary element of Religion

"Belongingness was transformed from a basic emotional relating between individuals to a deeper relating, one that had the potential to become transcendent, between people and supernatural beings or forces"

"People enter into a deeply felt relationship with beings whom they cannot see, but are present daily in their lives and who transform these lives"

Paul knitter

Metaphor of the telescope

"We might compare truth... to the starry universe around us. There is so much of it, and it is so far away, that with our naked eyes, we really can't see what's there. We have to use a telescope. But, by enabling us to see something of the universe, our telescope also prevents us from seeing everything. A telescope, even the mighty ones used by astronomers, can take in only so much. This describes our human situation. We're always looking at the truth through some kind of cultural telescope, the one provided to us from our parents, teachers, and broader society. The good news about this situation is that our telescopes enable us to see; the bad news is that it prevents us from seeing everything."

Clifford Geertz

View of religion as a Cultural System

He was "Criticized for uncritical emphasis on private, interior aspects of religious life which may be typical of Protestantism but do not describe the more communal practices found in other religions such as Islam"

Also from Google: Clifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology

Anthropological approach

Karen McCarthy Brown

Used Anthropological approach of studying religion

Ethnographic study of Mama Lola, a voodoo priestess in Brooklyn, New York

Study highlighted how an imported religious culture navigates the complex and varied American landscape but also documents the struggles of an american who feels herself drawn to join the movement she studies

Rudolf Otto

Scholar who used the phenomenological approach

Categorized religions as rational and irrational

Found Western religions superior

Wrote the "Idea of the Holy"

There is something identifiable beyond the human person (the numinous). He names this "something" the mysterium tremendum( literally awe-full or overpowering mystery) and says it points to the divine that is wholly other

Overemphasized the divide between divine and the material, the sacred and the profane

Claimed that religions like Christianity are real religions, other religions are nonsensical

All religions are experiential but each experience is different

God is holy transcendent above us and completely separate from humans

Mircea Eliade

Scholar who used the phenomenological approach

Focused on Sacred vs Profane

Mythic time vs Historical Time

Myths explain both physical and social phenomena. Myths allow people to escape the material world and enter into sacred, original time and space

In the sweat lodge, participants try to recreate the creation of the world

William James

Scholar who used the psychological approach

Points to significant features that distinguish institutional religions(groups, organizations) from personal religion(Individual mystical experiences)

Carl Jung

Psychological approach

Symbols in ritual appeal to the heart/imagination as well as mood/intellect

Emile Durkenheim

Sociological Approach of studying religion

Internalization

Stop thinking about what we learned and now it's just in you

Like learning how to drive - think about it at first but at some point becomes natural

Happens because of repetition and reproduction

When social identities are internalized, they move from "outside" of us to being "inside"

Max weber

Sociological Approach of studying religion

Mary Douglass

What makes something "dirty" vs "pure"

Something is only sacred or profane because we perceive it to be

Hair on someone's head is "hair" but hair on the ground is "dirt"

E. B. Taylor

Animism - natural things like trees/animals have spirit in them

Distinguishing between primitive and non-primitive religions

Ex. primitive people blamed rain on "rain God"

Tylor's theories are rejected in the modern study of religion, and are consideredidered an "unfair caricature".

E. E. Evans-Pritchard

Disagreed with E.B, Tylor, no such thing as primitive and non-primitive religions

Ideas of religion are rooted in colonialism

Colonialism - colonizers have a superior form of culture that they take to other lands and impose

superior religion and cultureanimism presented natures as childish and in need of fatherly administration and incapable of critical thought

Peter Berger

"Challenges us to closely examine the implications of religious language and practice within cultures and global societies

Social codes and practices, born into a certain culture and learn how to behave

When human identities, practices, and codes are naturalized, they become fictitious "necessities"

Pierre Bourdieu

French sociologist and philosopher who defined habitus

Habitus - the part of oneself where one's matrix of perception lies and where one's disposition sits

Wilfred Cantwell Smith

can't talk about religion being true because each tradition consists of a complex history of ideas, events, and people and is too intricate to be evaluated in terms of overall truth.

Can't assess religious truth claims, assess what people are doing with the claims

John Hick

noumenal can't be accessed but there are multiple truths that lead people toward the "real"

Complete truth can't be known, but truth claims lead toward the complete truth

Ghandi

Believed religion should be more pervasive

All religions are true and all religions have error (all religions point to 1 central truth without necessarily being entirely true themselves)

Anthropological approach

The key tools for anthropologists of religion are ethnography, participant observation, and the knowledge gained through such fieldwork. The key assumption is that religious rituals and institutions are observable."

observe/empiricism- sense take in

ethnography- observe group/ record observations

Ecological approach

" Advocates of this approach believe humans interact with their environment in intentional ways and therefore believe that religion can best be understood by analyzing the natural ecological factors that shape faiths. Central to this approach is how people adapt their religious practices to their environments."

geography and environment

how humans infected with the environment and religion can be understood from analysis of ecological factors (how people adapt religious practices to environment)

Phenomenological approach

Phenomenology attempts to distinguish between the essence of religion and its diverse forms. A "descriptive" method, phenomenology balks at the notion that to observe one religious experience is to have witnessed them all. Rather, phenomenology claims that the essence of religion is the experience of the sacred or holy — an experience unlike any other. Still, this method assumes the existence of a "general" pattern to religion, with definable elements, and seeks to analyze features such as prayer, giving, or revelation."

patterns, essence, experiential (distinguish between essence of religion and its diverse forms)

Pervasive

general pattern of religion: prayer, giving, or revelation

Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade

psychological

"This approach deals with conflicts between belief and unbelief as it explores religious consciousness. It also attempts to separate the "sacred" from the "profane," to better understand reality beyond appearance"

behavior- emotions- freud, identikits tiny, subconscious

conflict between belief and unbelief as it explores religious consciousness

William James- archetypes

Sociological approach

this method examines how religion affects the formation of worldviews. The chief focus of this approach is the network of relationships that can transform an individual into a member of a group, which then can serve as a basis for that individual's identity. This approach demonstrates a willingness to understand a tradition from the believer's perspective. It also considers the lived realities of practitioners as vital information in advancing our understanding of religion's function in society and throughout history. The sociological approach tends to focus on the role of religion in the public arena (political, economic, and media); in intimate interpersonal relationships; and in issues related to race, gender, and sexuality."

Sociological approach

max weber, emile durkenhiem

interaction with society and culture

qualitative (interviews, concepts) and quantitative data (survey, data)

how religion impacts worldview

Feminist Approach

Feminists study and reinterpret the role of women in religious traditions, as well as their encounters with God or other forces considered sacred. Feminists work, as Ruether has long argued, to draw attention to "what has been lost to humanity through the subjugation of women and what new humanity might emerge through the affirmation of the full personhood of women."

gender influencing assumptions on religion

reinterpret role of women in religion

Rosemary Radford Reuter

Womanist approach

" the womanist approach emerged when a group of Union Theological Seminary graduate students began to search for a "new" epistemology, or way of knowing, that drew upon and took as normative the experience of black women from their first arrival in the so-called New World."

derived from black women when they arrived in the new world

black woman committed to defying oppression that threatened self actualization and her community

Delores williams, Katie G. Cannon, Emile Townes

4 c's of religion

creed: belief

community

cult: rituals and practices

Code: moral code, how to behave

atheism

Belief that there is no god

deism

there is a god that created the world, but then stepped back and stopped intervening

Agnosticism

don't know if there is a god

monotheism

belief in one god

polytheism

belief in many gods

Henotheism

There is more than one god but each believer believes their god is the right and the others are false. one superior, others lesser

Anthropomorphism

Giving god human attributes, morphing god into human terms, presenting god as a person

mysticism

experiencing ones with god, experience being with god

Martins elements of societies

1. insider/outsider boundaries

2. social hierarchies

3. assigned behaviors

martins 7 principals of social constructionism

1. words are tools used to categorize stuff

2. tools produce the world

3. words are variable (change)

4. no intrinsically right or wrong uses, just different uses

5. although uses change, it doesn't mean everything./anything is true. Truth depends on agreed upon use for a community

6. what we are as humans is the result of concepts/practices of society

7. social facts are "real" if only for the community that recognizes them as such

Eliade on time

Sacred can be considered:

Liturgical, reversible, primordial, neither changes nor exhausted, created sacrificed by the divine, circular, ontological

Profane can be considered:

Ordinary, temporal duration, linear, individual leads to ambiguity of self, summarizing, historical

Eliade on ritual

were used as a way of re-living a religious event as opposed to just retelling a religious event

Religion and myth both provide a passage between time boundaries

Eliade on myth

Eliade believed that myths were a way of reliving events and conveying truths and teachings. Existed in sacred time

mythological truth

es in the symbolic meaning of the story and what the reader can learn from it in terms of principles or morality

Historical truth

reliant on the factual information learned

Insider pros and cons

pros: More raw exposure to what's being studied

Easier access to information

cons: subjective (cultural telescope), Prone to fall victim to one's own reflexivity

Outsider pros and cons

pros: Much more likely to be objective in the study (No bias), can be critical academcially

cons: Might not get as in depth information as they want to (lack info), May not be accepted by group that is being observed

Interrelgious dialogue

People from different religions come together and share their truths, come to dialogue to learn about others' truth claims and not to talk about yours