Magic, Science and Religion
[Religious ideas] are illusions,
fulfillments of the oldest, strongest
and most urgent wishes of
mankind. The secret of their
strength lies in strength of those
wishes. attempt to deal with the
For Freud, religion was a primitive
The and
Future
of an Illusionof satisfying
frightening realities of the world
the impossibility
Sigmund
Freud,was
1927 a response to
our fundamental desires. Religion, in
his view,
that fear andForlonging.
Love for and fear of the father found symbolic
Freud, the child's "terrifying impression of helplessness" gave
expression,
thought,
in the major
religious
rise to thehe
desire
for an all-powerful,
protective,
andtraditions.
just father. Freud
thought religious ideas are built out of this desire and were fundamentally
disconnected from reality. …They are illusions, like delusions, and are
derived from deeply-felt, unconscious urges.
Magic, Science and Religion
We are social animals who
must relate to others, and we are
spiritual animals who must infuse
our lives with meaning in order to
function.….To give meaning to our
lives, we must acquire a sense of
identity and rootedness. Religions
both sacred and secular (including
tribalism and nationalism), with
objects of devotion, guiding myths
and rituals, serve this function.
--- Psychoanalysis and Religion (1951)
by Erik Fromm
Magic, Science and Religion
“Religion, in her fullest exercise of function, is not a mere illumination of facts
already elsewhere given, not a mere passion, like love, which views things in a rosier
light. It is indeed that, as we have seen abundantly. But it is something more, namely,
a postulator of new FACTS as well. The world interpreted religiously is not the
materialistic world over again, with an altered expression; it must have, over and
above the altered expression, a natural constitution different at some point from that
which a materialistic world would have. It must be such that different events can be
expected in it, different conduct must be required.”
William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902
Magic, Science and Religion
“I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and
punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which
we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should
survive his physical death is also beyond my
comprehension, such notions are for the fears or absurd
egoism of feeble souls.”
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my
religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically
repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have
never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If
something is in me which can be called religious then it is
the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world
so far as our science can reveal it.”
-- Albert Einstein
Magic, Science and Religion
“Marx’s famous saying that ‘religion is the opium
of the people’ is habitually wrenched out of its context and
given a meaning subtly but appreciably different from the
one he gave it. Marx did not say, at any rate in that place, that
religion is merely a dope handed out from above; he said that
it is something the people create for themselves to supply a
need that he recognized to be a real one. ‘Religion is the sigh
of the soul in a soulless world. Religion is the opium of the
people.’ What is he saying except that man does not live by
bread alone, that hatred is not enough, that a world worth
living in cannot be founded on ‘realism’ and machine-guns?
If he had foreseen how great his intellectual influence would
be, perhaps he would have said it more often and more
loudly.”
--George Orwell
Magic, Science and Religion
E.B. Tylor
animism
Magic and science are similar…the
practitioner is the active agent.
R.R. Marrett
animatism
mana
In religion, the practitioner is a
supplicant.
James G. Frazer Contagious; sympathetic
The Golden Bough
pantheon
curandero
Magic, Science and Religion
Some types of religion
Animism, Shamanism
Polytheism
Monotheism
Magic, Science and Religion
Rites of Passage
Arnold van Gennep
Three Stages:
Separation
Transition
Incorporation
Magic, Science and Religion
Revitalization Movements
Five Stages:
Normal
Stress Buildup
Cultural Distortion
Revitalization efforts
Resolution
(Nativistic movements)
Magic, Science and Religion
Revitalization Movements
(Nativistic movements)
Examples:
Ghost Dance
Wavoka
Cargo Cults
John Frum Society
(Vanuatu)
Culture Change
Theories
(in general)
attempt to account for what is known (summarize)
provide basis for explaining what is unknown
are parsimonious
(Occam’s Razor)
Culture Change
CULTURE is an adaptive mechanism.
cultures
are different, each with a distinct history
Evolution is an explanation of change by the
accumulation of increments.
Population is the basic unit of biological adaptation
Society is the basic unit of cultural adaptation
Culture Change
Diffusion
Invention
Evolution
Cultural Evolution
(One way to explain change)
E.R. Service
Profiles in Ethnology
Division
of
Settlement
Complex
STATES
Subsistence Pattern
Energy
Cities
Labor
CHIEFDOMS Intensive ag. Town
TRIBES
Simple
BANDS
Social Org Labor
Religion
Many
Highly
Statuses, Specialized
Achieved,
Monotheism
Associations
Polytheism
Pastoralism Villages
Horticulture Sedentary
Foragers
Local
Bands
Priests
Few
Statuses,
Ascribed,
Kinship
Animistic
GeneralizedAnimatism
Shamans