Religion
(Chapter 10)
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
The BIG Questions
 What is religion and what are the basic
features of religions?
 How do world religions illustrate
globalization and localization?
 What are some important
aspects of religious change in
contemporary times?
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Religion in Comparative
Perspective
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What is religion?
Magic versus Religion
Theories of the origin of religion
Religious beliefs
Religious practices
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What is religion?
 Religion is beliefs and actions related
to supernatural beings and forces
 Includes both beliefs and behaviors
 Religion is related to people’s
worldview, or way of understanding
how the world came to be, its design,
and their place in it
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Magic versus religion
 Magic is seen as people’s attempt to
compel supernatural forces and beings
to act in certain ways
 Religion, in contrast, attempts to please
supernatural forces or beings
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Magic versus religion
 Magic and religion have been focuses on
anthropologists’ attention since the late
1800’s.
 They developed an evolutionary model.
Science – most “rational” and civilized
Religion
Magic – originally viewed as less spiritual and
ethical, and therefore more “primitive”
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Another early religious
evolutionary model…
Monotheism – belief in one deity
Polytheism – belief in many deities
Animism – the belief in “souls” or doubles
 Often a belief that animals, plants, and
other entities have souls in addition to
humans
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Evolutionary Models Today
 Today anthropologists do not believe in
the evolutionary model of magic to
religion to science or from animism to
polytheism to monotheism.
 Why?
 Is not very culturally relative
 Does not account for the fact that people in a
society (and even in a “modern” society) may
believe in magic, religion, and science!
 Does not take into account religious pluralism
 Can find truth in different religions
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Contemporary Examples of
Magic in “modern” society
 Curses – most dreaded form of magic,
placed upon people with the intention
of harming them
 Cubs curse!
 Lucky rabbits foot
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Contemporary Examples of
Magic in “modern” society
 Professional Sports
 http://www.cbc.ca/sports/columns/top10/superstiti
on.html
 2005 study of 77 professional baseball players in
the U.S. and Japan found 74% of the players
engaged in at least one superstitious behavior
before or during a game
 Wearing lucky clothes, sitting in lucky spots, eating
certain foods, not talking about certain things, entering
the field a certain way
 American baseball players used superstitions to try to
improve their individual performance, whereas
Japanese baseball players used superstitions in an
attempt to improve their team performance
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Theoretical Perspectives on
Religion
 Religion may provide ways of
explaining and coping with universal
human problems of life and death,
illness, and misfortune
 Religion may help reduce anxiety and
uncertainty
 Religion may provide a way to maintain
group continuity through shared
symbols and rituals
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Theoretical Perspectives on
Religion
 Religion may provide a model of life
(how to understand the world) and a
model for life (how to behave in the
world)
 Religion is a “projective system” that
expresses people’s unconscious
thoughts, wishes, and worries
 Religion may provide a superficial form
of comfort to the poor, preventing
uprisings against the rich
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Theoretical Perspectives on
Religion
Religion provides ways of explaining and coping with
universal human problems - Tylor
Religion serves society by giving it cohesion through
shared symbols and rituals – Durkheim
Religion is a “projective system” that expresses people’s
unconscious thoughts, wishes, and worries – Freud
Religion offers a “model of and for life” – Geertz
Religion provides a superficial form of comfort to the poor,
preventing uprisings against the rich - Marx
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Expressing Beliefs
 Religious beliefs are expressed and
transferred over the generations in two
main forms
 Myths
 Stories that convey messages about
supernatural forces or beings indirectly through
the story itself
 Doctrine
 Direct statements about religious beliefs
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Myths
 Myths express core beliefs and teach
morality, often in a form understandable
and accessible to all (including children)
 Often exist in oral form
 Myths may contain both moral lessons
and practical ones
 Myths may store and transmit information
related to making a living and managing
economic crises
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Doctrine
 Doctrine is written and formal
 It links incorrect beliefs and behaviors
with punishments
 Associated with institutionalize, largescale religions rather than small-scale
religions
 May not be accessible to all
 Doctrine is often guarded by the powerful
and highly educated – e.g. Catholic popes
have the power to change doctrine
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Beliefs about Supernatural
Forces and Beings
 Supernatural forces and beings range
from impersonal forces to those that
look just like human
 Supernatural forces and beings range
from being all-powerful creators to
mischievous annoyances
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Beliefs about Supernatural
Forces and Beings
 Animatism – refers to belief systems in
which the supernatural is conceived of
as an impersonal power
 Mana – impersonal force that is neither
spirit nor deity
 Is more like a substance
 Something souls are made out of
 Manifests itself in objects and people
 Luck
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Beliefs about Supernatural
Forces and Beings
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Zoomorphic supernaturals – deities in
the shape, or partial shape, of animals
 e.g Sphinx
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Anthropomorphic supernaturals –
deities in the form of humans
 Have emotions
 e.g. ancient Greek gods
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Beliefs about Supernatural
Forces and Beings
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Pantheons – collections of deities
responsible for different areas, different
aspects of life
 May have hierarchies
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Deceased ancestors can also become
supernatural
 e.g. Japan ancestor veneration/worship
 National holidays in which deceased ancestors
are believed to visit living relatives’ homes and
when family members visit gravesites
 Mexico’s Day of the Dead
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Beliefs about Sacred Space
 Beliefs about sacred space probably exist in
all religions, but such beliefs are more
prominent in some religions than others
 Sacred spaces can include…
 Natural sites – rock formations, rapids in a river,
etc.
 Culturally constructed sites
 Marked or unmarked sites
 Temporarily sacred site or permanently sacred
sites
 Contested sacred spaces
 Claims to sacred space are frequently the basis of
conflict between people of different faiths and between
believers and commercial interests
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Ritual
 A ritual is a patterned form of behavior that is
focused on the supernatural realm
 Many rituals are the enactment of beliefs
expressed in myth and doctrine
 Ritual is religion in action!
 Secular ritual – patterned forms of behavior
with no connection to the supernatural realm
 Sorority or fraternity initiation
 Some ritual events combine both secular and
sacred elements
 Thanksgiving
 Sacred elements – give thanks to God (originally for the
survival of the pilgrims)
 Secular elements – watching football
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Ritual
 Rituals can be periodic
 Periodic rituals are performed annually to
mark a seasonal milestone such as planting
or harvesting or to commemorate some
important event
 e.g. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Buddha’s Day
 …or nonperiodic
 Nonperiodic rituals occur irregularly, at
unpredictable times, in response to
unscheduled events
 e.g. funerals, weddings, birth, last rights, puberty
ceremony
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Some Common Types of Rituals
 Life-cycle rituals
 Life-cycle rituals are rites of passages that
mark a change in status from one life stage
to another of an individual or group
 Usually involves a period of…
 Separation
 Transition (liminality)
 Reintegration
 Examples include…
 Puberty rituals
 Marriage
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Some Common Types of Rituals
 Pilgrimage
 A pilgrimage is round-trip travel to a sacred place or
places for purposes of religious devotion or ritual
 Often involve hardships
 The more suffering that is involved, the more merit the
pilgrim accumulates
 Often involves separation, transition (liminality), and
reintegration as well
 Example
 Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca
 Every able bodied Muslim is supposed to go on a
pilgrimage here at least once in their lifetime
 Demonstrates devotion to Allah and solidarity with other
devotees of the Islamic faith
 communitas – a sense of collective unity out of individual
diversity
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Mecca
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Some Common Types of Rituals
 Rituals of Inversion
 A ritual of inversion is a ritual in which
normal social roles and relations are
temporarily inverted.
 Are believed to allow for social pressure to
be released and to maintain social order
 Examples
 Carnival – Brazil, France, Italy
 Mardi Gras – New Orleans
 Halloween
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A night of disguises and reversals
Allows kids to play bad and evil for a night in the dark
Eat lots of candy and get candy from random strangers
Shifts adult-child power balance
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Some Common Types of Rituals
 Sacrifice
 Sacrifice is the offering of something for
transfer to the supernaturals
 Probably one of the oldest forms of rituals
 May involve human sacrifice (whole human
or body parts), animal sacrifice, offering
fruits, vegetables, grains, flowers
 Example
 Aztec human sacrifice
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Aztec Human Sacrifice and
Cannibalism
• Aztec gods “ate” human hearts and “drank”
human blood
• Victims were usually prisoners of war or slaves
• Once victims were sacrificed, the body was
prepared for cooking
• Why? A way of showing political strength and
feeding the poor (Harris 1977)
• Why? To satisfy the gods, based on religious logic
that had to sacrifice humans to sustain the sun
and the world (Sanday 1986)
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Religious Specialists
 Rituals may require informal knowledge
gained through everyday enculturation
or they may require extensive formal
training to be done correctly
 Some specialists include…
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Shaman/shamanka
Priest/priestess
Diviner
Prophet
Witches
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Religious Specialists
 A shaman/shamanka is a part-time religious
specialist who gains status through a direct
relationship with the supernaturals, often by
being “called”
 Is an openly available role
 More often associated with nonstate societies
 Most often associated with non-periodic rituals
 A priest/priestess is a full-time religious
specialist whose position is based mainly on
abilities gained through formal training
 More often associated with state-level societies
 Most often associated with periodic rituals
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Other Religious Specialists
 A diviner is a religious specialist who is
able to discover the will and wishes of
the supernaturals through techniques
such as reading animal entrails
 Those in Azande culture who interpret the
oracles
 Tarot card reader
 Palm reader
 Tea leaf reader
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Other Religious Specialists
 A prophet is a specialist who conveys
divine revelations usually gained
through visions or dreams
 Attractive and powerful personality
 May be able to perform miracles
 Status as a prophet might be contentious
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Other Religious Specialists
 A witch is someone who uses psychic
powers and affects people through
emotion and thought
 Mainstream society often views witchcraft
as a negative, but there are real life “good
witches”
 Wicca – religion based on ancient
witchcraft practices, neopagan naturebased religion
 Strives for harmony, balance, and peace
 Spells strive for healing and harmony
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World Religions
 A world religion is a religion with many
followers that cross country borders
 Major contemporary world religions
include…
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Christianity
Islam
Hinduism
Buddhism
 Other contemporary world religions
include…
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Judaism
Confucianism
Taoism
Shintoism
African belief systems
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Hinduism
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Around 900 million people in the world are Hindus
About 80% of all Hindus live in India
Hinduism does not actively seek converts
Core sacred texts are four Vedas
Polytheistic religion with a diversity of sacred sites,
large and small
 A variety of different pilgrimage sites associated
with various deities and their shrines
 Are varieties (e.g. between the way different castes
worship the various deities) but there is a “unity in
diversity” of the religion provided by some core
elements in the Vedas (e.g. belief in reincarnation
and karma – fate determined by previous
existence)
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Hinduism
Incorporates
diversity of ways
to be Hindu
Most Hindus
live in India
Rich polytheism
Core texts:
the 4 Vedas
“Unity in diversity”
Sacred sites range from
a pile of stones under a
tree to monumental
temples
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Wall painting done during a Hindu ritual
in North India in which a wife prays for the
health and long life of their husband
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Young Hindu boy who has been on a
pilgrimage with his parents to a temple in
Kashmir, the Himalayas
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Buddhism
 Around 400 million people around the world
are Buddhists
 Founding figure Siddhartha Gautama (566486 BCE) – the Buddha
 Started in northern India where the Buddha
grew up
 First arose as protest against features of
Hinduism such as the caste system
 Share some shared beliefs with Hinduism,
such as the belief in karma
 Buddhism is most prevalent today in inner
Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and Sri Lanka
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Buddhism
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No accepted single text
Importance of the Buddha shared
Also believe in reincarnation and karma
Goal is to achieve nirvana = enlightenment
and the overcoming of human suffering in this
life
 Doesn’t actively seek converts
 Strong tradition of monasticism
 Monks and nuns renounce the everyday world and
spend their lives meditating and doing good works
 Also have important pilgrimage sites
 Sarnath – place of Buddha’s first teaching
 Gaya – place of Buddha’s first enlightment
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Buddhism originated in India and spread
throughout eastern and southeastern Asia
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Judaism
 There are about 15 million worldwide
 Found most often in the U.S., Israel, Europe,
and Russia
 Share in the belief in the Torah (Pentateuch,
Five Books of Moses) as the revelation of
God’s truth
 Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy
 A key feature is the identification of what is
wrong with the present and how to escape,
overcome, or survive that situation (tension
between exile and return)
 High regard for human life
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Judaism
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Words, both spoken and written, are important
Monotheistic religion
Distinctive dietary pattern of kosher
Emphasis on truth telling
Pilgrimages are also important
 Most sacred place is the Kotel, or Western Wall
in Jerusalem
 Site where God asked Abraham to sacrifice
his son Isaac
 Site of King Solomon’s the First Temple, King
Herod’s the Second Temple
 Doesn’t try to convert new members
 Dispute about who should be considered a Jew
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Jerusalem is the
holiest city of
Judaism, and
also the third
holiest city of
Islam and holy
to many
Christians as
well
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The Kotel, or Western Wall, in
Jerusalem, a pilgrimage site especially
for Jewish people
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Christianity
 Are about 2 billion Christians in the world
 Largest of the world religions
 Majority religion of Australia, New Zealand, the
Philippines, Papua New Guinea, most countries of
Europe and of North and South America, and
about a dozen southern African countries
 Minority religion throughout much of Asia
 Has many ties with Judaism – Christianity
sprang from Judaism in the Middle East
 Many branches and denominations worldwide
 Three largest branches of Christianity are…
 Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox
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Christianity
 Belief that Jesus Christ is the messiah who
came to earth in fulfillment of the prophesies
contained in the Hebrew scripture
 Belief that God sent His Son to earth as a sacrifice
for the welfare of humanity
 Teachings of Jesus as model for behavior
and moral guidance
 Basic text is the Bible (both Old and New
Testaments)
 Does actively try to convert others to
Christianity
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The Vatican, in Rome, is the center of
Roman Catholicism and also a popular
tourist site
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Islam
 There are about 1.4 billion Muslims (followers
of Islam) in the world
 The second largest world religion
 Most of the world’s Muslims live in South Asia
or Southeast Asia
 Muslim-majority nations are located in
northern Africa; the Middle East, including
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in
South Asia; and several nations in Central
Asia and Southeast Asia
 Youngest of the world religions
 Based on the teachings of the prophet
Muhammad (570-632)
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Islam
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Strive for peace
Monotheistic religion – one God (Allah)
Qu’ran (Koran) is the key text of Islam
Five Pillars of Islam
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Profession of faith in Allah
Daily prayer
Fasting
Contributing alms for the poor
Pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj)
 Sunni and Shi’a are the two major branches
 Local variations in ritual practices
 Does actively strive for converts to Islam
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The largest
mosque in the
world is in
Casablanca,
Morocco. It
has space for
25,000
worshippers
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African Religions
 First spread outside of Africa in earlier
centuries with the coerced movement of
people as slaves
 African diaspora religions are prominent
in the U.S., Caribbean, Central and
South America
 New forms emerging especially in the
Western Hemisphere
 Influenced by world religions such as
Christianity and Islam
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African Religions
 Some commonalities of African religions
include…
 Myths about a split between a creator deity
and humans
 A pantheon of supernaturals – range from
powerful gods to lesser spirits
 Elaborate initiation rituals and sacrifices
 Elaborate dances, meals, often animal
sacrifices
 Altars within shrines as focal places where
humans and deities meet
 Close links with healing
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World Religions
 No world religion exists as a single,
homogenous entity
 Each world religion comprises many local
variants
 May have religious syncretism – elements of
two or more religions blended together
 This may raise a predicament for centrally
organized religions in terms of how to maintain a
balance between standardization based on core
beliefs and the local variations
 Religious pluralism – when various
religious beliefs coexist together, but do not
blend elements
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Virgin of Guadalupe
Syncretically
represents both the
Virgin Mary and the
indigenous Mexican
goddess Tonantzin,
providing a way for
16th century
Spaniards to gain
converts among the
indigenous
population of early
Mexico
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World Religions
 Photographs of the various world
religions’ religious practices
 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27857596/
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Religious Change
 Nowhere are religions frozen and
unchanging
 Anthropologists look at…
 Resurgence of religions that seemed to
have been headed toward extinction
through colonial forces, but are now being
revitalized
 Revitalization of religions in socialist states
that were once suppressed
 Religious pluralism and religious
syncretism
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Religious Change
 Revitalization movements
 Seek to bring about positive change by
reconstructing parts of religion threatened
by outside forces
 Often arise in the context of rapid cultural
change and appear to represent a way for
people to try to make sense of their
changing world and their place in it
 e.g. Ghost Dance movement
 Cargo cults
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Religious Change
 Contested Sacred Sites
 Religious conflict often becomes focused
on sacred sites
 Jerusalem – holy sites sacred to Muslims,
Jews, and Christians
 India – sites of conflict between Muslims and
Hindus
 U.S. – racial, ethnic, and religious conflict
 e.g. white racists burning African American churches
 Native American’s land being destroyed for the sake
of urban growth, petroleum and mineral extraction,
and even recreational sports
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Religious Change
 Religious Freedom as a Human Right
 According to a United Nations Declaration,
freedom from religious persecution is a universal
human right
 Violations of this right by countries and by
competing religions are common
 U.S. Patriot act in 2001 - practice denies Muslims their
civil liberties by empowering law enforcement authorities
to raid their homes, offices, and mosques in the name of
the war on terrorism
 Sometimes people who are persecuted on
religious grounds can seek and obtain sanctuary
in other places or nations
 Tibetan Buddhist refugees in exile in the U.S., Canada,
and India where they attempt to keep their religion,
language, and heritage alive
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The BIG Questions Revisited
 What is religion and what are the basic
features of religions?
 How do world religions illustrate
globalization and localization?
 What are some important
aspects of religious change in
contemporary times?
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008