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 business4. Personal growth: wisdom, meaning, ethics, answers5. 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

SociologistsComte,

Durkheim, Berger, Stark

Psychologists:James, Freud,

Jung

EconomistsMarx, Weber

Anthropologists:Frazier, de

Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Geertz

Philosophers: Hume, Kant, Fries, Otto

Women’s studies: Tavris & Gross, Saiving

ReligiousStudies

Christianity

Judaism

Islam

ConfucianismTaoism

Buddhism

Hinduism

Native

Traditions

Western Classical

Traditions:Middle Eastern:

Semitic, Persian,

European: Greek, Roman

Eastern Classical

Traditions:Asian:

Indian, Chinese, Japanese

Zoroastrianism

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.JudaismChristianityIslam

TaoismConfucianismBuddhismHinduism

Come up with a list of what characteristics these 7 traditions have in common that might cause us to identify them as religions.

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)

• … bad science (George Frazier, David Hume)

“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.”

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)

16th Century Reformation ,

Wars of Religion & 17th Century Enlightenment

+ a tendency to praise. Through theology, philosophy, history

- 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 ultimateConcern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as Preliminary and which in itself contains the answerto the meaning of life -----Paul Tillich

Moral emphasis only

• Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.

----Immanuel Kant

Functionalist definitionsClifford 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 self-transcendence 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 perspectivee. 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

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?

Ethical concepts historically have flowed from religious ideas and practices

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