Religion
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| ==Theories of religion== | ==Theories of religion== | ||
| :''[[Theories of religion]]'' | :''[[Theories of religion]]'' | ||
| - | ===Origins and development=== | + | '''[[Theory|Theories]] of [[religion]]''' can be split up into substantive theories (focusing on what religion is) and functional or [[reductionism|reductionist]] theories (focusing on what it does). Influential substantive theories have been proposed by [[Theories of religion#Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer|Tylor and Frazer]] (focusing on the explanatory value of religion for its adherents), by the [[theology|theologian]] [[Theories of religion#Rudolf Otto|Rudolf Otto]] (focusing on the importance of [[religious experience]], more specifically experiences that are both fascinating and terrifying), [[Theories of religion#Mircea Eliade|Mircea Eliade]] (focusing on the longing for otherworldly perfection, the quest for meaning, and the search for patterns in mythology in various religions). |
| - | The origin of religion is uncertain, but it has been suggested that it evolved for the nurture of children. There are a number of theories regarding the subsequent origins of organized religious practices. | + | |
| - | According to [[anthropologists]] John Monaghan and Peter Just, "Many of the great world religions appear to have begun as revitalization movements of some sort, as the vision of a charismatic prophet fires the imaginations of people seeking a more comprehensive answer to their problems than they feel is provided by everyday beliefs. Charismatic individuals have emerged at many times and places in the world. It seems that the key to long-term success – and many movements come and go with little long-term effect – has relatively little to do with the prophets, who appear with surprising regularity, but more to do with the development of a group of supporters who are able to institutionalize the movement." | + | Influential functional theories have been proposed by [[Theories of religion#Karl Marx|Karl Marx]] (focusing on the economic background), [[Theories of religion#Sigmund Freud|Sigmund Freud]] (focusing on [[neurosis]] as a [[psychology|psychological]] origin of religious beliefs), and [[Theories of religion#Émile Durkheim and functionalism|Émile Durkheim]] (focusing on the social function of religions). |
| - | The [[development of religion]] has taken different forms in different cultures. Some religions place an emphasis on belief, while others emphasize practice. Some religions focus on the subjective experience of the religious individual, while others consider the activities of the religious community to be most important. Some religions claim to be universal, believing their [[law]]s and [[cosmology]] to be binding for everyone, while others are intended to be practiced only by a closely defined or localized group. In many places religion has been associated with public institutions such as [[education]], [[hospital]]s, the [[family]], [[government]], and [[politics|political]] hierarchies. | + | [[Theories of religion#Max Weber|Max Weber]] did not so much propose a general theory of religion as he focused on the interaction between society and religion. He also introduced a number of key concepts to the [[sociology of religion]]. |
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| - | Anthropologists John Monoghan and Peter Just state that, "it seems apparent that one thing religion or belief helps us do is deal with problems of human life that are significant, persistent, and intolerable. One important way in which religious beliefs accomplish this is by providing a set of ideas about how and why the world is put together that allows people to accommodate anxieties and deal with misfortune." | + | |
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| - | ===Social constructionism=== | + | |
| - | One modern academic theory of religion, [[social constructionism]], says that religion is a modern concept that suggests all [[spirituality|spiritual]] practice and [[worship]] follows a model similar to the [[Abrahamic religions]] as an orientation system that helps to interpret reality and define human beings, Among the main proponents of this theory of religion are Daniel Dubuisson, Timothy Fitzgerald, Talal Asad, and Jason Ānanda Josephson. The social constructionists argue that religion is a modern concept that developed from Christianity and was then applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures. | + | |
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| - | Daniel Dubuisson, a French anthropologist, says that the idea of religion has changed a lot over time and that one cannot fully understand its development by relying on consistent use of the term, which "tends to minimize or cancel out the role of history". "What the West and the history of religions in its wake have objectified under the name 'religion'", he says, " is ... something quite unique, which could be appropriate only to itself and its own history." He notes that [[St. Augustine]]'s definition of ''religio'' differed from the way we used the modern word "religion". | + | |
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| - | Dubuisson prefers the term "cosmographic formation" to religion. Dubuisson says that, with the emergence of religion as a category separate from culture and society, there arose [[religious studies]]. The initial purpose of religious studies was to demonstrate the superiority of the "living" or "universal" European world view to the "dead" or "ethnic" religions scattered throughout the rest of the world, expanding the teleological project of [[Schleiermacher]] and [[Cornelis Petrus Tiele|Tiele]] to a worldwide ideal religiousness. Due to shifting theological currents, this was eventually supplanted by a liberal-ecumenical interest in searching for Western-style universal truths in every cultural tradition. | + | |
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| - | According to Fitzgerald, religion is not a universal feature of all cultures, but rather a particular idea that first developed in Europe under the influence of [[Christianity]]. Fitzgerald argues that from about the 4th century CE Western Europe and the rest of the world diverged. As Christianity became commonplace, the [[charismatic authority]] identified by Augustine, a quality we might today call "religiousness", exerted a commanding influence at the local level. As the Church lost its dominance during the [[Protestant Reformation]] and Christianity became closely tied to political structures, religion was recast as the basis of national [[sovereignty]], and religious identity gradually became a less universal sense of spirituality and more divisive, locally defined, and tied to nationality. It was at this point that "religion" was dissociated with universal beliefs and moved closer to [[dogma]] in both meaning and practice. However there was not yet the idea of dogma as a personal choice, only of [[established church]]es. With the Enlightenment religion lost its attachment to nationality, says Fitzgerald, but rather than becoming a universal social attitude, it now became a personal feeling or emotion. | + | |
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| - | Asad argues that before the word "religion" came into common usage, Christianity was a ''disciplina'', a "rule" just like that of the Roman Empire. This idea can be found in the writings of [[St. Augustine]] (354–430). Christianity was then a power structure opposing and superseding human institutions, a literal Kingdom of Heaven. It was the discipline taught by one's family, school, church, and city authorities, rather than something calling one to self-discipline through symbols. | + | |
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| - | These ideas are developed by [[S. N. Balagangadhara]]. In the [[Age of Enlightenment]], Balagangadhara says that the idea of Christianity as the purest expression of spirituality was supplanted by the concept of "religion" as a worldwide practice. This caused such ideas as [[religious freedom]], a reexamination of classical [[philosophy]] as an alternative to Christian thought, and more radically [[Deism]] among intellectuals such as [[Voltaire]]. Much like Christianity, the idea of "religious freedom" was exported around the world as a civilizing technique, even to regions such as [[India]] that had never treated spirituality as a matter of political identity. | + | |
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| - | More recently, in ''The Invention of Religion in Japan'', Josephson has argued that while the concept of “religion” was Christian in its early formulation, non-Europeans (such as the Japanese) did not just acquiesce and passively accept the term's meaning. Instead they worked to interpret "religion" (and its boundaries) strategically to meet their own agendas and staged these new meanings for a global audience. In nineteenth century [[Japan]], [[Buddhism in Japan|Buddhism]] was radically transformed from a pre-modern philosophy of [[natural law]] into a "religion," as Japanese leaders worked to address domestic and international political concerns. In summary, Josephson argues that the European encounter with other cultures has led to a partial de-Christianization of the category religion. Hence "religion" has come to refer to a confused collection of traditions with no possible coherent definition. | + | |
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| - | [[George Lindbeck]], a [[Lutheran]] and a [[Postliberal theology|postliberal theologian]] (but not a social constructionist), says that religion does not refer to belief in "[[God]]" or a transcendent Absolute, but rather to "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought ... it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments.” | + | |
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| - | ===Comparative religion=== | + | |
| - | :''[[Comparative religion]]'' | + | |
| - | [[Nicholas de Lange]], Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at [[Cambridge University]], says that "The comparative study of religions is an academic discipline which has been developed within Christian theology faculties, and it has a tendency to force widely differing phenomena into a kind of strait-jacket cut to a Christian pattern. The problem is not only that other 'religions' may have little or nothing to say about questions which are of burning importance for Christianity, but that they may not even see themselves as religions in precisely the same way in which Christianity sees itself as a religion." | + | |
| + | In contrast to earlier theorists, the [[anthropology|anthropologists]] [[Theories of religion#E. E. Evans-Pritchard|E. E. Evans-Pritchard]] and [[Theories of religion#Clifford Geertz|Clifford Geertz]] performed detailed [[ethnography|ethnographical]] studies of "primitive" cultures, and came to the conclusion that earlier theories had been one-sided at best. Geertz denied that it would ever be possible to propose a general theory of religion. | ||
| ==See also== | ==See also== | ||
| * [[Ancestor worship]] | * [[Ancestor worship]] | ||
Revision as of 21:40, 4 November 2013
| "All known religious beliefs, whether simple or complex, present one common characteristic : they presuppose a classification of all the things, real and ideal, of which men think, into two classes or opposed groups, generally designated by two distinct terms which are translated well enough by the words profane and sacred (profane, sacré). This division of the world into two domains, the one containing all that is sacred, the other all that is profane, is the distinctive trait of religious thought. --The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Durkheim, tr. Swain |
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Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world.
Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration of a deity, gods or goddesses, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology.
The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith, belief system or sometimes set of duties; however, in the words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from private belief in that it is "something eminently social". A global 2012 poll reports that 59% of the world's population is religious, and 36% are not religious, including 13% who are atheists, with a 9 percent decrease in religious belief from 2005. Some people follow multiple religions or multiple religious principles at the same time, regardless of whether or not the religious principles they follow traditionally allow for syncretism.
Theories of religion
Theories of religion can be split up into substantive theories (focusing on what religion is) and functional or reductionist theories (focusing on what it does). Influential substantive theories have been proposed by Tylor and Frazer (focusing on the explanatory value of religion for its adherents), by the theologian Rudolf Otto (focusing on the importance of religious experience, more specifically experiences that are both fascinating and terrifying), Mircea Eliade (focusing on the longing for otherworldly perfection, the quest for meaning, and the search for patterns in mythology in various religions).
Influential functional theories have been proposed by Karl Marx (focusing on the economic background), Sigmund Freud (focusing on neurosis as a psychological origin of religious beliefs), and Émile Durkheim (focusing on the social function of religions).
Max Weber did not so much propose a general theory of religion as he focused on the interaction between society and religion. He also introduced a number of key concepts to the sociology of religion.
In contrast to earlier theorists, the anthropologists E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Clifford Geertz performed detailed ethnographical studies of "primitive" cultures, and came to the conclusion that earlier theories had been one-sided at best. Geertz denied that it would ever be possible to propose a general theory of religion.
See also
- Ancestor worship
- Philosophy of religion
- Sociology of religion
- Enclosed religious orders
- Irreligion
- Religious violence
- Faith
- Belief
- History of religions
- List of religious texts
- Religious conversion
- Theocracy
- Theogony
- Unbelieving
- Religious art
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Religion" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
