RELIGION AND WORLDVIEW

DEFINITIONS  Worldview  Encompassing pictures of reality created by members of societies  Religion  “Ideas and practices that postulate reality beyond that which is immediately available to the senses” (Bowen, 2008)  Include beliefs that some kind of spiritual or supernatural powers exist

SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF RELIGION  Social functions  1.  2.  3.  How does religion serve social functions  Offering rewards for good behavior and punishments for antisocial behavior  Seen in societies with ____________________

EXPRESSIONS OF RELIGION  Kottak discusses 7 expressions of ritual:  Spiritual beings  Powers & Forces  Magic  Uncertainty, Anxiety, Solace  Ritual  Rite of Passage  Totemism Responsible for all 7 (read the textbook: ) We will discuss each of these expression in varying degree of detail

SPIRITUAL BEINGS  “Beings”  Ability to assume ______  Respond to _____________  Human origins with living or deceased people  Beings  spirit helpers, disease spirits, zoomorphic spirits

SPIRITUAL BEINGS  Monotheism  _____________________________________  Polytheism  ________________________________  Animism  ________________________________________; frequently associated with natural objects

SPIRITUAL BEGINS ANIMISM - EXAMPLES  Inuit  All things happens through the ______________________  Animals share the same ________________

POWERS & FORCES: MANA  Impersonal superhuman power  Sometimes transferable  Ex: ______________  Why?  ______________  Polynesians: All things believed to be endowed to a greater or lesser degree with sacred supernatural power  __________________  Mana - ___________

POWERS & FORCES: MANA

POWERS & FORCES: MANGU  Performance of evil by humans believed to possess an innate, nonhuman power to do evil  Whether or not it is ________________________  Ex: Azande  Mangu – ___________________________________  Note: mangu is not unique to the Azande  1.  2.

MAGIC  Use of supernatural techniques to accomplish specific ends  1.  2.  Examples:  1.  2.  3.  4.

UNCERTAINTY, ANXIETY, SOLACE  Connected to magic & myth  Responsible for reading ‘Understanding Ourselves’  Opening to chapter, page 276  Be able to articulate how the Trobriand Islanders use magic when dealing with sailing expeditions

RITUALS  Repetitive social practice composed of a sequence of symbolic activities  1.  2.  A.  Organized performance of behaviors intended to influence ________________

RITUALS  Belief that supernatural powers can make natural events occur & intervene in human affairs  Behaviors intended to influence spiritual powers  Performed cross-culturally, but for different reasons  Ex: ____________________  Marks _______________________________________  Births, initiations, confirmations, weddings, funerals

SUNRISE DANCE

ASSIGNED READING

REVITALIZATION MOVEMENTS  Aim to create a new way of life to replace current conditions that are _______________  Likely to occur in societies when these conditions coalesce  1.  2.  3.

REVITALIZATION MOVEMENTS  ______– prophet who taught that existing world would soon be destroyed & new crust of Earth would form  As new crust formed, buffalo would return  Abandon ways of the settler’s to live pure lives – _______________________________________-  _____________ not a component of Ghost Dance  Movement was negatively received by settlers & U.S. Army  ________________________________  Lakota (Sioux) band, including ♀ and children

REVITALIZATION MOVEMENTS