Week 10: Religion and Supernatural Belief Systems Flashcards
Religion as a Symbolic System
- Faith in spirits, gods, or unseen forces guides individual behaviour in powerful ways
- It serves important functions for individuals and groups in society
- Other non-religious value systems serve similar functions
Defining Religion
- Religion is a set of beliefs that pertain to supernatural forces or beings that transcend the observable world
- The term supernaturalism is used to refer to the broadest range of belief systems
Religion has four characteristics:
- Belief in supernatural beings or forces
- Ritual
- Guided by myths
- Symbolic
Communal Religions
- Horticulture and pastoralism
- Groups perform rites
- Totemistic
- Durkheim
Ecclesiastical Religions
- Agricultural and Industrial States
- Full-time specialization
- Examples include Christianity and Buddhism
- Found in food-producing states
- Once in surplus, not everyone has to be involved
- All the major world religions usually have a certain full-time specialist
Religions of the Oppressed
- Vittorio Lanternari
-Millenarian Movements that arise under specific conditions and share certain elements of belief and practice - Colonialism, rapid economic change, racial or ethnic discrimination and inequality, the introduction of a new religion
Examples: Cargo Cults, Ghost Dance, Rastafarianism, Zionist Churches in South Africa - Number of examples of revitalization
- Colonial officials had ideas that were very racist and ethnocentric
- Reasonable responses to circumstaines
- Some of the Cargo Cults because of political standpoints
- Cargo cults: (in the Melanesian Islands) a system of belief based around the expected arrival of ancestral spirits in ships bringing cargoes of food and other goods
Revitalization Movements: Ghost Dance
- Nations of the Great Plains
- Buffalo slaughtered to force Nations onto reservations
- Wovoka prophesized the need to dance to change their lives.
- Ended with the slaughter at Wounded Knee
Durkheim
There were various means by which individuals and society could be connected. Among these are education, social programs through the state, occupational groups, and laws. Together these could assist in regulating individuals and integrating individuals with society.
Malinowski
Social anthropologist, traveller, ethnologist, religion scholar, sociologist and writer. He is the creator of the school of functionalism, an advocate for intense fieldwork, and a forerunner of new methods in social theory.
Weber
Employees in a non-personal organization should be linked with organizational responsibilities through division of labour and job specialization
Evans-Pritchard
Broke new ground on questions of rationality, social accountability, kinship, social and political organization, and religion, as well as influentially moving the discipline in Britain away from the natural sciences and towards history
Geertz
A system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life
Functionalist
Social solidarity and psychological
Economic
The Spirit of Capitalism
Interpretive
Symbols and meaning
Functions of Supernatural Belief Systems
- Creating community: Sense of order
- Instilling values
- Renewing faith: Use the solar eclipse
- Providing reasons
- Solving problems
- The reasons for these belief systems involve creating community, instilling values, renewing faith, providing reasons, and solving problems. Worship occurs in many forms, including the veneration of deities, ancestors, or spirits in nature
Sacred Roles
Deities (gods/goddesses)
Ancestral spirits
Spirits in nature
Spirits in nature
- Animism: attributing sentience to other beings that may include persons, animals, plants, spirits, the environment, or even items of technology, such as cars, robots, or computers
-Antisemitism
Religious Practitioners
- Full-time for all major world religions
- Shaman—part-time religious practitioner
Revitalization movements
a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture.
Ghost Dance
used as a social dance as well as for healing practices.
Cargo cults
some groups cleared out plots of land to create improvised airstrips, believing airplanes would arrive one day to bring cargo for devoted followers
Supernatural Beliefs and Cultural Expression
- Belief systems are embedded in cultural practices
- Body piercing, tattooing
Animism
Spirit reside in the natural world, the example in the textbook is the volcano/moutine in Hawaii Pele
Animatism
there is a force of power that is diffuse, the example in the textbook is mana
