Religion(1): What Is Religion?

Case Study: Divination

Experiences Odin Experiences Zeus Shiva Ecstasy Yahweh Tranquility Gods Allah Gods Ishtar Sanctified Mystery Ahura Mazda What is Religion? Atonement Beliefs symbolsBeliefs Prayer Immortality Practices (rituals) Practices (rituals) Transubstantiation Meditation Hungry GhostsSpirits Demons Ancestors

COMPLEX!!! Religion is COMPLEX!!! Religion is neither a single phenomenon, nor a “thing”; rather, it is a messy and dynamic collection of feeling, experience, institutions, practices, and beliefs.

Attempts at a Definition Edward Tylor Edward Tylor “The belief in spiritual beings.” Clifford Geertz Clifford Geertz “A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” Emile Durkheim Emile Durkheim “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”

Attempts at a Definition Melford Spiro Melford Spiro “Religion is an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings.” Peter Berger Peter Berger “Religion is the human attitude towards a sacred order that includes within it all being—human or otherwise—i.e., belief in a cosmos, the meaning of which both includes and transcends man.” Max Weber Max Weber Refused to attempt a definition of religion. [Smart Man!]

Theories of Religion …from Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained (2001) Religion provides explanations Religion provides explanations People created religion to explain puzzling natural phenomena Religion explains puzzling experiences: dreams, prescience, etc. Religion explains the origins of things Religion explains why there is evil and suffering

Theories of Religion Religion provides comfort Religion provides comfort Religious explanations make mortality less unbearable Religion allays anxiety and makes for a comfortable world

Theories of Religion Religion provides social order Religion provides social order Religion holds society together Religion perpetuates a particular social order Religion supports morality

Theories of Religion Religion is a cognitive illusion Religion is a cognitive illusion People are superstitious; they will believe anything Religious concepts are irrefutable Refutation is more difficult than belief

Functionalism: Religion as explanation and comfort Social institutions are collective means to fill individual biological needs Why does religion do? What does it do that makes it especially functional? Examples?

Structural-Functionalism: Religion aids social order Agreement (consensus) between members of a society on morals maintains social order Moral consensus creates equilibrium, which is the normal state of society When things disrupt equilibrium religion is often the method of setting things right again…outside personal interest, sometimes sole institution for arbitration

Cognitive Science of Religion: Religion as illusion The use of ideas from cognitive psychology to explain why religious ideas are so “catchy” Epidemiology of representations (Sperber) Culture is “ecological patterns of psychological phenomena” “Relevant mysteries” Selective transmission Not the same as memes (Dawkins) Inferential salience, greater intuitive appeal Boas on Bastian’s elementary ideas: “They may be indigenous, they may be imported, they may have arisen from a variety of sources, but they are there. The human mind is so formed that it invents them spontaneously or accepts them whenever they are offered to it. This is the much misunderstood elementary idea of Bastian.”

Cognitive Science of Religion: Religion as illusion Anthropomorphism as an intuitively appealing type of explanation (Guthrie) Complex things/processes easily apprehended when envision to have human intention Inferring human-intention behind things a “good bet” Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device Capture one’s attention (Boyer) Minimally counterintuitive concepts Are easily and selectively remembered (Whitehouse) Modes theory of religion Semantic memory=doctrinal religiosity Episodic memory=imagistic religiosity

Simple Quiz! Name : Student ID: Religion is a single phenomenon, nor a “thing”; rather, it is a messy and dynamic collection of feeling,,,, and beliefs.