Rels.%20205.01%20Lecture%201.2

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Rels. 205.01 Lecture 1.2
Defining Religion?
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Study Information
You can find this on the website
at http//www.ucalgary.ca/hexham/courses/course
s/rels-205/rels-205.htm Or from http//www.ucalg
ary.ca/hexham/ Read ahead Remember to read the
Smart and Welbourn papers Keep checking
material may be added Check the Course
Outline http//www.ucalgary.ca/hexham/courses/co
urses/courses.htm
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Questions and Issues
Will you post your Power Point Slides? Will you
post lecture notes? Are you using
Blackboard? What about using laptops? Cell
phones in class?
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Tutorials and Assistance
Teaching Assistance - if you need help or
information Sergey Petrov spetrov_at_ucalgary.ca
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Lecture Outline for Part One of Rels 205.01
Week 1 Lecture 1 What is Religion?Lecture 2
Studying Religion Week 2 Lecture 1 Ritual and
the Study of ReligionLecture 2 Religious
Traditions Week 3 Lecture 1 Sacral
SentimentsLecture 2 The meaning of myth Week
4 Lecture 1 Arguments for Belief in GodLecture 2
Traditional Christianity Week 5 Lecture 1
Changing WorldviewsLecture 2 Review Week 6
Reading Week Week 7 Lecture 1 First in class test

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This book is required for the final assignment
and as background reading throughout the course.
It will be on sale in class today and next week
for 20
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Richard Fletcher The Barbarian Conversion
Richard Fletcher (1944-2005)
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Readings on ReligionNinian Smart (1927-2001)
Meaning in religion and the meaning of
religion http//www.ucalgary.ca/hexham/courses/
Courses-2006/Rels-205/readings/smart-religion.html
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Fred Welbourn (1912 - 1986)
Towards a Definition of Religion http//www.uca
lgary.ca/hexham/courses/Courses-2006/Rels-205/rea
dings/fred1.html
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Is Scientology a Religion?
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Scientology
New Centre in Berlin in the news January
2007 Not a religion German Government Founded
by in 1955 L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1976) Science
fiction writer Dianetic (1951)
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Is Scientology a Religion?
Scientologists in German push By Tristana Moore BBC News, Berlin, Saturday, 13 January 2007
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What is Scientology?
Aims at increasing individual abilities through a
rigorous practice based on a rich mythology found
in Hubbards writing. A form of confession using
an e-meter, yoga like meditation, special diets
and other practices free the individual from evil
influences and discover the true self or
Theatan within.
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Is Scientology a REAL religion?
BBC News, Saturday, 23 February, 2002, 0155
Scientologists face Paris ban The public
prosecutor in France has accused the Church of
Scientology of engaging in "mental manipulation"
and called for it to be shut down in Paris.
What is a real religion?
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Problem of Buddhismand many traditional religions
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God in Buddhism
The importance of dogma Buddhists do not believe
in God
Professor Paul Williams Department of Religious
Studies University of Bristol
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What is Buddhism about?
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Problem of Buddhismand many traditional religions
Buddhism is a religion without God as its central
focus
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God in Buddhism
The importance of dogma Buddhists do not believe
in God
Professor Paul Williams Department of Religious
Studies University of Bristol The Unexpected Way
(2002)
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Salvation in Buddhism
Release from Samsara - the wheel of existence
Nirvana/Nibbana
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In some other religions either they have no god
or God is unimportant
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What do we mean by religion?
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Henry Fielding (1707-1754)in Tom Jones
By religion I mean Christianity by Christianity
I mean Protestantism by Protestantism I mean
the Church of England, as established by law.
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A Basic Rule of Definition
Any definition of religion must apply to all
groups we normally call religions and exclude
those we do not call religions.
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Religion belief in God or the gods
Buddhism, explicitly rejects the idea of God
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Seeing everything as religion
Paul Tillich (1886-1965) Religion is ultimate
concern.
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Fred Welbourn (1912 - 1986)
Towards a Definition of Religion http//www.ucal
gary.ca/hexham/courses/Courses-2006/Rels-205/read
ings/fred1.html
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Starks Definition of Religion
Religion refers to systems of general
compensators based on supernatural assumptions.
Rodney Stark (1940-)
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Emile Durkheims Definition of Religion
A unified system of beliefs and practices
relative to sacred things.
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
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Jacob Wilhelm Hauer(1881-1962)
The deepest and most consequential insights are
not the products of thought but of revelations
powerful inner experiences that convince the
hero of being grasped by a power or possessed by
God Inaugural lecture 1921
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Max Weber (1864-1920)
To say what it is, is not possible the
essence of religion is not even our concern, as
we mike it our task to study the conditions and
effects of a particular type of social behavior.
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Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
The recognition of all our duties as divine
commands.
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Definitions of Religion
BERGER, Peter - "the human enterprise by which a
SACRED cosmos is established." FRAZER, James -
"a propitiation or conciliation of powers
superior to man which are believed to direct or
control the course of NATURE and human
life." HEGEL, George - "the knowledge possessed
by the finite mind of its NATURE as ABSOLUTE
mind." JAMES, William - "the BELIEF that there
is an unseen order, and that our supreme GOOD
lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves
thereto."
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More Definitions of Religion
MARX, Karl - "the SELF-conscious and SELF-feeling
of man who has either not found himself or has
already lost himself again... the general theory
of the world... its logic in a popular FORM...
its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its
universal ground for consolation and
justification. It is the fantastic realization of
the human essence..." SCHLEIERMACHER, Friedrich
- "a feeling for the infinite" and "a feeling of
ABSOLUTE dependence. WHITEHEAD, Alfred North -
"what the individual does with his own
solitariness."
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How do we define religion?
Kant Philosophy Durkheim Sociologically Marx
Historically Frazer Anthropologically James
Psychologically Schleiermacher Religiously Each
according to his own discipline/interests
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Self-created religion
My mind is my Church Tom Paine (1737-1809)
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Private Religion
Blue Cheese Cult
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The Origins of Cheese
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The Social Context amaNazarites
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Seeking A Practical Solution
A set of institutionalised rituals identified
with a tradition and expressing and/or evoking
sacral sentiments directed at a divine or
trans-divine focus seen in the context of the
human phenomenological environment and at least
partially described by myths or by myths and
doctrines.