Created: 2020-01-20 Mon 10:39
Religious studies is the attempt to study these things, taking homo religiosus seriously
A North American touring the highlands of New Guinea for a visit to one of the tribes living in the outback might well witness men decorated in bird-of-paradise feathers, nude (save for a penis sheath), covered in ashes, and dancing before a fire at the side of which are pigs bound in vines and banana leaves. His or her first reaction might well be to take some photographs in order to show “the folks back home” some of the exotic aspects of life among primitive peoples. But this picture can be reversed.
Suppose the tribesmen of the outback visit a downtown church on Sunday morning. They observe rows of oddly dressed people (what, after all, is the purpose of a necktie?), notice that some sit while others sing, listen to one person speak at length, and see still others pass plates onto which paper and metal disks are placed. What are these tribesmen to think? Where, after all, are the pigs? The fire? The sacred feathers? In both cases, the observer lacks a sense of perspective and context.
The lesson is a simple one. It is impossible to get at the intention that lies behind religious behavior unless we have a willingness to enter sympathetically into the cultural worldview of another person, at least for a moment.
accuracy & consistency in data gathering and finding patterns
| (James Martineau) | Religion is the belief in an ever living God, that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with mankind. |
| (Friedrich Schleiermacher) | Religion is the feeling of absolute dependence or the consciousness that the whole of our spontaneous activity comes from a source outside of us . |
| (Karl Marx) | Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. |
| (Anthony Wallace) | Religion is a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man or nature . |
| (Emile Durkheim) | Religion is only sentiment inspired by the group in its members, but projected outside of the consciousness that experiences them, and objectified . |
| (Signmund Freud) | Freud refers to religion as an illusion which is "perhaps the most important item in the psychical inventory of a civilization". In his estimation, religion provides for defense against "the crushingly superior force of nature" and "the urge to rectify the shortcomings of civilization which made themselves painfully felt". He concludes that all religious beliefs are "illusions and insusceptible of proof." |
| (James G. Frazer) | Religion is a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of Nature and of human life . |
| (William James) | The very fact that there are so many (definitions of religion) … is enough to prove that the word “religion” cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collective name … |
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it may be result of dualistic thinking – (either/or)
Religion is intimately connected with human thought.
Even those who focus on practice have beliefs, develop doctrines, and emphasize the importance of certain teachings in the religious life essential to their way of life.
To some extent, all religious experience is an emotional experience.
Friedrich Schleiermacher characterized religion as a feeling of absolute dependence.
Rudolf Otto, characterized religion as the experience of the holy. And this experience is one that inspires feelings of fear, awe, terror, and love.
Clearly action is an essential component of any religion. Examples of include:
In religion there is an essential tension between the individual and the community
In most times and places, religion and morality are intertwined
Created by Dale Hathaway.