Download Religions of the World

PHR 121: Introduction to
Religion
For syllabus, deadlines and study materials, see course
website at http://IntroRel.wikispaces.com/
Movie: on common ground:
landscape
Why study world religions?
1. Pluralism: NJ has the full range of world religions. So
will the places in which we work and live.
2. Conflicts often break down along lines of religion,
ideology, tribe, language group etc.
3. Foreign affairs - international business
4. Personal growth: wisdom, meaning, ethics, answers
5. History: much of our present culture has religious roots.
6. Its everywhere: we cant find a culture, time or place where
religion has not been a significant phenomenon.
Religious Studies
• Begins with the exposure of the West
to eastern religious traditions (India,
China, Japan….).
• It is interdisciplinary, drawing on
sociology, psychology, history,
philosophy, and anthropology.
Academic disciplines each analyzed religion
differently, as did the religions themselves
Philosophers:
Hume, Kant,
Fries, Otto
Economists
Marx, Weber
Anthropologists:
Frazier, de
Saussure, LeviStrauss, Geertz
Sociologists
Comte,
Durkheim,
Berger, Stark
Psychologists:
James, Freud,
Jung
Zoroastrianism
Judaism
Christianity
Religious
Studies
Islam
Confucianism
Taoism
Buddhism
Hinduism
Women’s
studies: Tavris &
Gross, Saiving
Western
Classical
Traditions:
Middle Eastern:
Semitic,
Persian,
European:
Greek, Roman
Eastern
Classical
Traditions:
Asian:
Indian,
Chinese,
Japanese
The meaning of the word “religion” has changed
over the last five centuries.
• A. In the 16th century, it indicated the institutional
life of the Christian Church, while the faith practices
of non-Christians were considered either idolatry or
“fashions.”
• B. During the Romantic era (18th–19th centuries),
religion came to refer to personal attitudes and
became synonymous with “faith.”
• C. As knowledge of other religions increased from the
late 18th century on, the word “religion” came to
indicate a category of which other religions were
equal members.
What is Religion?
• Any definition has to work for all things
we conventionally call religion.
Taoism
Confucianism
Buddhism
Hinduism
Come up with a list of what characteristics these 7
traditions have in common that might cause us to
identify them as religions.
Judaism
Christianity
Islam
There is only one religion, though there are hundreds of versions of it.
-George Bernard Shaw
Some definitions of religion
deliberately distinguish it from….
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Faith
Superstition
Magic
Science
Cults
Polytheism
One’s own religion
Monotheistic definitions
(Western focus)
• Religion is the belief in an ever-living God,
that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the
Universe and holding moral relationship
with mankind.
--James Martineau
Reductionism:
describing a complex phenomenon as something
which is simple and one dimensional
Religion is nothing but……..
• …..an infantile neurosis (Freud)
• ….the opiate of the people (Marx)
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, just as it is the spirit of an unspiritual situation.
It is the opium of the people.”
• … bad science (George Frazier, David
Hume)
Reductionism:
describing a complex phenomenon as something
which is simple and one dimensional
Religion is nothing but……..
• …..an infantile neurosis (Freud)
• ….the opiate of the people (Marx)
+ a tendency to
praise. Through
theology, philosophy,
history
16th Century
Reformation ,
Wars of Religion
& 17th Century
Enlightenment
- A tendency
to
explain away using
psychology,
sociology,
anthropology, history,
philosophy, politics
Affective definitions
• Religion is that which grows out of, and
gives expression to, the experience of
the holy. ---Rudolf Otto
• The essence of religion is the feeling of
absolute dependence.
---Friedrich Scleiermacher
Extremely Inclusive:
general but not distinctive
• The religious is any activity pursued in behalf
of an ideal end against obstacles and in spite
of threats of personal loss because of its
general or enduring value-----John Dewey
Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate
Concern, a concern which qualifies all other
concerns as
Preliminary and which in itself contains the answer
to the meaning of life -----Paul Tillich
Moral emphasis only
• Religion is the recognition of all our
duties as divine commands.
----Immanuel Kant
Functionalist definitions
Clifford Geertz
• (1) a system of symbols which acts to
(2) establish powerful, pervasive, and
long-lasting moods and motivations in
men by (3) formulating conceptions of a
general order of existence and (4)
clothing these conceptions with such an
aura of factuality that (5) the moods and
motivations seem uniquely realistic
Religiongeschichteschule
The history of religions (school of religious history) was a
19th century German school of thought which was the first to
systematically study religion as a socio-cultural phenomenon. It
depicted religion as evolving with human culture, from primitive
polytheism to ethical monotheism (their bias).
Religiongeschichteschule appeared at a time when
scholarly study of the Bible and church history was flourishing in
Germany and elsewhere (see Higher criticism, Historical-critical
method).
Why study Religions?
a. To understand human beings: spiritual selftranscendence seems to be built into human nature
b. To overcome our ignorance: of traditions other
than our own
c. To comprehend our own culture and history.
d. To achieve a global perspective
e. To help formulate our own religious belief or
philosophy of life. Studying religions inevitably
leads one to evaluate one’s own values and beliefs
Why study Religions?
Moral spin-offs
Ethical concepts historically have flowed from
religious ideas and practices
Positive ideals of what a good life is.
Virtues: what traits and behaviors are positive and
reinforce these
Prohibitions of that seen as incompatible (vice) with a
good life
What is a good society, and how should people interact
to create it?
Why study Religions?
Creative spin-offs
Art
Music
Architecture
Politics
Economics
Science
Philosophy
Our approach
• Descriptive. Observational.
• Suspend temporarily our own personal beliefs
and/or personal skepticism.
• Approach each religion as an outsider trying to learn
what an insider of that group sees and experiences in
their experience of their religion “from the inside
out”.
• Criticism, but with an attempt at empathy: religion
impacts politics, economics, family life, relationships, legal
systems and gender roles across 7 continents and thousands
of years. When advancing a criticism of a religious practice try
to identify what values and beliefs you are appealing to in
advancing the criticism, and how other value systems,
especially those of the believer, might cause the adherent to
see it differently.
Topics
• Methods of RS
• Concepts of God
(deity)
• The Sacred/Holy
• Scripture
• Ritual
• Myth & Symbols
• Cosmogony
• Human Nature
• Theodicy: Good &
Evil
• Salvation
• Doctrine & Orthodoxy
• Secularization
• Gender
• The State
• Spin-offs: art, music,
literature, architecture