Intro to Religion EXAM 2-PowerPoint Questions
Religious Reform and Change:
'Secret societies' within a 'natural' religious group (e.g. Mithraism in ancient Rome) 'Voluntary' groups arising within 'natural' groups: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam 'Charisma' and 'routinization' (L 131-32) Protest, reform, renewal within 'voluntary' communities: a return to origins, or a new revelation 'Church' vs. 'sect' types (inclusive and accommodationist vs. exclusive and separatist) (L 137)
The 'liminal' stage,
'liminality'; communitas, the bond of communion
Avoiding a ...
'mistaken literalism'? (L 69)
Presentational symbols:
'participate in' or 'make present' the thing symbolized (icons; mudras; mantras); similarity
Mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the ...
'terrifying and fascinating mystery' that is 'the numinous': the dual aspects of repulsion and attraction—the sense of power, majesty, and danger/wrath, experienced as awe and fear, and the sense of love, joy, and beauty, expressed in worship and adoration
A Phenomenological Theory
(Eliade)
A Psychotherapeutic Theory
(Jung)
Myths and their Interpretation: A Functionalist Theory ...
(Malinowski)
Scripture and Interpretation: Why do scriptures require interpretation?
Language Context Diversity (genres; tensions, contradictions) Many meanings Application
Seasonal and Calendar Rituals:
Cycles of the sun and moon, of the seasons, etc.; commemorations of sacred events Agriculture, and ensuring the well-being of individual and community
Sacrifice:
Defamiliarizing the familiar: Is a sacrifice a substitute victim? ('penal substitutionary atonement')
Religion and Society:
The sociology of religion 'Methodological agnosticism' The relationship between religion and society Types of religious groups The social dynamics of the emergence, development, and dissolution of religious groups The relations between religious groups and wider society
Society and Religion:
Which comes first? Or which determines which? A one-way determinism? Is religion a projection 'upward' of material, political, social relations or structures 'down below'? (Marx, Durkheim) A reciprocal relationship (Weber) "Ideas are rooted in and shaped by material and social conditions, yet these beliefs are not static; they are embodied in persons and persons are not passive, inert things. As the carriers of ideas and values, persons participate in the process of social change" (L 126). Religious evolution (Robert N. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution)
Symbols:
a 'symbolic' connection between the symbol and the thing symbolized; a symbol "is capable of abstracting from the immediate situation, forming judgments and concepts, generalizing, imagining, and fantasizing" (L 54); a symbol 'represents' or 'makes present' something, it is about something
Myth: A myth is a...
a story of gods and heroes from a place and time quite different from now Is myth just primitive, outmoded science? (Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?)
Sacramental rites are
inherently conservative—giving rise to periodic anti-formalistic protests
Social puberty:
initiation into adulthood; isolation, ordeal, instruction, insignia Vocational initiation rites Marriage and funeral rites
'Condensed symbols', ...
layers of meaning, 'manifest' and 'latent' meanings 'First-order' and 'second-order' religious discourse (cf. L 56, 68-69)
Typology of Sects: Conversionist:
little or no interest in social reform, the evil of the world is to be overcome through a subjective, highly emotional conversion experience; fundamentalist and pentecostal groups
Utopian:
looks to the human reconstruction of the world according to a divine plan; e.g. the People's Temple
'Second-order' religious discourse:
more systematic, seeking greater clarity and coherence, translating symbolic and mythic language into concepts and doctrines
types of religious communities:
natural and founded
Sacraments are
performative, they do something, effect some change in the participants; ex opere operato Emphasis on the meticulous accuracy of their performance
Religion moves from ...
poetry to prose
A 'shaman':
possesses special powers for dealing with the supernatural, warding off demons and disease Jesus of Nazareth's fame as an exorcist
Creature-consciousness',
relative to the holy
Representational symbols:
rely on a connection established by convention, by custom, habit, or learned association; most words are symbols of this kind (hence the different words in different languages for the same thing); arbitrary
A dying and rising movement:
rites of austerity and emptying (kenosis) and of revitalization and renewal (cf. L 87)
"Modern society has little sense of the terror or dread of the sacred. In traditional societies, however, ...
sacred power always shows itself ambiguously, simultaneously as awe and aversion, purity and danger" (L. 38-39).
Revolutionist:
salvation involves the imminent, supernatural destruction of the world order; e.g. the Branch Davidians
Gnostic or Manipulationist:
seeks the right spiritual means or techniques to cope with or achieve worldly goods; e.g. Scientology
Threefold pattern:
separation, transition, and reincorporation
Metaphor and Parable Metaphor is...
symbolic, nonliteral, figurative; involves comparison or analogy; 'All flesh is grass' (Isaiah 40.6); 'Metaphor is the dreamwork of language' (Donald Davidson)
Buddhist hermeneutics--
the Sutra on the Four Reliances (L 115-17)
Christian biblical interpretation (L 117-21):
Interpretation of Jewish scriptures: canon, relation of OT to NT, 'canon within the canon'? Medieval fourfold sense (the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses); Protestant reactions: sola Scriptura, priority of literal/historical, inner illumination Fundamentalism, inerrancy, biblical literalism No interpretation without presuppositions (contexts of interpretation; relativism?) Reader-oriented criticism; ideologically-oriented criticism (e.g. liberationist; feminist; post-colonial; etc.)
'Sect' and 'denomination':
"If a sect, as a radical protest group, does not wither away, the upward social and economic mobility of its members and the change from voluntary membership to second-generation membership through birth will cause the sect to move to the status of a denomination. If it survives, the sect must focus on the nurture and education of its young, on organization, and on the acquisition and management of property. Moreover, the second generation rarely holds the convictions with the zeal of their parents; secular commitments and the desire for social respectability intrude" (L 137).
Livingston's 'working definition' of religion is
"Religion is that system of activities and beliefs directed toward and in response to that which is perceived to be of sacred value and trans- formative power" (L 8) The sacred and the profane: that which is 'set apart', 'consecrated', 'holy', as opposed to the common, everyday, mundane
Eliade on the concept of sacred:
"homo religiosis always believes that there is an absolute reality, the sacred, which transcends this world but manifests itself in this world"; "man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane" Human classification of the world vs. the irruption of another world into this one
Religious Symbols 'First-order' religious discourse:
"richly metaphoric, analogic, and poetic"; over time, "symbols, myths, and stories require interpretation, elaboration, and commentary" (L 56)
Durkheim on the concept of sacred:
"the division of the world into [the sacred and the profane] is the characteristic feature of religious thought"; "sacred things are those which are protected and isolated by prohibitions; profane things are those to which the prohibitions apply, and they must keep their distance from sacred things"
Sacred space: axis mundi, ...
"the point around which, symbolically speaking, the world rotates"; imago mundi, a symbolic reproduction of the cosmos, or a replica of the cosmogony (creation story); sacred architecture (shrines; temples; congregational structures); 'natural' sacred spaces, e.g. sacred mountains
Natural
'Natural' ties of blood, kinship, race/ethnicity, nation Obligatory Sustained by birth and marriage Rites of passage promoting kinship bond Ancestor veneration Nationalism
Life Cycle Rituals (Rites of Passage)
Arnold van Gennep; Victor Turner; birth, maturation, marriage, parenthood, class/occupation/role, death; individual and communal
Myths: A Typology
1.) Cosmogonic and cosmological myths about the origin and order of the universe. 2.) Myths of lesser beginnings, often called etiological because they explain how some rite, law, custom, feature of the landscape, and so on, came to be. 3.)Eschatological myths about the end of the world. 4.)Myths of lesser endings, such as the fall of a city or empire. 5.) Myths about death and the life after death. 6.)Myths about divine, semidivine, and demonic beings. 7.)Myths about heroes and saviors. 8.) Myths about transformations and incarnations, such as movement from animal to human, human to animal, human to divine, and divine to human. 9.) Myths about kings, wise men and women, ascetics, martyrs, and saints. (Some might classify such stories as legends rather than myths.) (Source: G. E. Kessler, Studying Religion, 68-69)
Scripture and Canon: The Qur'an:
114 suras understood to have been dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, committed to writing in the following generation
Life-Crisis Rituals: Communal or individual crisis:
: illness, infertility; famine, drought; etc. Seeking divine assistance, or warding off harmful supernatural powers
Typical Features of Scripture: Scriptures may be regarded in the following (inter-related) ways:
As possessing sacred power As having a transformative effect As having an 'eternal' quality As possessing miraculous power As having normative authority
Founded
An at least partial break with such 'natural' ties Voluntary Sustained by mission and conversion A charismatic leader and his/her followers New revelation, experience Universalism
Uses of Scripture:
For instruction and education In public worship and ritual For meditation and devotion As an object of veneration For its miraculous or magical power
Demilitarizing the familiar...
Here in the 'Bible Belt'... 'Book, chapter, and verse' Not all religions in all times and places have scriptures; and those that do don't all regard them in the same way Orality vs. literacy Fluid vs. fixed boundaries, or, scripture vs. canon
A case study:
Mount Kilimanjaro
Types of ritual
Non-periodic life-cycle and life-crisis rites Periodic seasonal and calendar rites
Smoke as a sign (or signal) of ...
fire; the word FIRE: the relation between the letters f-i-r-e, or the sound <fire>, and the thing, 'fire', is arbitrary, a matter of convention; fire as representational symbol; as presentational symbol
The Sacred as "Founding a World" Mircea Eliade:
hierophany', a manifestation of the sacred
Ritual: Functions and Types The functions served by rituals include:
Social cohesion Initiation, transition Signaling identity Release/channel social tensions Legitimize beliefs and actions
Terrence Deacon wrote...
The Symbolic Species
The Jewish Scriptures: Tanak(h):
Torah (or Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses, or Written Torah; c. 400 bce), Prophets (c. 200 bce), Writings (c. 100 ce); Oral Torah, Rabbinic literature Jewish Apocrypha; the Septuagint; Catholic and Protestant versions of the Old Testament The Christian New Testament: 1st/2nd century ce writings, 4th/5th century canonization (Athanasius, 367 ce); Christian Apocrypha
Signs and Symbols Signs (or signals) are...
an 'indexical' connection between the sign and the thing signified; signaling is immediate, specific, practical; a sign points to something, it's a symptom or correlate of some state of affairs, like animal signaling, or 'natural' signs (wet streets as a sign of rain)
Ritual: Introduction "A religious ritual can be defined as ...
an agreed-on and formalized pattern of ceremonial movements and verbal expressions carried out in a sacred context" (L 75)
The Experience of the Sacred: Rudolf Otto and 'the numinous':
an experience unique to religion; non-rational and ineffable; conceptualized in myths, rituals, doctrines
Sacrifice as gift-exchange:
an offering of value, to oblige the recipient to give in return; propitiation: to appease or conciliate, cause to be favorably inclined
Myths provide models of ...
an ordered and meaningful world; offer models of exemplary human behavior and moral norms; and depict why the world has gone wrong and how to put it right
Parable as extended metaphor;
an unexpected turn; using the ordinary to illuminate the extraordinary (e.g., 2 Samuel 12.1-14)
Sacraments: definition
as making present or manifest the sacred or supernatural
Purity/impurity:
concepts of defilement, pollution, impurity, abomination, transgressing a sacred taboo, and rituals of purification; different from concepts of moral guilt and its atonement
Space and time, in themselves, are ...
continuous, unbounded
Rituals as ...
engaging the senses
Sacred Time and Space "The essence of religion is ...
the desire to live in relation to a sacred order that is expressed in a prescribed pattern of behavior and belief. Such a sacred order...is distinct from the common or profane and is the source not only of meaning (value) but also of life-giving power. [It] does not necessarily involve a division of the world into the 'natural' and the 'supernatural'...common in some theistic religions that perceive reality as constituted by two distinct worlds, one a physical world governed by natural laws and the other a supernatural world of spiritual beings and powers. [A] sacred world need not be an order distinct from the natural world; rather, it can be seen as the natural world renewed, consecrated, and made holy by special times and places" (L 50).
Sacrifice as purgation or purification:
the removal of (ritual) 'impurity' or 'pollution'
Sacrifice as expiation:
the removal of sin, making atonement for sins
The Concept of Sacred: "In primal societies, there is no separation between...
the sacred and the natural world...It is power that creates for the sacred a special place and value all its own" (L 38).
"In metaphorical speech, it is important that ...
the tension between 'the is and the is not' (the similarity in the difference) be retained in order to avoid slipping into literalism," confusing "the sacred with the finite" (L 59-60)
From 'first-order' (symbol, metaphor, parable, myth) to 'second-order' religious discourse (L 56, 68-69):
translation into concepts and propositional language—doctrines
Sacred time is...
worship, religious calendar; a return in the present to primordial time: creation, the beginning; (see further under ritual)
