Anthropological Perspectives on Religion

1

• Anthropological Perspectives on Religion
• Recap
• The Major Features of Religion
• Anthropological Perspectives Religion
• Film Religion and Magic

2
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

3
Anthropological Perspectives on Religion

• Holistically
• Objectively
• Relativistically
• Comparatively
• Interdisciplinary
• Focus on Ethnography
• Emically
• Methodologically and theoretically diverse.

4
Standing Bison, Altamira (Spain) c. 15,000-10,000
B.C
Made from halal gelatin under the supervision of
IFANCA (Islamic Food And Nutrition Council Of
America) Available from Halalco.com Price
3.39/bag
5
Explanations for the Universality of Religion
Interpretative
Functional
Psychological
Sociological
Intellectual
Emotional
6

• Religion and Magic
• How are religion and magic integrated into Mayan
  daily life?
• How is this different from Western Society?

7
Intellectual approach

• primitive man was a rationalist and a scientific
  philosopher
• the notion of spirits was not the outcome of
  irrational thinking
• preliterate 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.

E. B. Tylor
8

• 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.

9
(No Transcript)
10
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

11
Sociological Approach

• religion 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.

12
Interpretative

• 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

13

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

14
Anthropological study of religion

• 1) The study origin
• 2) The study of function
• 3) The study of meaning

15
History of the Anthropology of Religion

• 1) The study of origin
• 2) The study of function
• 3) The study of meaning