Introduction
 Ghosts, ancestors, and vampires used to be human
 But gods and spirits are supernatural beings that may
not have human origins
 Gods tend to have individual personalities and names
and spirits are more less powerful and more localized
Gods and Spirits
 Spirits can be individual (spirit guide, ancestor,
shaman’s helper) or communal
 Gods tend to live in specific location outside of the
earth while spirits live in the human world and interact
with humans
 Can offer protection or punishment
 Offerings, rituals, sacrifices are meant to appease them
 The site of these rituals are at shrines
Example: Vision Quest
 In Native American cultures, the vision quest is an
individualistic ritual in which a person finds his or her
spirit guide through ASC
 The Ojibwa tribe has a boy at puberty sit on a tall
platform and fast until he has a vision
 This vision guide shows what path his life will take
 A successful vision ushers him in to adulthood
 The berdache were given their position in this way or
in a dream
Example: Jinn
 Islamic
 In the Qur’an, there are three types of beings: humans
(clay), angels (light), and jinns (fire)
 Can have human or animal form, or be invisible
 They have lives (born, marry, die)
 Can have special relationship with a human and can have
special powers, but they can also be troublemakers
 The genie in Aladdin is a jinn
Example: Sudan
 Spirit possession
 Type of jinn called a zar, who causes illness and is
associated with blood and fertility
 Through spirit possession it can enter a woman’s body
 Women in this culture are very anxious about their
fertility because it determines their place in society
 Problems with fertility are blamed in zar and rituals
help draw them out of those possessed
Angels and Demons
 These appear in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
 They are mediators between God and humans
 Angels come not from the Bible but from Saint
Dionysus, who had a hierarchy of angels
Angels and Demons
Angels and Demons
 While angels are good beings that help God, demons are
evil beings that are associated with the devil
 Involved in temptation and human evil
 68% of Americans in 2007 said they believe that angels and
demons are real
 According to the Bible, Satan was once an angel who fell
from Heaven
 Between 15th-17th centuries demonology was extremely
popular
 Incubus and succubus were male and female demons that
have sex with humans while they sleep
Angels and Demons
Exorcism
 This is a Christian practice
in which religious
specialists cure a demonic
possession
 In the Catholic Church, the
priest is told to be skeptical
and look for other causes of
behavior (mental illness)
 Exorcisms are rare and
have become part of pop
culture from the 1970s The
Exorcist movies
Gods
 Gods are more powerful than spirits
 Control nature
 Wind, rain, fertility…
 In cultures there can be one god up to more than 1000
gods
Gods
 They are anthropomorphic
and take on human form and
personalities
 They can be influenced by
offerings and sacrifices
 Behavior of humans is
controlled by commandments
from the god(s)
Types of Gods
 The gods in a religious system is called a pantheon,
which usually has a hierarchy with a supreme god at
the top
 Specialized gods are attribute gods who control that
specific thing
 Creator gods create the physical earth and living things
on it
 Otiose gods are not directly involved in humans’ lives
and therefore rituals are rarely performed to them
Gods and Society
 Gods serve important role in society
 Take on social statuses such as mother, father, sister,
son, etc.
 We relate to them and learn from their actions
 They model correct human behavior
Gods and Society
 They also show status in the community
 Status can be ascribed (given based on family) or
achieved (given based on achievement)
 Gods help people understand their place in society and
can also help people accept their current status and
work hard for a better afterlife or new life
Goddesses
 Some scholars say that
early human religions
focused on fertility and
therefore focused on
goddess worship
 Early statues can
Venus figures show
exaggerated fertility
 As monotheism took
hold, goddess worship
declined
Goddesses: Example
 Ishtar (Near East)
 Worldview: nature
represented violent
relationships between gods
 Ishtar had power over fate
 Sexuality and marriage were
symbolic of her
 Connected to fertility of land
Goddesses: Example
 Isis (Egypt)
 “Great Mother” and “Queen
of Heaven”
 Represented family,
motherhood
 Originally associated with
royalty, she later was
associated with nature
 300 BCE began the Isis
mystery religion (secret rites)
Goddesses: Example
 Kali (Hindu)
 Associated with
creativity and nature
 “Black One,” fierce,
blood-thirsty
 But not evil: she is
creation and destruction
 Represents
transformation
Goddesses: Example
 Mary (Catholic)
 Medieval periods she was
set above saints and
second to God
 “Queen of Heaven”
 Bore the son of God
 Protector and sustainer
Monotheism
 Most religions in the world and through history were
polytheistic
 Three major world religions are monotheistic:
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
 All believe in one God who is omnipotent (allpowerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and
omnibenevolent (all-good)
Judaism
 Believes the Jews have been chosen by God as having a
special relationship with him
 This may have developed from a polytheistic religion
 Some say the many different names for God in the
Hebrew Bible are actually names of different gods
 Moses made a covenant with God through the Ten
Commandments
 The commandment “though shalt not worship false
idols” or “though shalt not have other gods before me”
may also point to polytheism
Judaism
 God is very anthropomorphic but can also appear in
non-human form (burning bush)
 He is often cruel and violent and also forgiving and
compassionate
 God is seen as a subjective and private path for the
individual to discover
Christianity
 Branched out of Judaism
 People were expecting a human Messiah
 Jesus never claimed to be divine and it was not until
the Council of Nicea in the 4th century that he was
voted as divine and was God in a human form
 Jesus is mediator between God and humans and will
lead people back to God
 Therefore, he is salvation
Christianity
 Idea of the Trinity
 God (Father, creator), Jesus (Son, also God), Holy
Ghost (spirit of God after Jesus’ death)
 The concept of the Trinity causes problems for some
Christians because it seems polytheistic
Islam
 Centered on prophet Mohammad, in Mecca (also
location of Kaaba, a mysterious, huge cubed shrine
said to have been built by Abraham and Ishmael)
 Allah (God) is identical to Jewish and Christian God
 Islam sought to restore authentic monotheism, which
the other two religions had strayed from
 Mohammad is the way to do this
Islam
 Mohammad was given the
word of God to recite from
an angel and this became the
Qur’an
 People are encouraged to
look for signs of God’s
goodness and power in the
world
 Humans can find peace by
surrendering completely to
God
Atheism
 Historically this meant not accepting the current conception
or religious practice of God
 Scientific developments in the 17th-18th centuries led people
to question how the world worked and how their religious
beliefs did not seem to be valid to explain this
 Many atheists also do not condemn the idea of God, only
the idea of a cruel, punishing God or the horrible things
people do in the name of religion
 Many people identify as agnostic, which says the existence
of God is unprovable
HW #4
 Select two events connected to religion (next slide) and
discuss how fundamentalist religious beliefs can be
dangerous. Give details and examples.
 Select three of the religious views presented in lecture
and identify common themes they share. How would
seeing similarities in religions help make the world a
more peaceful place?
HW #4
 The Holocaust
 September 11th/Suicide bombers
 The Crusades
 Bombing of abortion clinics
 Spanish Inquisition