Anthropological Perspectives on Religion

• Recap• The Major Features of Religion

• Anthropological Perspectives Religion

• Film: Religion and Magic

The Major Features of Religion

• Texts

• A means of explanation

• Stress/Anxiety Relief

• Body of myth

• Rituals

• Magic and witchcraft

• Beings and powers

• Specially skilled individuals

• Belief in the supernatural

• Symbolic

• Moral code

• Sacred vs. profane

• Emotional Experience

• Group membership/identity

• System

• A philosophy

• Holistically

• Objectively

• Relativistically

• Comparatively

• Interdisciplinary

• Focus on Ethnography

•Emically

• Methodologically and theoretically diverse.

Anthropological Perspectives on Religion

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Standing Bison, Altamira (Spain) c. 15,000-10,000 B.C

Explanations for the Universality of Religion

Psychological Sociological

Intellectual Emotional

InterpretativeFunctional

Religion and Magic

1. How are religion and magic integrated into Mayan daily life?

2. How is this different from Western Society?

primitive man was a rationalist and a scientific philosopherthe notion of spirits was not the outcome of irrational thinkingpreliterate religious beliefs and practices were not “ridiculous” or a “rubbish heap of miscellaneous folly”they were essentially consistent and logical, based on rational thinking and empirical knowledge.

Intellectual approach

E. B. Tylor

Animism

the idea that the world and everything in it is filled with souls or spirits.

These spirits can be communicated with.

Spirits “feel” and therefore, can be harmed, flattered, offended and can also hurt or help.

Psychological Approach Reduces anxiety

provides comfort

Gives meaning to life – Yes there is life after death

a means for dealing with crises death and illness, famine, flood, failure

helps people cope with reality.

Tells them how to behave

Removes burden of responsibility

Participation in religious ceremonies provides reassurance security, and even ecstasy, closeness etc

Sociological Approachreligion stems from society and societal needs and provides for them

religions validate the social: they posit controlling forces in the universe that sustain the moral and social order of a people

sanction human conduct by providing notions of right and wrong

setting precedents for acceptable behaviour, group norms

provides moral sanctions for individual conduct

education function through ritual used to learn oral traditions

eg. puberty rites provide information about tribal lore.

Sees religion as a set of symbols and stresses the meaning of those symbols, as referents and creators of meaningful life.

"a religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic." “Clifford Geertz”

Claude Levi-Strauss structuralism -- Analysis of symbolic forms of mythic

Through the work of Douglas and Victor Turner, as well as performance theory, a new emphasis on ritual was established.

Concerned with the act

Interpretative

Intellectual Definition•Max Mueller wrote that religion is a mental factor independent of sense and reason to apprehend the infinite in different names

Anthropological study of religion

• 1) The study origin

• 2) The study of function

• 3) The study of meaning

History of the Anthropology of Religion

1) The study of origin

2) The study of function

3) The study of meaning