Religion as an object of anthropological study

1
Religion as an object of anthropological study

• continued

2
Problems with anthropology of religion

• Reductionism
• Difficulties of studying belief
• Unclear relationship between religion and
  ideology
• Assumptions about of skepticism
• Schism within social scientific study of religion
  
• Concepual division between tribal and world
  religions

3
Reductionism

• Anthropological studies of religion
• explaining away religion
• reducing it to social, psychological, political
  or other needs
• Eg. Marxist, Durkheimian and Freudian approaches
• Eg. conversion among the Zapotecs of Oaxaca
• Various theories of conversion
• pushes and pulls
• Pushes
• Economic deprivation
• Pulls
• promise of reward in the next life
• more immediate psychic compensators

4
Rudolf Otto

• The Idea of the Holy (1917)
• Emphasis on numinous experience
• A feeling of awe and mystery
• An experience of something wholly other
• Numen (Latin) supernatural
• Those who have not experienced the feeling of
  numinous, need not bother to read the book.

5
Mircea Eliade

• Religion
• A phenomenon sui generis
• a religious phenonenon
• must be understood within its own frame of
  reference
• Religious experience
• fundamentally irreducible
• to try to grasp the essence of such a phenomenon
  by means of physiology, psychology, sociology,
  economics, linguistics, art or any other study is
  false it misses the one unique and irreducible
  element in it the element of the sacred.

6
Difficulties of studying belief

• How do we know what people really believe?
• belief as an "internal state"
• unrelated to language?
• inaccessible to the "external" conscious
  reflection of the native and hence to the
  anthropologist
• can be described?
• dependent on language
• language may be more formulaic than reflective
  of what is believed

7
Difficulties of studying belief

• Intellectual baggage of the English word belief
• Asad
• Emphasis on belief specific ot modern, private
  Christianity
• Evans-Pritchard
• The Nuer language does not have a word for
  believe
• Needham
• Belief, Language, and Experience (1972)
• The concept of belief is dependent on the word
  that describes it

8
Religion vs ideology

• Various ideologies
• features of religion
• rituals, myths, sacred etc
• eg. communism, fascism
• civil religion

9
Assumptions about skepticism

• Skepticism
• treated primarily as a western phenomenon
• Emerged only with modernity
• Non-western / premodern societies
• immersed into religious and mythological thought
• In reality
• skeptical views of religion are universal
• naturalistic worldview has a long history

10
Assumptions about skepticism

• Douglas
• many tribal cultures that have a secular bias
• the myth of the pious primitive should be
  ditched 
• Radcliffe-Brown
• In every human society there inevitably exist
  two different and in a certain sense conflicting
  conceptions of nature. One of them, the
  naturalistic, is implicit everywhere in
  technology, and, in our 20th century European
  culture, has become explicit and dominant in our
  thoughts. The other, which might be called
  mythological, or spiritualistic conception, is
  implicit in myth and in religion, and often
  becomes explicit in philosophy.

11
Schism within social scientific study of religion

• Separation between sociology and anthropology
• parochial perspectives (Morris, 1994)
• Unjustified specialization
• Sociology of religion
• Christianity
• Other world / historical religions (to a
  lesser extent)
• Secularism
• Anthropology of religion
• Tribal religion
• unjustified emphasis on more exotic aspects of
  religion

12
Tribal religions vs world religions

• Howells (1962)
• Differentiating aspects of world religions
• 1) messianic (Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad)
• 2) rigid ethical form
• 3) missionary and imperialistic
• 4) exclusiveness (intolerance towards other
  faiths)
• Morris (1994)
• An unnecessary conceptual division
• different theoretical treatment

13
Tribal religions vs world religions

• 1) religious systems of preliterate cultures
• basis for
• General discussions of religion
• Debates on the origins and functions of religion
• e.g. Evans-Pritchard
• Theories of Primitive Religion.
• dichotomy between natural and revealed religion
  is false
• yet data derived from tribal cultures is
  essential for ... determining the
  characteristics of religion generally.
• e.g. rationality debate (late 1960s)
• Science vs religion
• Religion traditional thought of preliterate
  cultures

14
Tribal religions vs world religions

• 2) Different treatment
• historical world religions
• treated as conceptual entities
• tribal religions
• dismembered and treated piecemeal
• Eg. most general texts on comparative religion
• World religions
• separate chapters on eg. Islam, Buddhism, and
  Judaism
• Tribal religions
• separate chapters on eg. mana, taboo, totemism,
  magic, shamanism, myth

15
Anthropological debates on origin

• 10.2.2005

16
Readings

• Tylor, E.B. Animism
• 1873 Primitive Culture (Chapter 11)
• Durkheim, É. pp. 1-12, 34-44, 419-22
• 1912 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

17
Discussion topics

• Roots of evolutionary approach to religion
• Darwin, Comte, Hegel, Engels
• Intellectualist (rationalist) arguments
• Müller
• Spencer
• Tylor
• Frazer
• Functionalist arguments
• Robertson Smith
• Durkheim

18
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Darwin

• The Origin of Species (1859)
• theory of biological evolution
• interest in social evolution
• social darwinism
• moral and political legitimation for
  laissez-faire capitalism
• society evolves toward increasing freedom for
  individuals
• eg. Spencer

19
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Comte

• father of sociology
• law of three phases
• Society has gone through three phases
• 1) Theological
• spiritual explanations of reality (supernatural
  beings)
• three subphases
• fetishism, polytheism, and monotheism.
• 2) Metaphysical stage (transitional stage)
• gods replaced by philosophical abstractions
• Being, Substance, etc
• Eg. Greek idealist philosophers

20
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Comte

• 3) Positivist/scientific stage
• science gains supremacy over philosophy
• observation and experiment
• sciences emerge in determinate order
• mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry,
  biology, and sociology

21
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Hegel

• Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1821-31)
• three phases of religious consciousness
• 1) The religions of nature (Die Naturreligion)
• 2) The religions of spiritual individuality
• 3) Christianity

22
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Hegel

• 1) Die Naturreligion
• Spirit not distinct from nature
• religions of magic
• Oriental religions
• Chinese religion - religion of measure
• Hinduism/brahmanism religion of fantasy
• Buddhism religion of inwardness
• Zoroastrianism religion of good
• first signs of spirit/nature
• Midway between 1) and 2)

23
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Hegel

• 2) The religions of spiritual individuality
• spirit a deity independent of the natural world
  
• Transcendental God vs world of humans and nature
• Jewish, Greek, and Roman religions
• religions of sublimity, beauty, and
  utility/intellect

24
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Hegel

• 3) Christianity
• Absolute religion
• separation between God and finite world is both
  annulled and preserved

25
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Engels

• Anti-Dühring (1878)
• All religion is nothing but the fantastic
  reflection in mens minds of those external
  forces which control their daily life
• Three stages of evolution of religion
• 1) Personification of the forces of nature
• 2) Personification of social forces
• 3) One almighty god monotheism

26
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion Engels

• religion linked to social conditions
• E.g. Christianity
• originally a movement of the oppressed
• subjected communities of the Roman Empire
• religion will disappear when social conditions
  that give rise to it have ceased to exist

27
Evolutionary approach to religion

• Religion
• A primitive way of explaining the world
• Universal
• Exceptions (Baker, 1866)
• Main concerns
• Definition of religion
• Origin of religion
• How (Why) did religion evolve?
• How has religion changed in human evolution?

28
Müller

• leading linguist and Sanskrit scholar in the 19th
  c
• translations of the Vedic scriptures
• Sacred Books of the East (fifty volumes)
• father of comparative religion
• Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873)
• General arguments
• belief in divinity is universal
• there is truth in all religions, even in the
  lowest
• primitive religions
• not the work of the devil

29
Müller

• Origin on religion
• focus on Vedic scriptures
• We see in the Vedic hymns the first revelation
  of Deity, the first expressions of surprise and
  suspicion, the first discovery that behind this
  visible and perishable world there must be
  something invisible, eternal or divine.
• No one who has read the hymns of the Rig-Veda can
  doubt any longer as to what was the origin of the
  earliest Aryan religion and mythology
• The deities very names tell us that they were
  all in the beginning names of the great
  phenomenon of nature, of fire, water, rain and
  storm, of sun and moon, of heaven and earth.

30
Müller

• Origin of religion
• experience of awe when confronting forces of
  nature
• nature worship
• personification of natural phenomena
• naturism
• Indo-European father-god
• appears under various names Zeus, Jupiter, Dyaus
  Pita
• 'Dyaus' (Sanskrit) 'shining, 'radiance,
  light
• 'deva', 'deus', 'theos' as generic terms for a
  god
• 'Zeus' and 'Jupiter' (deus-pater)

31
Müller

• Critique
• Lang, Durkheim
• accused of racism
• interest in Aryan culture
• Opposition of Indo-European and Semitic religions
  
• never as influential as Spencer and Tylor

32
Spencer

• Principles of Sociology (1876-96)
• Also on religion and religious beliefs of
  preliterate people
• Assumes cultural and intellectual inferiority of
  preliterate people
• Yet admits that
• primitive people are not irrational
• Arguments valid and reasonable in their own
  context

33
Spencer

• Earliest religion
• manism worship of ghosts
• Ghosts of dead ancestors
• ancestor worship
• (totemism a form of ancestor worship)
• Evolution of religion
• Ghosts Gods
• ghosts of important ancestors divinities
• Gods God
• polytheism monotheism

34
Tylor

• Müller and Spencer
• armchair scholars
• Tylor
• Traveled extensively, especially in Mexico
• a Quaker by religion, deeply anti-Catholic
• primitive cultures survivals

35
Tylor

• Primitive Culture (1871)
• ancient savage philosophers
• impressed by two groups of biological problems
• 1) what is it that makes the difference between
  a living body and a dead one and what causes
  sleep, trance, disease, death?
• 2) what are these human shapes which appear in
  dreams and visions?

36
Tylor

• Spirit or soul
• universal
• linguistic connection between certain ideas
• eg. shadow, life, breath / soul, spirit
• Humans, animals, plants, inanimate objects
• minimal definition of religion
• belief in spiritual beings
• animism

37
Tylor

• Evolution of religion
• 1) animism
• humans, animals, plants, and inanimate objects
  are endowed with souls
• 2) polytheism
• multiple spiritual beings to explain natural
  events and phenomena
• 3) monotheism
• animism of civilized man

38
Tylor

• primitive man
• a rationalist
• preliterate religious beliefs and practices
• not ridiculous or a rubbish heap of
  miscellaneous folly
• essentially consistent and logical
• based on rational thinking

39
Tylor

• Criticism
• Andrew Lang
• The Making of Religion (1898)
• the conception of high God / Supreme Being
• evident in many tribal communities
• Father Wilhelm Schmidt
• The Origin and Growth of Religion (1912)
• The Origin of the Concept of God (1955)
• Urmonotheismus argument
• monotheism evident among the most archaic
  peoples
• the Tasmanians and the Andaman Islanders
• later became overlaid with polytheistic
  conceptions

40
Tylor

• Criticism
• Robert Marett
• primitive man not that rational
• preanimistic stage
• animatism
• an impersonal supernatural force
• Eg. orenda among the Iroquois
• Eg. mana in Melanesia

41
Frazer

• Evolution of modes of explaining the world
• Magic religion science
• Magic logically more primitive than religion
• Magic
• similarity or contiguity of ideas
• imitative magic
• contagious magic
• Religion
• the conception of personal agents

42
Two general approaches in debates on origin

• Intellectualist / rationalist explanations
• Müller, Spencer, Tylor and Frazer
• religion sprang from rational inferences based on
  individual human experiences of oneself or the
  world
• Functionalist explanations
• Durkheim
• Robertson Smith

43
Durkheim

• evolutionary approach to social life in general
• mechanical and organic solidarity
• traditional vs modern societies
• traditional societies
• a system of homogeneous segments
• Social solidarity achieved by a common value
  system, shared beliefs
• Modern societies
• a system of heterogeneous segments
• solidarity is the outcome of mutual
  interdependence

44
Durkheim

• Durkheims theory of religion
• The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
• Influenced by
• McLennan
• Fustel de Coulanges
• W. Robertson Smith

45
Robertson Smith

• The Religion of the Semites (1889)
• Semitic societies of ancient Arabia
• Most primitive
• matrilineal clans
• totemism
• Clan totemism
• the earliest form of religion
• sacrifice - main ritual
• joint participation in eating sacramental meal
• communication between the god and worshipers
• expression of unity and solidarity
• binding clan members to each other and to their
  god.

46
Robertson Smith

• Important conclusions for Durkheim
• Analysis of religion
• in terms of the social group
• rather than as a form of speculative thought
• Primacy of ritual over belief
• Functionalist approach to rituals
• bind people together in the community.
• religion did not exist for saving of souls but
  for the preservation and welfare of society

47
Durkheim

• The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
• study of religion in its most primitive and
  simple form
• dissatisfied with animism and naturism
• totemism of the Australian aborigenes
• following McLennan and Robertson-Smith
• Based on the studies by Baldwin Spencer and F.J.
  Gillin
• Freud
• Religion
• too widespread a human institution
• cannot be based on pure illusion.
• even the most barbaric and fantastic religious
  rites and myths must be based on some human
  need.

48
Durkheim

• sacred is essential to religion
• All known religious beliefs, whether simple or
  complex, present one common characteristic they
  presuppose a classification of all the things,
  real or ideal, of which men think into two
  classes generally designated by two distinct
  terms which are translated well enough by the
  words profane and sacred.
• Sacred ? divine
• Not just gods and spirits but also rocks, trees
  etc.
• What makes something sacred is not connection to
  the divine but prohibitions setting it apart

49
Durkheim

• Durkheims definition of religion
• a unified set of beliefs and practices relative
  to sacred things, that is to say, things set
  apart and forbidden, - beliefs and practices
  which unite one single moral community all
  those who adhere to them.
• religion is essentially a collective
  phenomenon
• inseparable from the idea of cult or moral
  community
• Different from magic
• Magic is an individualistic enterprise

50
Durkheim

• Origin of religion
• collective tribal life style
• the experience of the social group
• generates in people feelings that sustain
  religion
• heightened emotional state
• delirium or collective effervescence
• The function of rituals
• strengthen the bonds attaching the believer to
  god
• strengthen the bonds attaching the individual to
  the social group
• Through ritual, the group becomes conscious of
  itself.

51
Durkheim

• Criticism
• Rigid separation between the sacred and the
  profane
• religion establishes and reaffirms group
  solidarity
• society is not homogeneous
• sex, class, ethnic affiliation etc.
• Religious beliefs have an ideological function
• legitimate the domination of one group or class
  over another (Giddens)