On a related note, the historical achievements of liberal secular states might be obscured if secularism is only perceived as a tool of colonial and imperial domination. village and nad level bring in solidarity and unity among different social segments . Related to Freuds concept, the personal unconscious mind contains all our personal experiences that we are not aware of (because we have suppressed them); whilethe collective unconscious mind contains universal experiences of mankind and the archetypes (the basic universal images that recur in various forms in different cultures) which we have inherited from our ancestors. Muller, an authority of Sanskrit (the classical religious language of India), urged that the study of religion should not be limited to the religions of the Mediterranean (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) and that the great religions of the East should also be seriously studied. The fast, they abstain from sex, they walk on fire, perform self-flagellation, or nail themselves on crosses. the civilized races. It is an illusion because it is just a product of the human imagination. Is it possible to understand a faith without holding it? Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. This idea led Calvinists to engage in activities that would increase their wealth, paving the way for the development of capitalism. This means that a student of theology is a follower of the particular religion he/she is studying; whereas a student of religious studies is usually not a follower of the religions he/she is studying. Sullivan demonstrates that religion is too complex, too comprehensive, and too multi-faceted to be adequately captured by the law of the liberal state. This article examines three anthropological theories explaining how religion has evolved and continues to evolve. For the workers to bear their miserable and unfulfilling life, the capitalists created various belief-systems, foremost of which was religion, for the working class to see their state as something positive and justified. Second, secular modernity is itself rooted in a distinctive Protestant anthropology, the ethos of which neatly maps onto a modern liberal subjectivity that encourages the individual to cultivate the autonomy and discipline required to relate to her beliefs and ends in the right way. O . It is a childish illusion for, as Freud remarked, religion originates in the helplessness and anxiety of childhood and early manhood (quoted in Merkur 2005,166). This is an important critique, which draws on what I have called the first (critical) and the second (anthropological) approach to religion. Religious beliefs, in particular, are only one sub-set of a larger class, which political philosophers, following John Rawls, call conceptions of the good. On this view, a liberal state protects, not only freedom of religion, but more generally freedom of conscience; it disestablishes, not only dominant religion, but also any controversial conception of the good. Much of the interesting work done in anthropology, sociology, and religious studies departments, for example, draws on both the first and the second approach). Chapter 1 in the For Jung, religious experiences are manifestations of the archetypes in the collective unconscious in our own consciousness. Here religion involves subjectivity in the sense of individual experience. To him, sacred meant extraordinarysomething that inspired wonder and that seemed connected to the concept of "the divine.". Methodologies provide a lense of analysis from which to view the field of religous studies. Mysticism. The Immanent Frame publishes interdisciplinary perspectives on religion, secularism, and the public sphere. The second ground for skepticism is that religion has served to define the western idea of the secular, and remains deeply entangled with it. The method used was to compare the subjective experience with the intent of shaping the arrangement of religion itself from within the structure. Religion can be said to be subjective in at least two senses. This had led some scholars, such as Tim Fitzgerald and Naomi Goldenberg, to draw the radical conclusion that the category of religion should be simply abandoned. Corrections? It studies religion in relation to other social institutions and compares religious beliefs and practices across cultures. Approaches to ReligionSpring 2010REL 111. But because they wanted to know who would eventually be saved and enter heaven, they thought that financial success was one good indicator. The point has been made with particular acuity by legal scholar Winnifred Fallers Sullivan in her book The Impossibility of Religious Freedom. The History of Religion as a Sociological Concept . The worry here is the hard-won liberal right to religious freedom will not elicit much respect if the existence of religion itself is radically questioned. Historiography then becomes the science that studies the conceptions and production of historical interpretations of human civilization. The interrelations of the various disciplines in relation to religion as an area of . The term phenomenology also refers to the attempt to devise a typology, or classification, of religious phenomenareligious activities, beliefs, and institutions. Contact. One contribution of St. Augustine was his theory that evil is the absence of good (which he adopted from the view of the Greek philosopher Plotinus on the nature of light and darkness). *You can also browse our support articles here >. In fact, the religions of civilized races evolved from the animism of the lower races. He explains that such experience definitely will change positions on previous views regarding religious tradition. Approaches to the Study of Religion. The implications of the first approach have been resisted in many quarters. On the other hand, some view it as a way of purifying religion from the idolatry or worship of human-made objects. A standard line of criticism against this egalitarian strategy has been to argue that it rests on a contested understanding of religion. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs. The most influential proponent of comparative religion in the nineteenth century was Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900). The law does not describe and regulate the full experience of marriage: the fact that, in law, marriage is a contract does not mean that marriage is, or should be experienced as, a contract. As it happens, one group of influential political philosophers has tried to do just that. Although I cannot make the full case here, I sketch a preliminary defense of the third approach, in the context of recent debates in political theory. Do you have a 2:1 degree or higher? In this regard, Marx described religion as the opium of the masses.. But because they wanted to know who would eventually be saved and enter heaven, they thought that financial success was one good indicator. This means, among others, that the philosophy of religion justifies claims by the strength and coherence of arguments. Attempts have been made to find a distinctive ingredient in all religions, such as the numinous, or spiritual, experience, the contrast between the sacred and the profane, and the belief in one or more gods. Conflict sometimes arises because the committed point of view is likely to begin from a more conservative stance, accepting at face value the scriptural accounts of events, whereas the secular historian may be more skeptical, especially of records of miraculous events. Looking for a flexible role? The other sense of the subjectivity of religion is properly a matter for theology and the philosophy of religion. Barths distinction attempts to draw a line between the transcendent, as it reveals itself to humans, and religion, as a human product involved in the response to revelation. The idea is that one who experiences financial success is blessed and is thus favored by God. Discussion about religion has been complicated further by the attempt of some Christian theologians, notably Karl Barth (18861968), to draw a distinction between religion and the Gospel (the proclamation peculiar to Christianity). (James L.Cox,p.159.A guide to the Phenomenology of religion .key figure ,formative influence and subsequent debate. For other religions, the systematic study of their doctrines is usually referred to as philosophy instead of theology. One obvious reason is that the term theology implies a belief in one God but other religions may not subscribe either to the belief in God or gods or to the belief that there is only one God. So neutrality, for liberals such as Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, is generalized non-establishment. Egalitarian theorists of religious freedom offer a compelling response to the critical religion school. The study of religion emerged as a formal discipline during the 19th century, when the methods and approaches of history, philology, literary criticism, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and other fields were brought to bear on the task of determining the history, origins, and functions of religion. To some extent the emphasis on neutral description arises in modern times as a reaction to committed accounts of religion, which were for long the norm and which still exist among those who treat religion from a theological point of view. Since becoming aware of our unconscious makes us a whole person (a fully realized Self), religion is thus seen by Jung as something positive (Merkur 2005, 177). The belief in the soul as something separate from the body though residing in the body resulted from dealing with certain biological questions such as those concerning the difference between a living body and a dead one; the causes of waking, sleep, trance, disease, and death; and the origin of dreams and visions involving human images. Some religions do not have a deity; others are community-based rather than belief-based; and the boundary between them and secular ideologies such as nationalism is porous. Methodologies in religious studies are the interpretive models on which the analysis of religious phenomena and resources are discussed. Thus, when William James describes religion as. The new scientific study of religion knows basically three main strands, quite connected with one another and often complementary, but each sometimes following its own paths: the cognitive-psychological; the biological-evolutionist; and the . These strategies have been identified as central to the development of programs that prioritize student development and help improve student retention, engagement, and academic performance. Manifestations of the sacred. The gods play a merely subsidiary role, for example, in most phases of Theravada (Way of the Elders) Buddhism. In particular, a student of theology intends to deepen his/her understanding of a particular religion, while a student of religious studies intends to understand the different religions of the world. In this post, I briefly set out three distinct approaches to the study of religion: criticizing religion, upholding religion, and disaggregating religion. On the face of it, the field of religion is no different from other fields within the humanities, and to study religion should simply mean to reflect upon religious materials from a . The stress on the distinction between the descriptive and normative approaches is becoming more frequent among scholars of religion. Ontology. The study of religion may thus come to have a reflexive effect on religion itself, such as the manner in which modern Christian theology has been profoundly affected by the whole question of the historicity of the New Testament. Among scholars of religion because it is an illusion because it is just a product of the... Line of criticism against this egalitarian strategy has been made with particular acuity by legal scholar Fallers. 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