Ch 12 Religion

What is the association of one's particular social group with specific animal or plant species called ______ as an emblem? What do these symbolize?

-"Totem" -Totemism -Symbolize clans, lineages, and tribes -Can think of American mascots representing sports teams

What did E.B. Tylor introduce and why? Describe it.

-Animism; a basic way of understanding and studying beliefs in supernatural agents -Early theory that primitive peoples believed that inanimate objects such as trees, rocks, cliffs, hills, and rivers were animated by spiritual forces or beings -He also thought people would depart from religion (as societies evolved and became more complex, supernatural beings would be first demigods/mythical heroes, then gods/goddesses, then to one God, then to science)

What is the difference between an atheist and agnostic? What about nonbelievers?

-Atheist: Belief there is no God or supernatural -Agnostic: Believe that nothing about God or the supernatural can be known -Nonbeliever: Are secular or non-practicing persons in a religious tradition

What is a festive season that occurs during liminality between two seasons (seasonal rites of passage)?

-Carnival Ex: Halloween and Mardi Grase

Describe shamanic practices in world religions (Christianity, Judaism, etc.).

-Charismatic Pentecostal Christianity engages in shamanic rituals -Speaking in tongues and playing with snakes

What are the supernatural agents believed to exist among clans?

-Clan spirits -Group of relatives who claim to have descended from supernatural beings/agents

What is the social cohesion and spirit of community felt by groups who undergo a rite of passage together?

-Communitas -Bonded as one, sense of belonging and forms a relationship with community

How did scholars in the 19th century think about mystical views others had?

-Considered them to be nonscientific and the adherents to these views as people of limited intellectual capacity

What are the 4 aspects of religion?

-Dynamic, complex system (always changing and working together) -Symbolic -Rituals as the key to social constructions (Religion--> Ritual--> Social Reality) -Concern ultimate questions (Can't use empirical methods of inquiry)

What are the 4 implications of religion being thought of as a social action?

-Existence in supernatural, sacred objects, places, and agents (worldview situates the place of humans in the universe) -Beliefs and behaviors support and promote the supernatural and sacred (separates religion from culture) -Symbols render beliefs and behaviors intense/genuine -People can experience the supernatural or sacred (usually through ritual (key to experiencing religion by providing a cognitive model of the world)

What are examples of how religion drives groups to profound humanity/inhumanity?

-Humanity: Indian Independence; Civil Rights Movement -Inhumanity: Crusades; Terrorism

What kind of magic involves the law of similarity and belief that similar things can have imitative effects on one another?

-Imitative magic

What is the kind of analysis that interprets the underlying symbolic and cultural interconnections within a society? When is this used?

-Interpretative approach -Used when trying to understand the worldview and ethos of a religion

What is the magical rite that things had once been in physical contact with one another could have an effect even when they were no longer in contact?

-Law of Contagion

What is some point of similarity between an aspect of magical rite and the desired goal?

-Law of Similarity Ex: Voodoo dolls: by poking the doll in places, you are hoping to hurt another individual in those same places

What is the dangerous out-of-bounds in culture because it is "betwixt and between" symbolic boundaries? One is identity-less and social order is reversed?

-Liminality -Ex: Halloween

What is an explanatory system of causation that does not follow naturalistic explanations, that often work at a distance without direct physical contact?

-Magic -Wearing clothing as a form of good luck

What is the belief that sacred power inherent in certain high-ranking people, sacred spaces, and objects?

-Mana

What are stylized performances repeated in habitual or routine pattern that may/may not involve symbols?

-Mundane rituals (brushing one's teeth) -Secular

Describe the examples of clan spirits in New Guinea.

-Ningerum Clan Low population density Clan lands inhabited by spirits Clan spirits parallel human emotions and motivations -Elema and Purari Clan Higher density villages Clan houses inhabited by spirits Parallel human emotions and motivations

What kind of religion characterized ancient societies? Describe it.

-Polytheistic religions (belief in many gods) -Gods resembled earthly authorities to be appeases -Suzerain relationship: contract between king and people. If they worship him, he will serve them ("Do ut des"- I give you give) -Religion was heavily tied to the ruling class

What are the three phases of rites of passage? Which is the central role in life-cycle rituals?

-Preliminary -Liminality (ambiguity--central role) -Postliminality

What do carnivals include?

-Public celebrations -Inverse of the ordinary social order -Social cohesion -Group committments

What is a symbolic social system that is socially enacted through rituals and other aspects of social life that relate to ultimate issues of humankind's existence?

-Religion

What does Durkheim's "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" outline?

-Religion as a unified system of social beiefs

What are the key features of rituals?

-Repetitive: Happening at set times or before/after certain events -Stylized: following a set order of words/actions

What is the most important cross-cultural ritual and is any life-cycle rite that marks a person's or group's transition from one social state to another?

-Rite of passage Ex: Coming of age (graduation, wedding, funeral), Religious (Baptism, Rumspringa, Sanskara), Military (boot camp)

What are stylized performances involving symbols that are associated with social, political, and religious activities? Who thought that religious change could be most easily seen in changing religious ceremonies and rituals?

-Ritual -Anthony F.C. Wallace

What helps to explain why religion is so powerful?

-Ritual and sacred beliefs

What are stylized performances involving symbols that are associated with social, political, and religious activities?

-Rituals of significance (involve magic)

What is a distinction central to religion?

-Sacred-Profane -Sacred: Forbidden or "set apart" -Profane: Everyday or "mundane" (brushing teeth)

Describe the shamanic healing process identified in the Yanomamo in Chagnon and Asch's "Magical Death."

-Shaman heals family by ingesting hallucinogenic snuff from local plants -Assisted by spirit familiar -Engages with spirits

Describe religion in a tribal society (4)

-Shamanic -Feasts (horticulturalist/pastoralist) -Rites of passage -Warrior societies

Describe religion in a state society (4)

-Shamanic healing -Rites of passage -Division of labor -Priests

Who are religious leaders who communicate the needs of the living to the spirit world, usually through some form of ritual trance or other altered states of consciousness? When are they recognized? What is their focus? Where is this practice most common?

-Shamans -Recognized in childhood -Focus is on healing and ensuring the health and prosperity of the community, using drum rituals to connect with spirits -Practice most common in small-scale societies with more or less egalitarian political structures

Describe religion in a chiefdom society (2).

-Small-scale agriculturalists -Shamans, Totems

Describe religion in a band society (7)

-Small-scaler -Forager -Healing ceremonies (create cooperation and group identity) -Don't believe afterlife is consequential -Worldview animated by spirits -Shamanism (trances) -Maybe monotheistic

What is the phenomenon of speaking in an apparently unknown language, often in an energetic and fast-paced way (glossolalia)?

-Speaking in tongues

What is a spirit that has developed a close bond with a shaman?

-Spirit familiar

How do totems stress social cohesiveness?

-Stressing group identity, focusing group and private rituals on totems

What is the manifestation or occurrence of something, usually a force, that is beyond the cultural realm of the ordinary?

-Supernatural

How is religious cognition distinct mode of human beliefs?

-Supernatural agents (like humans, may be unseen) -Mind-body dualism (distinction between body and soul) -Afterlife -Origins of the cosmos ("What is the meaning of l

What two types of magic did Sir James G. Frazer identify?

-Sympathetic magic -Imitative magic

What is any magical rite that relies on the supernatural to produce its outcome without working through some supernatural being such as a spirit, demon, or deity? What two principles does this work on?

-Sympathetic magic -Works on the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contagion

Clifford Geertz proposed a definition of religion that could explain why beliefs are so deeply held and motivational due to religion itself being a cultural system/system of symbols. What are the key elements of his proposal?

-System of symbols -Establishes powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods/motivations -Formulates conceptions of general order of existence -Clothes conception with an aura of factuality -Instills moods and motivations as uniquely realistic

How does the supernatural become a part of reality?

-Through ritual

How was Wallace's definition of religion problematic: "Beliefs and rituals concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces"?

-Too static, offering little to no direction for understanding how/why religious ideas/practices change -Depicted deeply religious people as intellectually limited, and does not explain why people hold on to their religious beliefs/practices

What is a semiconscious state typically brought on by hypnosis, ritual drumming and singing, or hallucinogenic drugs like mescaline or peyote? How do these psychedelics make them feel?

-Trance -Psychedelics increase pain threshold and make them feel at peace

Religion offers a roadmap to what?

-Understanding a culture

What are modern religions that claim to be universally significant to all people? Which religions are these?

-World religions -Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam ( monotheistic state religions that support the local government) -Asian religions: Hinduism, Buddhism

What is the general approach to or set of shared unquestioned assumptions about the world and how it works?

-Worldview -Religion influences your worldview because of the symbols generation or creation of a sense of moral purpose or meaning in people's lives and move them to action -Religious symbols describe a model of how the world is, as they simultaneously depict a model for how the world (morally) should be