Anthropological Perspectives on
Religion
• Recap
• The Major Features of Religion
• Anthropological Perspectives Religion
• Film: Religion and Magic
The Major Features of Religion
• Belief in the supernatural
• Texts
• Symbolic
• A means of explanation
• Moral code
• Stress/Anxiety Relief
• Sacred vs. profane
• Body of myth
• Emotional Experience
• Rituals
• Group membership/identity
• Magic and witchcraft
• System
• Beings and powers
• A philosophy
• Specially skilled individuals
Anthropological Perspectives on Religion
• Holistically
• Objectively
• Relativistically
• Comparatively
• Interdisciplinary
• Focus on Ethnography
•Emically
• Methodologically and theoretically diverse.
Made from halal gelatin
under the supervision of
IFANCA (Islamic Food And
Nutrition Council Of
America) Available from
Halalco.com Price: $3.39/bag
Standing Bison, Altamira
(Spain) c. 15,000-10,000
B.C
Explanations for the Universality of Religion
Functional
Psychological
Intellectual
Interpretative
Sociological
Emotional
Religion and Magic
1. How are religion and magic integrated into
Mayan daily life?
2. How is this different from Western Society?
Intellectual approach
primitive
E. B. Tylor
man was a rationalist
and a scientific philosopher
the notion of spirits was not the
outcome of irrational thinking
preliterate religious beliefs and
practices were not “ridiculous” or
a “rubbish heap of miscellaneous
folly”
they were essentially consistent
and logical, based on rational
thinking and empirical
knowledge.
Animism
the
idea that the world
and everything in it is
filled with souls or spirits.
These
spirits can be
communicated with.
Spirits
“feel” and
therefore, can be harmed,
flattered, offended and can
also hurt or help.
Psychological Approach
 Reduces anxiety
 provides comfort
 Gives meaning to life – Yes there is life after death
 a means for dealing with crises death and illness,
famine, flood, failure
 helps people cope with reality.
 Tells them how to behave
 Removes burden of responsibility
 Participation in religious ceremonies provides
reassurance security, and even ecstasy, closeness etc
Sociological Approach
religion stems from society and societal needs and provides
for them
religions validate the social: they posit controlling forces in
the universe that sustain the moral and social order of a
people
sanction human conduct by providing notions of right and
wrong
setting precedents for acceptable behaviour, group norms
provides moral sanctions for individual conduct
education function through ritual used to learn oral
traditions
eg. puberty rites provide information about tribal lore.
Interpretative
Sees religion as a set of symbols and stresses the meaning of those
symbols, as referents and creators of meaningful life.
"a religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish
powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations 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." “Clifford Geertz”
Claude Levi-Strauss structuralism -- Analysis of symbolic forms
of mythic
Through the work of Douglas and Victor Turner, as well as
performance theory, a new emphasis on ritual was established.
Concerned with the act
Intellectual Definition
•Max Mueller wrote that religion is a mental factor
independent of sense and reason to apprehend the
infinite in different names
Anthropological study of religion
• 1) The study origin
• 2) The study of function
• 3) The study of meaning
History of the Anthropology of Religion
1) The study of origin
2) The study of function
3) The study of meaning