Week 1 - History and Theories of Religion Flashcards
Why is religion universal?
every culture has some sort of religion
What is religion
originally refered to as “fear” or reverence for the gods -> later turned into the rites offered to them
2 orgins of the word religion
1) “relegere” -> to gather things together or to pass over things repeatedly
2) “religare” -> to bind things together
What are prehistoric signs of religious thought?
- burials w/ stone tools
- shells
- animal bones
- cave paintings w/ animals and abstract images
- Venus figurine scultures
what are the 4 periods of prehistoic orgins of religious development
- Paliolithic
- Cro-Magnon
- Mesolithic
- Neolithic
The Paleolithic
believed to be the start of religion with early humans
2 examples of religion in Paleolithic
1) taking deliberate and meticoulous care of burying the dead, with ceremony
2) dead buried in fetal position -> “return of the womb”
Why did people not bury their dead during Paleolithic?
- didn’t have the tools to dig big enough holes for bodies to be protected from scavengers and will attract prey
- no settlements yet but there’s early signs
- lived nomadic lifestyle, so didn’t have reason to bury dead bc no reson to come back and visit them
Characteristics of Cro-Magnons period
- idols of female deities representing fertility
- shells shaped as portal in burial sites
- ochreous red powder on body
Mesolithic Period
transitional age where ice sheets canishing and shift from nomadic to village life
Changes during the Neolithic period
- early forms of agriculture
- domestication of animals
- advances in arts of poetry, plaiting, weaving and sewing
- establishment of settled communities w/ growing population
- invention of wheeled cart
- first surgery
Religious transformations during Neolithic period
- Mother/Great Goddess associated w/ creation and regeneration
- female divine power shift: birthing and nature -> watering, tending, and protecting vegetation
Important events during the Early Historic Period
- rise of early trade routes
- invention of writing in Sumer and Egypt
- invention of wheel
- technological advancements
- Pyramid Texts (oldest known religious text)
- Vedas (India) composed
- Greek Translation of Hebrew Tanakh
The Axial Age
broad changes and parallel development in religious and philosophical thought
3 people related to the Greek study of religion
- Herodotus
- Epicurus
- Stoics
Herodotus
- father of religion
- took chronology of the past seriously
Epicurus
- radical critic of religion
- sought to catalog and explain sense of sacred
Stoics
believed there was common denominator of sacred behind all religion
Roman study of religion
- Cicero -> first to use term “religion” in relation to “proper performance of rites in veneration of the gods”
- Seneca, Tacitus and Julius Caesar interested in study
- after Christianity emerged, study of other religions neglected bc church more concerned w/ own mission and survival
2 developments across the world
- technological, intellectual and aesthetic development thriving in China, India, The Arab World, and the Italian City States
- land and sea routes connected cities to foster cultural and economic exchange (ex: Silk Road)
What are the 3 major events leading to Europe’s rise to power?
- China withdrawing from world trade networks
- exploratory voyage of Vasco Da Gama around southern tip of Africa
- Columbus’ exploratory voyage to Western Hemisphere
Gutenberg
invented moveable type printing press which had huge impact on European culture -> books, pamphlets, etc now available
Gutenberg Bible
- earliest major book printed in Europe using mass produced metal
- fostered escalation in literacy and education among common people, which stimulated independent though, social dialouge and debate
What was traded during the “Atlantic World”
- sugar
- slaves
- gold
- silver
What was an integral part of the European expansion?
spreading Christianity
What is The Protestant Reformation?
- a movement in Europe to oppose the corruption of Catholicism
- divided Christianity between Catholicism and a number of Protestant denominations
Martian Luther
started the Protestant Reform
Westphalia Peace Accord
established national boundaries in Europe and ended political dominance of the Holy Roman Empire
What instigated the transforamtion in the political organization of European powers from feudal states to nation states?
The Westphalia Peace Accord
What is in the first phase of the European Age of Scientific Discovery?
- Empiricism
- Mechanical Philosophy
- Chemical Philosophy
- Mathematization
Empiricism
scientific knowledge can be aquired through observing phenomena
Mechanical Philosophy
nature follows natural, phyiscal laws
Chemical Philosophy
matter functions according to active, vital principles
Mathematization
quantitative methods were applied to measurement of phenomena
What is the 2nd phase of the European Age of Scientific Discovery?
application of empirical analysis and mechanistic explainations to: Human Personality, Human Development, and Cultures and Societies and their development
European Enlightenment
concept of “self-rule” replaces “divine right of kings” to rule over society
What emerged during the European Enlightenment?
humanistic ideas about freedom, equality, and the right to happiness in “this life”
Deism
- a pure “natural religion” that sought to demystify religion, and didn’t rely on revalation or religious authority
- believed to be religion of first humans
What is the belief of Deism?
- that reason and observation of natural world are sufficent to determine existance of a divine creator
- a creator god created the world but lets it operated according to natual laws
Industrial Revolution
period where scientific and technological advances were applied to agriculture, transportation and industry, resulting in exponential increase in production of goods
Why did Eurpoean powers embark on journies during the 2nd era of imperial expansion?
to control materials and human resources of other societies bc they needed raw materials, new markets, and cheap or slave labour to keep up with increase in production during the Industrial Revolution
Methods Euorpean elites used to control the “Others”
- religious conversion
- military force
- collecting knowledge about the colonized to facilitate domination
Charles Darwin
wrote a book on the orgin of man -> where in the last page questions the existence of god
Darwin on Evolution
studies of evolution paralleled an interest in social evolution that produced body of knowledge that later supported social, economic and political parties
Herbert Spencer
influential scholar and social scientist that came up with the idea of ranking cultural progress and development
Social Evolution
the idea of ranking cultural progress and development according to a hiearchy or a evolutionary scale of primative to civilized with the end point (top) being civilization
Order of Social Evolution Hierarchy
Lower Savagry -> Savagery -> Higher Savagery -> Lower Barbarianism -> Barbarianism -> Higher Barbarianism -> Lower Civilization -> Civilization
Scientific Racism
based on faulty science and fabricated data that divided humans into different races based on “biological” differences
E.B. Tylor
- social evolutionist that believed the devlopment of religions from one stage to the next is univeral throughout the world’s cultures
What 2 biological problems did Tylor believe “ancient savage philosophers” were concerned with?
1) difference between a living and a dead body, and what causes biological states of sleeping, illness, disease, trance, death?
2) human shapes that appear in dreams and visions -> dreams are potent and can and do often reflect reality
Tylor’s minimal definition of religion
- Animism: belief in spiritual beings
- notion of spirits was not the outcome of irrational thinking
- “primitive man” was rationalist and scientific philosopher
- preliterate religious beliefs and practices not “ridiculous” or a “rubbish heap of miscellaneous folly”
- essentially consistent and logical, based on rational thinking and empirical knowledge
What is the order of Tylor’s Evolutionary Schema of Religion
Dreams -> Ghost-souls -> Spirits (animism) -> Polytheism -> Monotheism
Animism
animals, plants and inabunate objects are endowed with “souls”
Polytheism
ideaof multiple spiritual beings to explain natural events and phenomena -> belief in more then 1 god
Monotheism
belief in only 1 god (animism of civilized man)
What did Tylor’s Evolutionary Schema of Religion propose about morality?
- that religious beliefs underwent a moral transformation
- initially focused on individual well-being/self-interest and shifted towards altruistic and moral social concerns
- Selfishness -> Altruism
What did Tylor’s Evolutionary Schema of Religion propose about the afterlife?
- the docterine of life after death was replaced by retribution docterine
- rewards or punishments based on actions taken during lifetime
Main critique of Tylor’s Evolutionary Schema of Religion
Tylor’s idea that monotheism wouldn’t exisit for primative man is wrong -> concept of “high god” (one god) evident in tribal communities and monotheism evident in most “archaic” peoples
Robert Marett
anthropologist that argued animisim not most basic religious conception
What was Robert Marett’s idea of the orgins of religion?
origins of religion found in the idea of an impersonal supernatural force present everywhere and in specific people/objects bc it was simpler and a more ancient religious idea
Sir James Frazer
a ethnologist who wrote The Golden Bough and traced the evolution of human behaviour, ancient and primitive myth, magic, religion, ritual, and taboo
The Golden Bough
a book written by James Frazer that compares myths, magical practices, and religions of the world’s cultures throughout history
What was the book “The Golden Bough” named after?
the golden bough in the scared grove at Nemi, near Rome
What did Frazer argue many myths and rituals were about?
many myths and rituals revolved arounf a god or king who undergoes a sacrifical death to ensure the well being on the community
Why was dying and resurrecting a symbol of vegetation?
the death and rebirth of a god is the cycle of nature, such as changing seasons and the growth of crops
Sypathetic Magic
- based on principle that “like produces like” or the law of similarity (there is a casual relationship btw things that appear to be similar) -> what ever happens to an image of someone will also happen to them
- basis of Voodoo
- also referred to as imitative magic
Contagious Magic
idea that once things or persons once conjoined and then separated are still connected and can influence each other
Why do people who believe in contagious magic take percautions with their hair, fingernails, teeth, clothes, faces, etc ?
they believe those items still retain a magic sympathy with the person they originated from, and if it fell into the wrong hands, magic could be performed on them affecting the person they came from
What is the order of Frazer’s evolutionary model (of belief)?
Magic -> Religion -> Science
According to Frazer, why is magic logically more primative then religion?
the concept of personal agents (religion) is more complex than ideas aroung similarity or cause and effect (magic)
