Lecture 1: Introductory Lecture (Theories and Methodologies) Flashcards
What does theology mean?
the study of God
Who came up with the idea that religion was created by human beings?
Ludwig Feuerbach; “God does not create man, man creates God.”
What does Karl Marx call religion?
the opiate of the people
“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?
Sigmund Freud
What book did Ludwig Feuerbach write? What did it propose?
- “The Essence of Christianity” (1841)
- was the first to propose the idea that God is a projection of humankind
Who are the Materialist Thinkers that are skeptical about religion?
- Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72)
- Karl Marx (1818-83)
- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Karl Marx claims that religion is a form of ________.
Ideology
Ideology means what in this course?
worldview
What does Marx mean when he says “Religion as ideology, false consciousness, inverted consciousness”
religion basically gets everything upside down.
- religion does not make man, man makes religion
What is Marx critique of christianity?
religion pacifies people. he calls it the opium of the masses.
- says religion might sedate us
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”?
- 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
What type of perspective is Marx taking on religion?
- political and philosophical
what perspective is Sigmund Freud approaching religion with?
- religion as a projection through a psychological or psychoanalytic lens
what is Freud famous for?
having discovered the unconscious
What is Freud implying when he calls God a projection of a father-figure onto the heavens?
the same way we love and fear our parents is how we love and fear God
- (fear of discipline and punishment)
What is the Oedipus complex?
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
Freud proposes the psychosexual development phase in children, which is what?
- boy forms a strong attachment to mother and fears father until puberty and adolesence
- Freud proposes same happens with civilization and God
how are Marx and Freuds theories similar?
both have a theory of relgion that God is a projection of human needs and that eventually we will outgrow this need
Who formulated the idea of a collective unconscious? (not just an individual unconscious but also a collective one in groups.)
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
What did Carl Jung do around the world?
studied mythologies around the world, collected myths around the world from cultures that had no contact with one another
What did Carl Jung find when he studied around the world?
- there was a recurring set of archetypes or patterns or primordial images
- certain myths
- almost every culture has a creation myth
who was Ninian Smart (1927-2001)?
- a british scholar
- one of the founders of religious studies as an academic discipline
what is the insider/outsider problem?
- Ninian Smart introduced this
- to speak as an outsider of your religion when it comes to being a scholar
what is empathetic imagination and empathetic objectivity?
- empathy for followers of other religions and traditions
- introduced by Ninian Smart
How does Ninian Smart say we should do in order to understand a tradition?
“walk a mile in someone else’s moccasins”
- try to understand their perspective
What are the seven dimensions of the different religions?
memorize
- 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
what is a ritual?
something done regularly
- repetitive human behaviour
- to make it religious: has some interconnection with one or more of the seven dimensions of religion
what is myth in religion studies?
“myth” comes from greek “mythos” which means story
what is the mythic or narrative dimension?
the key stories of a tradition
- stories of founder
why are rituals often connected to myths?
a religious ritual often reenacts a myth for contemporary practitioners
what is the doctrinal or philosophical dimension?
- the core beliefs of a religious tradition
what is the ethical or legal dimension?
- all religious traditions have some guideline for right and wrong
what is the organizational, institutional or social dimension?
communal system and laws unifying practitioners
what is the material or artistic dimension?
- the place of worship
- paintings or depictions of a being
- prayer beads
Who was the founder of Phenememology?
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
what is phenomenology as by Edmund Husserl?
the intuition of essences
- trying to get to the essence of the religion (try to bracket off what is extreme)
what does phenomenology mean?
the study of phenomena (plural)
- phenomenon(singular) under investigation can be anything
what is meant by trying to find the essence of religion?
trying to find what religion is
- it is NOT what ONE religion has different (bracketing)
- keeping an open mind
what is bracketing?
- pre judgements or phenomenological reduction
- taking off outliers in religion
Who was Rudolph Otto (1869-1937)?
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
After studying many religious traditions, what did William James find from mystical experiences?
Four criteria of mystical experiences:
- ineffability
- noetic quality
- transiency
- passivity
which dimension does the mystical experience have most to do with?
experimental or emotional dimension
what does ineffable mean in the context of mystical experience?
- experience cannot be put into words
- is profound but is difficult to describe
- beyond words
what is noetic quality in the context of mystical experience?
- brings new knowledge after the experience
what is transient in the context of mystical experience?
- it doesn’t last forever
- passive
what is passivity in the context of mystical experience?
- happens by itself, without the help of something else
who is one of the principal founders of sociology?
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
Emile Durkheim was the first to make the distinction between the sacred and profane. What does this mean?
- what is holy and what is in the everyday world
- between the religious and the non-religious
Marx says religion is primarily 1._______ and political. its false consciousness.
2._______ says religion is 3._______
Durkheim says religion is primarily 4.______.
- Philosophical
- Freud
- psychological
- sociological
Durkheim says religion is one of the institutions that does what for our society?
binds our society together
What does Max Weber, one of the founders of sociology, look at?
- 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
what is calvinism in Christianity?
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
What does Max Weber argue in regards to the calvinists?
- they had a very strong work ethic
- thought that by working hard, it would be indicative of a sign of favour by God
what idea did victor turner give?
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
the mystic going under a mystical experience can be described as?
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
who was Clifford Geertz?
an american anthropologist who pioneered the approach of studying cultures known as “thick description”
what is “thick description”?
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
what thinker approach does Mircea Eliade take?
theological approach
whose work does Mircea Eliade build on?
Emile Durkheim (founding fathers of sociology)
what is Hierophany and who introduced it?
- appearance of the sacred (eg. burning bush)
- Mircea Eliade
what is the definition of a religious symbol?
makes the sacred appear in a universal sense
what is the definition of a ritual?
repeated acts of following precedents of myths
who says “Religion in general […] is a matter of being grasped by an ultimate concern”?
Paul Tillich
How does Paul Tillich relate alienation and religion?
Paul Tillich says religion can overcome a sense of alienation
what is postmodernism philosophically?
calls into question so-called universal values espoused in the Enlightenment
- goes against phenomenology (intuition of essence)
- rejects essentialism
what is essentialism?
the idea that there is a core idea underlying any phenomenon under investigation
who problematized the term “Orientalism”?
Edward Said
- “a lot of western thinkers set up problematic dichotomies between east and west that suggests the west is superior to the orient”
how does Edward Said define orientalism?
“A Western Style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient”
what is the definition of globalization?
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.
