Religion: Basic Terms

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Religious Traditions are

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-constructed out of particular socioeconomic situations and change over time.

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Religious Tradtions contain

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-a systematic set of beliefs that are acted upon and sustained by rituals and institutions

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Ethos is the

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-style of life for a culture and its set of ethical guidelines

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Religious Tradtions construct

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-an ethos that defines taboo lines between acceptable and inappropriate behavior, defines identities, legitimizes social orders and criticizes them, provides guidelines for everyday life.

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Religion, today faces challenges from

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-modernism and multiculturalism.

-scientific critiques of beliefs and scriptures.

-competing views of the world, multiple traditions.

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Fundamentalism/Traditionalism is the

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-revitalization of ancient tradtions

-based on the belief that there was a golden age of religion to which we should return

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Civil Religion is the

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-nationalistic perspective that uses religious symbols and imagery to promote and sustain a nation state.

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Religous Syncretism and Innovation includes

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-new religous movements and the incorporation of new beliefs and systems borrowed from the traditions of other faiths.

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Rituals are a

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-regularly repeated, traditional, and carefully prescribed set of behaviors that symbolizes a value or belief.

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Rituals have

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-3 Characteristics

1.Provide solutions to problems by providing answers as to what to say and do and by providing a symbolic repository of values.

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The 2nd Characteristic of a Ritual involves a

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-ritual being rooted in experience so as to appear empirically verifiable.

-there are also stories in the culture about a rituals effectiveness, and if a ritual is ineffective, then the problem lies in the performance of the ritual, not the ritual itself.

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Rituals also demarcate

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-social boundaries and identify evil, identify the causes of problems, and identify which people are good which people are evil.

-Cultural styles determine the way good and evil people are dealt with. (Obliterate or Convert)

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Another thing Rituals do is

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-reinforce social processes

-ex. priests gain respect from mourners when conducting a funeral

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A Conflict Symbol is a

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-cultural object that serves as a carrier of dispute.

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Ethnography is

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-the close up observation and description of a community or social setting over an extended period of time.

-anthropologists favorite.

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Statistical Analysis is the

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-statistical manipulation of data to discern patterns and trends in attitudes and behavior.

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Triangulation is a

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-sophisticated sociological method that looks at a phenomenon from several methodological angles, such as Statistical Analysis, Ethnography, and Textual Analysis

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Distinctions between the Sacred and the Profane come from

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-Durkheim

-The Sacred involves things of ultimate concern that are often set apart or forbidden.

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The Profane involves things that are

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-ordinary or mundane.

-note that profanity involves using something extraordinary in an ordinary way. (eg. the name of a deity, sexual intercourse, or defecation.)

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Hierophany involves

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-encountering and experiencing the sacred.

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Narritive Discourse and Analysis involves

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-textual and/or ethnographic data used to explore patterns in the history, rhetoric, and linguistic frames used by religious communities.

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Karl Marx viewed religion both as the

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-sigh of the oppressed and as flowers on the chain of oppression to make suffering easier to bear.

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Sigmund Freud viewed religion as a

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-psychological projection, an illusion.

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Religious beliefs are

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-are often told in story form, or as myths and legends.

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Beliefs often have

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-contradictory elements brought together, have a singel narritive framework, and possess models of and models for reality.

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The Cosmos

(Beliefs part 1)

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-involves how and why it got here. Known as cosmogenies.

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The Gods

(Beliefs part 2)

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-involves who they are and what they do.

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Theophanies involves how

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-people have encountered the sacred.

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Theodicies involves why

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-people experience suffering and death

eg. why do good things happen to bad people, why do bad things happen to good people, etc.

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The Moral Community is the

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-community that believes in certain morals such as not murdering people or having adulterous affairs

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Durkheim's Definition of Religion

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-a set of beliefs and practices organized into a church.

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Auguste Comte invented the

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-term sociology.

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Comted founded the

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-positivist church, a church that resembles the rituals of catholicism, but took God out of the Church.

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The Sacred Canopy is the

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-idea that in a traditional culture, rituals help to organize the chaos in the universe.

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The Religious Marketplace involves

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-areas where you can find different religions.

-ex. internet, nations,

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Elective Affinity is the

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-affinity between ideas and interests.

-Different people think differently about ideas, ideologies, etc.

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Text and Historical criticism

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-involves using scientific approaches to try and prove scriptures.

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Disciplinary Boundaries and Tradition

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Anthropology---Ethnography
History--------textual analysis

Sociology------survey ethnography

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Theophany involves

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-the appearance of the sacred in visual form to a human being.

ex. Jesus, the burning bush

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In Judaism and Islam, it is

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-forbidden to represent God because it is impossible to represent God accurately.

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Cosmogenies involve

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-a set of theories about how and why the world was created.

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The Cosmological Formula

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-involves how the world was created.

-God creates the world out of nothing

-life emerges from a cosmic egg

-a pre-chaotic animal pulls mud up out of the water.

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Anthropogenies are

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-theories about the creation of humans and how they should think of themselves.

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Rituals provide clues

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on how to construct one's identity, how to make decisions, and how to understand the values of a culture.

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When rituals become institutionalized

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-they become stable patterns repeated over time that teach the young and remind everyone of their values.

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Riane Eisler did research on

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-cultures that have male and female gods.

-partnership societies typically had female gods

-patriarchal socities typically had warlike, hierarchical worship of gods.

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Local Religions usually have

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-direct connections between life and local existence, particularly animals, plants, and local ecology.

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Cosmopolitan Religions usually

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-pick elements of local culture as they diffuse.

-cosmopolitan religions encompass increasingly heterogenous populations.