Religions
AN INTRODUCTION, ANIMISM
AND PAGANISM
How to study belief systems
 How do we define religion?
 How do we classify religions?
 What are their characteristics?
 How do they evolve?
 Cultural character?
 Shrines, stupas, cathedrals, Grottos, monasteries?
 What is their political/social appeal?
 How do they interact?
 How do they travel?
 Conflict
 Syncretism
Classification

UNIVERSALIZING RELIGION
 one that attempts to appeal to all
people, not only those at one
location

ETHNIC RELIGION
 religion with a spatially (socially or
ethnically) concentrated
distribution;
 principles of such a religion are
likely to be based on physical
characteristics of a particular
location

TRIBAL OR TRADITIONAL
RELIGION
 small size, localized culture groups
Universalizing
• everywhere
• Individual founder
(prophet)
• Message diffused widely
(missionaries)
• Followers distributed
widely.
• Holidays based on
events in founder’s life.
Ethnic
• Has meaning in particular
place only.
• Unknown source.
• Content focused on place
and landscape of origin.
• Followers highly
clustered.
• Holidays based on local
climate and agricultural
practice.
Tenets or teachings
 Are collected in:


Books of learning
Books of Law
 Are taught in/by


Monasteries
Monks
 Actual foundation of the
religion
How it spreads
Pilgrims
Trade routes
Geographic
conduits/crossroads/
obstacles
Stages
Conversion or forced
acceptance
Diaspora
Nature of Religion
 Who are the leaders?
 What kind of background
do they have?
 Degree of aggression
 How are they
organized?


Hierarchy
Religious Institutions and
bureaucracies
 Connection with
political authority
Sacred sites
and
ceremonies
Meetings/
gatherings
Types of structures
Geographic
connections to
sites
Tolerance for other religions
 Methods used to keep the
true nature of their
religion





Wars
Ethnic cleansing
Marriage
Conversion
Persecution
Role of Religion
 a symbol of group
identity
 a cultural rallying point
(like language)
 influences the spread of
languages to new
peoples and areas
(Arabic, Latin)
 may involve prescribed
patterns of behavior;
prayer, special rites,
obedience to doctrine
Animism – the roots of religion
• the belief that all objects, animals, and
beings are “animated” or possess a spirit and
a conscious life.
•Spirits live in rocks, rivers, mountain
peaks, and heavenly bodies
•Each tribe has its own characteristic
form of animism
•Also called shamanism because of the
prominence of a Shaman.
• Common among hunter-gatherers
• 10% of Africans follow such traditional
ethnic religions.
• These beliefs are losing ground to
Christianity and Islam throughout Africa.
Nigerian Shaman
Paganism
 from the Latin paganus,
meaning "country dweller",
"rustic"
 Refers to polytheistic
religions



Europe before
Christianization
Usually Greco-Roman
Also Celtic, Germanic, and
Slavic
 Most pagan religions build
their rituals around the
cycles and seasons of the
earth.
 No single sacred text
Paganism
 Gender:


Greek and Roman society
were patriarchal
Greek and Roman
mythology honor gods as
much as goddesses
 Social Class


Participation in religious
rituals moral necessary for
all regardless of social
class
At first, priesthood only
open to upper classes
Paganism today
 Modern scholars have
begun to apply the term
pagan to three separate
groups of faiths:



Historical Polytheism
Folk/ethnic/Indigenous
religions
Neo-Paganism