Chapter 10 Flashcards
What is religion?
religion is beliefs, behaviours, and actions related to supernatural beings and forces and their relationship to everyday life
What is religion according to Sir Edward Tylor?
Belief in spirits
What two components is religion associated with?
Belief and behaviour. Belief systems shape patterns of behaviour.
What is Animism?
A belief system in which supernatural is conceived of as an impersonal power, belief in souls
What is animatism?
Belief that all things including men and women, are endowed with pervasive spiritual power
What is an example of a supernatural force belief?
Polynesians believe in Mana, which is a force that endows natural beings and phenomena with a special power that is both sacred and dangerous. Is an outside nature that works automatically.
What is totem?
An object that has special significance and meaning for a groups of believers.
What is zoomorphic?
Images of supernatural/ deities are like animal or partially animal
What is anthropomorphic?
Images of supernatural/ deities are like human.
Is belief in sacred space common?
Yes in all religions.
What are some examples of sacred spaces.
Saami people of Norway have rock formations that resemble humans or animals.
Pakistani female muslim immigrants have Khatam Quran which is a transformation of sacred space.
What is contested space?
Spaces that have sacred meanings to different groups. Ex. Kotel in Jerusalem is sacred place of pilgrimage but is on Palestinian land.
What is a myth?
A narrative with a plot that involves the supernatural forces, expresses core beliefs, teaches morality, helps people deal with their lives.
What is a myth to Malinowski?
A charter for society.
What is a doctrine?
Direct and formalized statements about religious beliefs, people’s roles and relationships with supernatural power and other humans, associated with institutionalized religions.
What was the evolutionary school?
Tried to explain the physical world and events by magic, religion and science. Theorized that magic evolved into religion and then science. From primitive to rational.
What is magic?
The attempt to compel supernatural forces and beings to act in certain ways.
What were Sir James Frazer’s two principles of magic?
Law of similarity and law of contagion.
What is world view?
Conception of the world and how people should behave.
What is world view? Example?
An encompassing picture of reality created by members of a society. Ex: Redfield’s peasant world view, including notions of limited goods and the lord as shepherd.
According to Functionalists (Durkheim), all religions originate in ___? Separating the world into ___?
Society. Separating the world into the profane and sacred.
What is the profane?
The secular aspects of life (objects, practices, behaviors).
What is the sacred?
The things that we set apart, ritualize and form emotional connections to.
What is the function of religions according to functionalism?
Religion functions to join members of the group according to shared meanings and world views.