Transcript Theories of Religion - University of Mount Union

Theories of Religion
Is there such a thing?
Five Theories of Religion
• Animism and Magic - Tylor and Frazer
• Religion and Personality - Sigmund Freud
• Society as Sacred - Emile Durkheim
• Religion as Alienation - Karl Marx
• A Source of Social Action – Max Weber
Animism and Magic
Do You Believe in Magic?
EB Tylor
Animism
• Edward B Tylor
• 1832-1917
• Self educated
• Primitive Culture
• Ethnological and
Ethnographic Approach
• Stress on scientific analysis of
human development
• Did not appeal to Bible or
supernatural
• Adopted Muller’s idea on
human thought patterns
Animism
• Attempted to show the
“science of culture”
• Argued for “psychic unity
of humanity”
• The use of magic is an
example of this unity
• Magic logical
development of cause
and effect
• Definition of Religion
• Belief in Spiritual beings
• Therefore
• As souls animate persons,
so spirits must animate the
world
JG Frazer
• JG Frazer
• 1854-1941
• Shy scholar
• Golden Bough
• Convert of Tylor
• Atheist/Agnostic despite
family Christian orientation
• Sympathetic Magic
• Imitative
• Contagious
Magic
• Magic involves ritual
• Tribal people
everywhere see the
cause and effect
• Magic declines religion
fills its place
• Real power is
supernatural
personalities
• Connection of Gods
makes things happen
• Religion is progress over
magic
• Better explanation
• Prayers implore the gods
and rituals help the gods.
Examples
• Pawnee Indians believed because the tools which touched the blood
of a sacrificed maiden that the life giving influences of the tools
would be transferred to the plants through the tools.
• Magic confers power on those who use it.
• The magician becomes the king.
• Kings are those who wield much power through magic.
Sigmund Freud
Personally speaking
Religion as Personality
• Religion is a “universal obsessional neurosis, a clash of opposing
desires.”
• Healthy people do not need religion. Religion is for weak people
who cannot face life’s problems and so rely on religion to help
them with life’s difficulties.
Immature Dependency
• "religion [is] a symptom of an incomplete or pathological
development within a personality." One depends on religion
because one does not have mature attitude toward oneself or
toward one's environment.
• Religious ideas are childhood imaginations of father, magic and so
on which one uses to "actualize" adult behavior.
Oedipus Complex
• Religion is a way that individuals act or live out the Oedipus
complex.
• It is the unconscious desire to have sex with the parent of the
opposite sex usually between the mother and son.
• The son replaces his father.
Society as Sacred
The Totemic Principle
Biography
• Some Background
•
•
•
•
Born in Epinal, France
1858 – 1917
Educated
Elemental Forms of
Religious Life
• Built on the work of
other French Scholars
• Early Sociologist
Importance of Society
• The Clan makes a
deep impact on the
individual
• Morality, etc
inseparable from
religion
• Everything depends
on social context
http://www.britannica.com/bps/media-view/102010/1/0/0
Sacred vs. Profane
• Sacred Items set
apart
• Profane is ordinary,
has everyday use
• Sacred objects
pertain to the
community
• Profane things
pertain to the
individual.
http://www.kentnews.co.uk/polopoly_fs/825_1_1017044!image/3755458285.jpg_gen
/derivatives/landscape_300/3755458285.jpg
Society as Sacred
• The individual is deeply
affected by the clan.
• When people are worshipping
a god or gods they are really
worshipping their clan.
• "The god of the clan, the
totemic principle, can
therefore be nothing else
than the clan itself,
personified and represented
to the imagination under the
visible form of the animal or
vegetable which serves as
totem.” excerpt 8 Theories of
Religion.
Religion in use
• Thus religion is used to control and modify behavior of the
clan.
• It determines appropriate behavior and consequences for
aberration.
• The clan uses religion to embody its principles and values.
Karl Marx
“Religion is the opium of the people.”
Religion as Alienation
• Religion is an illusion with evil consequences.
• It is used by the oppressors to keep things as they are.
• Religion is determined by economics and therefore has to be
considered along with economics.
• Man makes religion and it alienates.
Religion is used for control
• The specific form religion takes depends on "the shape of social life
as determined by the material forces in control of it any given place
and time. Marx asserts that belief in a god or gods is an unhappy
by product of the class struggle, something that should not only be
dismissed, but dismissed with scorn.” 7 Theories of Religion
Sources
• Slide 4 - http://www.swt.edu/~rw04/theoryweb/images/tylor_edward.jpg;
http://www.liceus.com/cgi-bin/aco/ant/frazer.jpg
• Slide 6 http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/quotef1.htm
• Slide 9 - http://durkheim.itgo.com/images/bigdurk.gif
• Slide 12 - http://www.maoism.org/graphics/marx.jpg
• The Seven Theories of Religion by Daniel Pals