Lecture 1: Introductory Lecture (Theories and Methodologies)

Question 1

What does theology mean?

Answer 1

the study of God

Question 2

Who came up with the idea that religion was created by human beings?

Answer 2

Ludwig Feuerbach; “God does not create man, man creates God.”

Question 3

What does Karl Marx call religion?

Answer 3

the opiate of the people

Question 4

“for physcoanalytical reasons, the need for religion and the divine father figure is an instinct we have at the early stages of civilization”, is said by whom?

Answer 4

Sigmund Freud

Question 5

What book did Ludwig Feuerbach write? What did it propose?

Answer 5

• “The Essence of Christianity” (1841)
• was the first to propose the idea that God is a projection of humankind

Question 6

Who are the Materialist Thinkers that are skeptical about religion?

Answer 6

• Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72)
• Karl Marx (1818-83)
• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• Friedrich Nietzsche

Question 7

Karl Marx claims that religion is a form of ________.

Answer 7

Ideology

Question 8

Ideology means what in this course?

Answer 8

worldview

Question 9

What does Marx mean when he says “Religion as ideology, false consciousness, inverted consciousness”

Answer 9

religion basically gets everything upside down.
- religion does not make man, man makes religion

Question 10

What is Marx critique of christianity?

Answer 10

religion pacifies people. he calls it the opium of the masses.
- says religion might sedate us

Question 11

What is meant by Marx when he says “Religion is the opium of the people. The abolition (getting rid of) of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness”?

Answer 11

• if people eliminate religion, they can focus on themselves and their potential instead of the promise of afterlife
• in order to establish happiness, focus on your life and not religion and the afterlife

Question 12

What type of perspective is Marx taking on religion?

Answer 12

• political and philosophical

Question 13

what perspective is Sigmund Freud approaching religion with?

Answer 13

• religion as a projection through a psychological or psychoanalytic lens

Question 14

what is Freud famous for?

Answer 14

having discovered the unconscious

Question 15

What is Freud implying when he calls God a projection of a father-figure onto the heavens?

Answer 15

the same way we love and fear our parents is how we love and fear God
- (fear of discipline and punishment)

Question 16

What is the Oedipus complex?

Answer 16

based on the ancient Greek tragedy
- Oedipus the King where he learns of his fait or destiny to murder his father and marry his mother
- he flees from the parents he grew up with not knowing that they were his adoptive parents
- as he fleeds, he kills a man
- ends up at a city
- sphinx proposes a riddle to undo the curse of the thebans
- where the answer is a man
- he is given hand of marriage to queen, which is his mother, has 4 kids, and then finds out its his mother

Question 17

Freud proposes the psychosexual development phase in children, which is what?

Answer 17

• boy forms a strong attachment to mother and fears father until puberty and adolesence
• Freud proposes same happens with civilization and God

Question 18

how are Marx and Freuds theories similar?

Answer 18

both have a theory of relgion that God is a projection of human needs and that eventually we will outgrow this need

Question 19

Who formulated the idea of a collective unconscious? (not just an individual unconscious but also a collective one in groups.)

Answer 19

Carl Jung (1875-1961)

Question 20

What did Carl Jung do around the world?

Answer 20

studied mythologies around the world, collected myths around the world from cultures that had no contact with one another

Question 21

What did Carl Jung find when he studied around the world?

Answer 21

• there was a recurring set of archetypes or patterns or primordial images
• certain myths
• almost every culture has a creation myth

Question 22

who was Ninian Smart (1927-2001)?

Answer 22

• a british scholar
• one of the founders of religious studies as an academic discipline

Question 23

what is the insider/outsider problem?

Answer 23

• Ninian Smart introduced this
• to speak as an outsider of your religion when it comes to being a scholar

Question 24

what is empathetic imagination and empathetic objectivity?

Answer 24

• empathy for followers of other religions and traditions
• introduced by Ninian Smart

Question 25

How does Ninian Smart say we should do in order to understand a tradition?

Answer 25

"walk a mile in someone else's moccasins" - try to understand their perspective

Question 26

What are the seven dimensions of the different religions? *memorize*

Answer 26

- the (ritual) or practical dimension - the (myth)ic or narrative dimension - the (ethical) or legal dimension - the (doctrinal or philosophical) dimension - the organizational, (social or institutional) dimension - the (material) or artistic dimension - the (experimental) and emotional dimension

Question 27

what is a ritual?

Answer 27

something done regularly - repetitive human behaviour - to make it religious: has some interconnection with one or more of the seven dimensions of religion

Question 28

what is myth in religion studies?

Answer 28

"myth" comes from greek "mythos" which means story

Question 29

what is the mythic or narrative dimension?

Answer 29

the key stories of a tradition - stories of founder

Question 30

why are rituals often connected to myths?

Answer 30

a religious ritual often reenacts a myth for contemporary practitioners

Question 31

what is the doctrinal or philosophical dimension?

Answer 31

- the core beliefs of a religious tradition

Question 32

what is the ethical or legal dimension?

Answer 32

- all religious traditions have some guideline for right and wrong

Question 33

what is the organizational, institutional or social dimension?

Answer 33

communal system and laws unifying practitioners

Question 34

what is the material or artistic dimension?

Answer 34

- the place of worship - paintings or depictions of a being - prayer beads

Question 35

Who was the founder of Phenememology?

Answer 35

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)

Question 36

what is phenomenology as by Edmund Husserl?

Answer 36

the intuition of essences - trying to get to the essence of the religion (try to bracket off what is extreme)

Question 37

what does phenomenology mean?

Answer 37

the study of phenomena (plural) - phenomenon(singular) under investigation can be anything

Question 38

what is meant by trying to find the essence of religion?

Answer 38

trying to find what religion is - it is NOT what ONE religion has different (bracketing) - keeping an open mind

Question 39

what is bracketing?

Answer 39

- pre judgements or phenomenological reduction - taking off outliers in religion

Question 40

Who was Rudolph Otto (1869-1937)?

Answer 40

wrote "the idea of the Holy" - ** defined "the numinous" - a feeling of absolute reliance on a creating power (trying to describe what religious people feel or experience) - one of the key thinkers of early approaches to comparative religion. comparing easter and western traditions

Question 41

After studying many religious traditions, what did William James find from mystical experiences?

Answer 41

Four criteria of mystical experiences: - ineffability - noetic quality - transiency - passivity

Question 42

which dimension does the mystical experience have most to do with?

Answer 42

experimental or emotional dimension

Question 43

what does ineffable mean in the context of mystical experience?

Answer 43

- experience cannot be put into words - is profound but is difficult to describe - beyond words

Question 44

what is noetic quality in the context of mystical experience?

Answer 44

- brings new knowledge after the experience

Question 45

what is transient in the context of mystical experience?

Answer 45

- it doesn't last forever - passive

Question 46

what is passivity in the context of mystical experience?

Answer 46

- happens by itself, without the help of something else

Question 47

who is one of the principal founders of sociology?

Answer 47

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Question 48

Emile Durkheim was the first to make the distinction between the sacred and profane. What does this mean?

Answer 48

- what is holy and what is in the everyday world - between the religious and the non-religious

Question 49

Marx says religion is primarily 1._______ and political. its false consciousness. 2._______ says religion is 3._______ Durkheim says religion is primarily 4.______.

Answer 49

1. Philosophical 2. Freud 3. psychological 3. sociological

Question 50

Durkheim says religion is one of the institutions that does what for our society?

Answer 50

binds our society together

Question 51

What does Max Weber, one of the founders of sociology, look at?

Answer 51

- looking at the relationship between society, religion and capitalism - how different religons renounce the world or reject the world and become autonomous - society, economy and religion and how they all fit together

Question 52

what is calvinism in Christianity?

Answer 52

argues there is a certion number of people who are elected to be saved - no matter what we do, we cannot earn our salvation - salvation is granted through the grace of God

Question 53

What does Max Weber argue in regards to the calvinists?

Answer 53

- they had a very strong work ethic - thought that by working hard, it would be indicative of a sign of favour by God

Question 54

what idea did victor turner give?

Answer 54

the idea of liminality: being on the threshold; a state of disorientation that occurs in the middle of a ritual - in the liminal state, practitioners are different from the state they were in pre-ritual or the state in which they will be post-ritual

Question 55

the mystic going under a mystical experience can be described as?

Answer 55

being in a liminal state - experiencing "oneness" with the divine from the state they were in prior to the mystical experience or gained some secret knowledge

Question 56

who was Clifford Geertz?

Answer 56

an american anthropologist who pioneered the approach of studying cultures known as "thick description"

Question 57

what is "thick description"?

Answer 57

the observer (outside, detached scholar religion) might be observing participants engaged in a ritual and they will be giving the most detailed description (thick description) as possible

Question 58

what thinker approach does Mircea Eliade take?

Answer 58

theological approach

Question 59

whose work does Mircea Eliade build on?

Answer 59

Emile Durkheim (founding fathers of sociology)

Question 60

what is Hierophany and who introduced it?

Answer 60

- appearance of the sacred (eg. burning bush) - Mircea Eliade

Question 61

what is the definition of a religious symbol?

Answer 61

makes the sacred appear in a universal sense

Question 62

what is the definition of a ritual?

Answer 62

repeated acts of following precedents of myths

Question 63

who says "Religion in general [...] is a matter of being grasped by an ultimate concern"?

Answer 63

Paul Tillich

Question 64

How does Paul Tillich relate alienation and religion?

Answer 64

Paul Tillich says religion can overcome a sense of alienation

Question 65

what is postmodernism philosophically?

Answer 65

calls into question so-called universal values espoused in the Enlightenment - goes against phenomenology (intuition of essence) - rejects essentialism

Question 66

what is essentialism?

Answer 66

the idea that there is a core idea underlying any phenomenon under investigation

Question 67

who problematized the term "Orientalism"?

Answer 67

Edward Said - "a lot of western thinkers set up problematic dichotomies between east and west that suggests the west is superior to the orient"

Question 68

how does Edward Said define orientalism?

Answer 68

"A Western Style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient"

Question 69

what is the definition of globalization?

Answer 69

the acceleration of worldwide exchange, mobility and connectivity that has occurred in the last few decades - globalization is a process through which international communities, organizations, corporations and individuals have become increasingly interconnected through economics, politics, culture, and the earths environment.