Download Week 2 Definitions 1 2016

Week 2 Definitions 1
What is Religion?
Basic questions for this week:
 What, if anything, do“religions” have in common?
o i.e. is there a common “essence” of religion?
 How much overlap is there between religion(s) and other forms of human
activity?
 Is there even such a thing as religion, or is religion a disguise for some more
basic aspect of human experience or desire?
Example: what are “religious purposes”?
A real world example of these questions of definition: Is Scientology a religion?
NZ Charitable Trusts act of 1957 accords Charitable trust status to the following
purposes:
 the promotion of education,
 the promotion of religion
 the relief of poverty;
 other purposes of benefit to the community.
Based on Elizabethan Charitable Purposes Act of 1601. But has the meaning of
“religion” changed over 400 years? – i.e. from one of “duty towards others” to
a more abstract definition such as “world religions”?
1983 Australian Court Case: Church of the New Faith vs Commissioner of Pay-Roll Tax
decided that it was impossible to find a definition of religion that would suit all
“religions.” Ended up according Scientology charitable status.
The New Zealand IRD decided in 2002 that the Church of Scientology was a
charitable organisation “dedicated to the advancement of religion” and was
therefore tax-exempt. This is not, however, a judgement as to whether it
actually is a religion.
Cf. France and many other European countries where Scientology is not
recogniseed as a religion.
How the meaning of “religion” has changed
The discipline of Religious Studies is a by-product of modern European imperialism,
and Europeans’ gradual realization that “religion” wasn’t the same thing in all
cultures.
See, e.g. the very restricted Protestant, Christian, Eurocentric definition of the
Anglican missionary William Colenso (1811-1899) commenting on Maori in
1868.
“Religion - according to both the true and popular meaning of the word they had none. Whether religion be defined to be virtue, as founded upon
the reverence of God, and expectation of future rewards and punishments;
RELIGIONS IN NEW ZEALAND Week 2 2016
1
or any system of divine faith and worship, they knew nothing of the kind.
They had neither doctrine or dogma; neither cultus, nor system of worship.
They knew not of any Being who could properly be called God. They had no
idols. They reverenced not the sun, or moon, or glittering heavenly host, or
any natural philosopher.”
Religio
Latin religio from religere – to bind, to oblige. Similar in meaning to Maori tikanga or
kawa: protocols, procedures (on a marae) or English observance.
Romans and early Christians don’t talk about “religions” in the plural or even “a
religion”; religio is simply the procedures and obligations that everyone
expects to observe, not just towards the gods, but other human beings as well
(e.g. your duty to your parents)
A “religious” person is someone who takes great care about these observances. Cf. I
watch Game of Thrones religiously.
Early European colonialism
15th-16th centuries: when European explorers first encountered other peoples in
Africa, New World and Asia, they had a variety of words to describe what they
saw:
 antiquities
 idolatry
 superstition
 rites and ceremonies
Religions in the plural
17th century: religious wars between Christians in Europe and more global
exploration led Europeans to talk about “religions” for the first time and to
consider what, if anything, they had in common.
Tended to speak about four religions:
1. Christianity
2. “Mahometanism” (Islam)
3. Judaism
4. “Idolatry”
What is common to all religions?
18th century: Enlightenment thinkers gave more consideration to what “religions”
had in common:
“Natural religion” = some hypothesised “primitive” form of religion based on:
 reason?
 an innate sense of morality?
 emotions?
RELIGIONS IN NEW ZEALAND Week 2 2016
2
This gives rise to the question: does religion actually exist as a thing in its own right?
Or is it a disguised form of something else, like basic moral reasonsing?
Do religions evolve?
19th century: even greater European expansion; a flood of reports about nonEuropean cultures from colonial officials and misisonaries
Beginning of the discipline of anthropology (mostly developed from the armchairs
in anthropologists’ European studies rather than fieldwork)
Raises these questions:
 Is religion a thing, or an expression of something else – e.g. a way of building
community, coping with economic hardship
 Is there some basic form common to all human religions?
 If there is, do religions evolve from more “primitive” to more “sophisticated”
forms? (NB. European value-judgments about what is “primitive” and what is
“sophisticated”)
o e.g. evolution from “primitive” religions to “higher” religions, which
are more “spiritual”
o e.g. or evolution from “national” religions to “universal” or “ethical”
religions.
o The old category of “idolatry” is now discarded and opened up to
include “Hinduism,” “Buddhism,” “Taoism” etc.
How should we classify religions?
late 19th-20th cent: anthropologists and sociologists still trying to find a definition
that fits all religions (and wondering whether religion actually exists as a thing
and not a disguise for something else)
But, trying to move away from value judgements implicit in “primitive”/”higher”,
“national”/”ethical” classifications.
Move towards genealogies and taxonomies like those used for families of languages
o e.g. Max Müller (1823-1900) looking for commonalities according to
region of the world
o Problem: does Buddhism remain an “eastern” religion if it moves to
California, or Christianity a “western” religion if it moves to Korea?
Some Classical Definitions of Religion
Discussion in class
1. Rudolf Otto: Mysterium tremendum
Definition 1: mysterium tremendum. Rudolf Otto (1869-1937), The Idea of the Holy
(1917)
Religions all have in common this (irrational) experience of feeling over-awed,
terrified by a sense of mystery we can’t explain – the numinous (from Latin:
numen – divine being; divine presence/power)
All religions are attempts to express and rationalise this experience in ritual, art,
place, etc.
RELIGIONS IN NEW ZEALAND Week 2 2016
3
You can only really understand religion at its core if you have experienced this
yourself.
Privileges “insider” understanding of religion – at least at the level of this basic
experience.
Related to more recent question: is religious experience something for which
evolution has “hardwired” some/all humans – cf. Noam Chomsky’s universal
grammar.
2. Karl Marx: Opium of the People
Definition 2: The opium of the people. Karl Marx (1818-1883), Critique of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Right (1843)
Religion is not really “a thing” – It’s an ideology; the expression of real “material”
forces like economics – i.e. the struggle to put food on the table and a roof
over your head.
It’s a way of distracting ourselves from the suffering created by capitalist societies:
 workers dehumanised boring jobs; their work is not for themselves but their
bosses
 workers are forced to compete with each other rather than bonding with
each other
Religion an opiate – painkiller
The illusion of religion needs to be removed if workers are to understand their
predicament and remedy it.
3. Émile Durkheim: Moral Community
Definition 3: beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community.
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)
Rudolf’s understanding of religion based on individual experience; Durkheim:
religion is primarily social – it’s about belonging.
Use of sacred symbols – e.g. clan totems in Aboriginal Australia – as a way of
defining “who we are” – cf. a flag.
 “moral commmunity”: symbol and ritual assure us that we all hold the same
things sacred/taboo/tapu – cf. the way the 2015 NZ Flag Panel asked New
Zealanders for submissions about what they “stood for.”
Sacred symbols and rituals draw us out of ourselves into a sense of collective
identity – “collective effervescence” – we’re swept away! – cf. being in a crowd
at a sports match or concert.
Is this definition of religion really different from other human activities like sport?
4. Paul Tillich: Ultimate Concern
Definition 4. Ultimate concern. Paul Tillich (1866-1965), Christianity and the
Encounter with the World Religions (1963).
We all have to answer the answer the question of why we do things – e.g. go to
university, do our job, go shopping – but we mostly try not to think about the
big why – little whys vs big whys.
Preliminary concerns (e.g. shopping) vs. ultimate concern: “why do I do it; what
does it all mean?”
Given that I’m going to die, what/how should I be before then?
Any answer to this question requires some kind of leap of faith
RELIGIONS IN NEW ZEALAND Week 2 2016
4
Religion is not about “escape” as Marx thought, but an existential decision about
how to “be” in this world.
Religions as systems of symbols that point beyond themselves towards “ultimate
concern” or the “ground of all being”
But not necessarily restricted to religions
Comparing these four definitions





Durkheim & Marx: religion is about something else (social bonding;
distraction)
Otto & Tillich: religions describes a distinctive kind of human experience
(awesome mystery; ultimate concern)
Durkheim, Marx: religion as a fundamentally social phenomenon
Tillich: religion as individual, social or both
Otto: religion fundamentally individual experience and then social.
Ninian Smart: religion as a cluster
Ninian Smart (1927-2001) pioneer of Religious Studies in Britain at the University of
Lancaster – later University of Santa Barbara in California.
Religion is a subset of “worldview” – a way of making sense of life and how to live it
– but not all worldviews are religious (e.g. nationalism)
So there is no one-size-fits-all definition of religion, but all religions share in one or
more of the following “dimensions”
1. ritual or practical: - e.g. prayer, singing, dancing, pilgrimage, washing
2. doctrinal or philosophical: - e.g. standard sets of beliefs and theologies
3. mythic or narrative: - religious stories, which often form the basis of ritual
dimension
4. experiential and emotional: - fear, love, sex, sadness, ecstasy, mystical
experience
5. ethical/legal: discussion of how to behave and rules about it
6. organizational social: leaders, structures of leadership and belonging,
institutional organization
7. material or artistic: buildings, art, statues
All of these also intersect with non-religious aspects of human life, but they cluster
together round religion.
You need empathy and imagination as well as distance and objectivity to
understand how a religion works and what they have in common
Questions



Many New Zealanders say they’re “spiritual” but not “religious.” Is this a
distinction without a difference?
To what extent are Anzac Day and/or rugby religious?
o Does your answer to this question depend on how you define
religion?
To what extent are the rituals of Anzac Day or rugby about myth?
RELIGIONS IN NEW ZEALAND Week 2 2016
5


Many of the rituals of Anzac Day contain Christian elements (e.g. Hymns like
Abide with Me, readings from the Bible) does that mean that Anzac Day is
Christian? If not, what is it?
Does it help us understand religion better if we understand it, not as
“religion,” but as just another form of communal activity like the local rugby
club?
RELIGIONS IN NEW ZEALAND Week 2 2016
6