Religion Flashcards
What is Religion?
It is people’s relationship with the supernatural.
What is Supernatural?
It is believed to exist but cannot be known by normal sensual means.
What are types of religion?
Animatism, animism, theism
What is Animatism?
It is the beliefs in impersonal force. We find it in some chiefdom societies.
What is Mana?
It is the force in animatism. The chief has more mana than regular people.
What is Tabu?
It is a prohibition with an immediate impersonal supernatural sanction.
Eg: Luck in the US
What is Animism?
It is the beliefs in spirits.
Everything has a spirit and is in charge of itself.
Find it in egalitarian societies.
What is Theism?
It is the beliefs in God(s).
Find it in stratified societies.
What is God?
A god is a spirit that creates or controls some aspects of the world. Like a spirit with a specific job.
What is World-view?
It is one’s expectation of how the world works emphasizing perception and expectation.
What is Ideology?
It is one’s expectation of how the world works emphasizing the guiding principles (how things should work)
What is Cosmology?
It is one’s expectation of how the world works emphasizing the universe and everything in it
Who is Shaman?
It is a person who does spiritual work on behalf of the community through altered state of consciousness.
It is associated with animism.
What are the works of shaman?
- curing: healing ordinary sickness
- recovery: is recovering lost souls.
What is soul-lost?
It is the belief that one’s soul is outside one’s body.
The symptoms are similar to what we call depression.
What is consciousness?
It is one’s awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings.
Cultures usually don’t have names for the normal state of consciousness.
What is the altered state of consciousness?
It is not a normal type of consciousness.
What are the two main states of consciousness that shaman use?
Spirit possession and Soul Flight
What is Spirit possession?
It is a spirit controls one’s body.
What is Soul Flight?
It is one’s spirit leaves one’s body with consciousness.
Eg: out of body experience
What is Revitalization Movement?
It is a conscious, organized attempt to create a better society.
Can be religious, political movements.
Characterized by dissatisfaction in society
Eg: Black Muslim
What is Millenarian Movement?
It is a revitalization movement that predicts an imminent end to the world as it is known
What is Cargo Cult?
It is a millenarian movement where the members expect to receive material goods.
South Pacific
What is Messianic?
Focusing on the coming of an individual who will usher in a utopian world.
What is Syncretism?
The merging of elements of two or more religious traditions to produce a new religion.
What is Fundamentalism?
A proclamation of reclaimed authority over a sacred tradition that is to be reinstated as an antidote for a society that is believed to have strayed from its culural moorings.
