This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (April 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,801 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Антропология религии]]; see its history for attribution.
You should also add the template {{Translated|ru|Антропология религии}} to the talk page.
Al-Biruni (973–1048), wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of religions and cultures across the Mediterranean Basin (including the so-called "Middle East") and the Indian subcontinent.[2] He discussed the peoples, customs, and religions of the Indian subcontinent.
In the 19th century cultural anthropology was dominated by an interest in cultural evolution; most anthropologists assumed a simple distinction between "primitive" and "modern" religion and tried to provide accounts of how the former evolved into the latter.[citation needed] In the 20th century most anthropologists rejected this approach. Today the anthropology of religion reflects the influence of, or an engagement with, such theorists as Karl Marx (1818-1883), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), and Max Weber (1864-1920).[3] Anthropologists of religion are especially concerned with how religious beliefs and practices may reflect political or economic forces; or the social functions of religious beliefs and practices.[4][clarification needed]
In 1912 Émile Durkheim, building on the work of Feuerbach, considered religion "a projection of the social values of society", "a means of making symbolic statements about society", "a symbolic language that makes statements about the social order";[5] in short, "religion is society worshiping itself".[6][7][incomplete short citation]
Anthropologists circa 1940 assumed that religion was in complete continuity with magical thinking,[a][8][dubious – discuss] and that it is a cultural product.[b][9] The complete continuity between magic and religion has been a postulate of modern anthropology at least since early 1930s.[c][11] The perspective of modern anthropology towards religion is the projection idea, a methodological approach which assumes that every religion is created by the human community that worships it, that "creative activity ascribed to God is projected from man".[12] In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach was the first to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion.[13] A prominent precursor in the formulation of this projection principle was Giambattista Vico[14] (1668-1744), and an early formulation of it appears in the ancient Greek writer Xenophanes c. 570 – c. 475 BCE), who observed that "the gods of Ethiopians were inevitably black with flat noses while those of the Thracians were blond with blue eyes."[15]
Definition of religion
One major problem in the anthropology of religion is the definition of religion itself.[16] At one time[vague] anthropologists believed that certain religious practices and beliefs were more or less universal to all cultures at some point in their development, such as a belief in spirits or ghosts, the use of magic as a means of controlling the supernatural, the use of divination as a means of discovering occult knowledge, and the performance of rituals such as prayer and sacrifice as a means of influencing the outcome of various events through a supernatural agency, sometimes taking the form of shamanism or ancestor worship.[citation needed] According to Clifford Geertz, religion is
(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."[17]
Today, religious anthropologists debate, and reject, the cross-cultural validity of these categories (often viewing them as examples of European primitivism).[citation needed] Anthropologists have considered various criteria for defining religion – such as a belief in the supernatural or the reliance on ritual – but few claim that these criteria are universally valid.[16]
Anthony F. C. Wallace proposes four categories of religion, each subsequent category subsuming the previous. These are, however, synthetic categories and do not necessarily encompass all religions.[18]
Individualistic: most basic; simplest. Example: vision quest.
Shamanistic: part-time religious practitioner, uses religion to heal, to divine, usually on the behalf of a client. The Tillamook have four categories of shaman. Examples of shamans: spiritualists, faith healers, palm readers. Religious authority acquired through one's own means.
Communal: elaborate set of beliefs and practices; group of people arranged in clans by lineage, age group, or some religious societies; people take on roles based on knowledge, and ancestral worship.
Ecclesiastical: dominant in agricultural societies and states; are centrally organized and hierarchical in structure, paralleling the organization of states. Typically deprecates competing individualistic and shamanistic cults.
It seems to be one of the postulates of modern anthropology that there is complete continuity between magic and religion. [note 35: See, for instance, RR Marett, Faith, Hope, and Charity in Primitive Religion, the Gifford Lectures (Macmillan, 1932), Lecture II, pp. 21 ff.] ... We have no empirical evidence at all that there ever was an age of magic that has been followed and superseded by an age of religion.[8]
Religious anthropology suggests that every religion is a product of the cultural evolution, more or less coherent, of one race or people; and this cultural product is further enriched by its interaction and cross-fertilization with other peoples and their cultures, in whose vicinity the former originated and evolved.[9]
In conclusion, a word must be said on a rather trite subject. Many leading anthropologists, including the author of The Golden Bough, would wholly or in the main refuse the title of religion to these almost inarticulate ceremonies of very humble folk. I am afraid, however, that I cannot follow them. Nay, I would not leave out a whole continent from a survey of the religions of mankind in order to humour the most distinguished of my friends. Now clearly if these observances are not to be regarded as religious, like a wedding in church, so neither can they be classed as civil, like its drab equivalent at a registry office. They are mysteries, and are therefore at least generically akin to religion. Moreover, they are held in the highest public esteem as of infinite worth whether in themselves or for their effects. To label them, then, with the opprobrious name of magic as if they were on a par with the mummeries that enable certain knaves to batten on the nerves of fools is quite unscientific; for it mixes up two things which the student of human culture must keep rigidly apart, namely, a normal development of the social life and one of its morbid by-products. Hence for me they belong to religion, but of course to rudimentary religion—to an early phase of the same world-wide institution that we know by that name among ourselves. I am bound to postulate the strictest continuity between these stages of what I have here undertaken to interpret as a natural growth.[10]
^Rathman, Jessica. . Archived from the original on 27 November 2003. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
Sources
Adams, Charles Joseph (2017). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
Bowie, Fiona (1999). The Anthropology of Religion: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cassirer, Ernst (2006) [1944]. Lukay, Maureen (ed.). An Essay On Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture. Hamburg: Meiner. ISBN978-3-7873-1423-2.
Cotrupi, Caterina Nella (2000). Northrop Frye and the Poetics of Process. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN978-0-8020-8141-4.
Harvey, Van A. (1995). Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press (published 1997). ISBN978-0-521-58630-6.
——— (1996). "Projection: A Metaphor in Search of a Theory?". In Philips, D. Z. (ed.). Can Religion Be Explained Away?. Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 66–82. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-24858-2_4. ISBN978-1-349-24860-5.
Mackey, James Patrick (2000). The Critique of Theological Reason. Cambridge University Press.
Manickam, T. M. (1977). Dharma According to Manu and Moses. Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications.
Marett, Robert Ranulph (1932). Faith, Hope and, Charity in Primitive Religion. New York: Macmillan Company. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
Nelson, John K. (1990). . Berkeley, California: University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
Pandian, Jacob (1997). "The Sacred Integration of the Cultural Self: An Anthropological Approach to the Study of Religion". In Glazier, Stephen D. (ed.). Anthropology of Religion: A Handbook. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
Walbridge, John (1998). "Explaining Away the Greek Gods in Islam". Journal of the History of Ideas. 59 (3): 389–403. doi:10.1353/jhi.1998.0030. ISSN 1086-3222. S2CID 170321617.
Weber, Max (2002). Baehr, Peter R.; Wells, Gordon C. (eds.). The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism and Other Writings. Translated by Baehr, Peter R.; Wells, Gordon C. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN978-0-14-043921-2.
Anthropology of Religion Page 20 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine M.D. Murphy, University of Alabama
Andrew Lang, Anthropology and Religion, The Making of Religion, (Chapter II), Longmans, Green, and C°, London, New York and Bombay, 1900, pp. 39–64.
April 28, 2023
anthropology, religion, this, article, expanded, with, text, translated, from, corresponding, article, russian, april, 2022, click, show, important, translation, instructions, machine, translation, like, deepl, google, translate, useful, starting, point, trans. This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian April 2022 Click show for important translation instructions Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate rather than simply copy pasting machine translated text into the English Wikipedia Consider adding a topic to this template there are already 2 801 articles in the main category and specifying topic will aid in categorization Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low quality If possible verify the text with references provided in the foreign language article You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at ru Antropologiya religii see its history for attribution You should also add the template Translated ru Antropologiya religii to the talk page For more guidance see Wikipedia Translation Anthropology of religion is the study of religion in relation to other social institutions and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures 1 Contents 1 History 2 Definition of religion 3 Specific religious practices and beliefs 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 6 1 Citations 6 2 Sources 7 External linksHistory EditAl Biruni 973 1048 wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of religions and cultures across the Mediterranean Basin including the so called Middle East and the Indian subcontinent 2 He discussed the peoples customs and religions of the Indian subcontinent In the 19th century cultural anthropology was dominated by an interest in cultural evolution most anthropologists assumed a simple distinction between primitive and modern religion and tried to provide accounts of how the former evolved into the latter citation needed In the 20th century most anthropologists rejected this approach Today the anthropology of religion reflects the influence of or an engagement with such theorists as Karl Marx 1818 1883 Sigmund Freud 1856 1939 Emile Durkheim 1858 1917 and Max Weber 1864 1920 3 Anthropologists of religion are especially concerned with how religious beliefs and practices may reflect political or economic forces or the social functions of religious beliefs and practices 4 clarification needed In 1912 Emile Durkheim building on the work of Feuerbach considered religion a projection of the social values of society a means of making symbolic statements about society a symbolic language that makes statements about the social order 5 in short religion is society worshiping itself 6 7 incomplete short citation Anthropologists circa 1940 assumed that religion was in complete continuity with magical thinking a 8 dubious discuss and that it is a cultural product b 9 The complete continuity between magic and religion has been a postulate of modern anthropology at least since early 1930s c 11 The perspective of modern anthropology towards religion is the projection idea a methodological approach which assumes that every religion is created by the human community that worships it that creative activity ascribed to God is projected from man 12 In 1841 Ludwig Feuerbach was the first to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion 13 A prominent precursor in the formulation of this projection principle was Giambattista Vico 14 1668 1744 and an early formulation of it appears in the ancient Greek writer Xenophanes c 570 c 475 BCE who observed that the gods of Ethiopians were inevitably black with flat noses while those of the Thracians were blond with blue eyes 15 Definition of religion EditOne major problem in the anthropology of religion is the definition of religion itself 16 At one time vague anthropologists believed that certain religious practices and beliefs were more or less universal to all cultures at some point in their development such as a belief in spirits or ghosts the use of magic as a means of controlling the supernatural the use of divination as a means of discovering occult knowledge and the performance of rituals such as prayer and sacrifice as a means of influencing the outcome of various events through a supernatural agency sometimes taking the form of shamanism or ancestor worship citation needed According to Clifford Geertz religion is 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 17 Today religious anthropologists debate and reject the cross cultural validity of these categories often viewing them as examples of European primitivism citation needed Anthropologists have considered various criteria for defining religion such as a belief in the supernatural or the reliance on ritual but few claim that these criteria are universally valid 16 Anthony F C Wallace proposes four categories of religion each subsequent category subsuming the previous These are however synthetic categories and do not necessarily encompass all religions 18 Individualistic most basic simplest Example vision quest Shamanistic part time religious practitioner uses religion to heal to divine usually on the behalf of a client The Tillamook have four categories of shaman Examples of shamans spiritualists faith healers palm readers Religious authority acquired through one s own means Communal elaborate set of beliefs and practices group of people arranged in clans by lineage age group or some religious societies people take on roles based on knowledge and ancestral worship Ecclesiastical dominant in agricultural societies and states are centrally organized and hierarchical in structure paralleling the organization of states Typically deprecates competing individualistic and shamanistic cults Specific religious practices and beliefs EditApotheosis Apotropaic magic Amulet Animism Circumcision Cult religious practice Deity Demon Divination Esotericism Exorcism Evil Fertility rite Fetishism Genius mythology God Ghost Greco Roman mysteries Heresy Icon Immortality Intercession Kachina Magic and religion Mana Mask Miracle Medicine Modern paganism Monotheism Mother goddess Mythology Necromancy New Age Occult Omen Poles in mythology Polytheism Prayer Principle of contagion Prophecy Reincarnation Religious ecstasy Ritual Sacred food as offering Sacrifice Shamanism Spell paranormal Supernatural Supplication Sympathetic magic Theism Totemism Veneration of the dead Western esotericismSee also Edit Religion portalAnthropological Perspectives on Religion Archaeology of religion and ritual Cognitive science of religion Evolutionary origin of religions Magic and religion Psychology of religion Religious symbolism Rite of passage Sacred profane dichotomy Sociology of religion Symbolic anthropologyNotes Edit In 1944 Ernst Cassirer wrote It seems to be one of the postulates of modern anthropology that there is complete continuity between magic and religion note 35 See for instance RR Marett Faith Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion the Gifford Lectures Macmillan 1932 Lecture II pp 21 ff We have no empirical evidence at all that there ever was an age of magic that has been followed and superseded by an age of religion 8 T M Manickam wrote Religious anthropology suggests that every religion is a product of the cultural evolution more or less coherent of one race or people and this cultural product is further enriched by its interaction and cross fertilization with other peoples and their cultures in whose vicinity the former originated and evolved 9 R R Marett wrote In conclusion a word must be said on a rather trite subject Many leading anthropologists including the author of The Golden Bough would wholly or in the main refuse the title of religion to these almost inarticulate ceremonies of very humble folk I am afraid however that I cannot follow them Nay I would not leave out a whole continent from a survey of the religions of mankind in order to humour the most distinguished of my friends Now clearly if these observances are not to be regarded as religious like a wedding in church so neither can they be classed as civil like its drab equivalent at a registry office They are mysteries and are therefore at least generically akin to religion Moreover they are held in the highest public esteem as of infinite worth whether in themselves or for their effects To label them then with the opprobrious name of magic as if they were on a par with the mummeries that enable certain knaves to batten on the nerves of fools is quite unscientific for it mixes up two things which the student of human culture must keep rigidly apart namely a normal development of the social life and one of its morbid by products Hence for me they belong to religion but of course to rudimentary religion to an early phase of the same world wide institution that we know by that name among ourselves I am bound to postulate the strictest continuity between these stages of what I have here undertaken to interpret as a natural growth 10 References EditCitations Edit Adams 2017 Eller 2007 p 2 Walbridge 1998 Eller 2007 p 22 Weber 2002 Eller 2007 p 4 Durkheim 1912 Bowie 1999 pp 15 143 Nelson 1990 Durkheim p 266 in the 1963 edition a b Cassirer 2006 pp 122 123 a b Manickam 1977 p 6 Marett 1932 Cassirer 2006 pp 122 123 Marett 1932 Guthrie 2000 pp 225 226 Harvey 1996 p 67 Pandian 1997 Feuerbach 1841 Harvey 1995 p 4 Mackey 2000 Nelson 1990 Cotrupi 2000 p 21 Harvey 1995 p 4 Harvey 1995 p 4 a b Eller 2007 p 7 Geertz 1966 p 4 Rathman Jessica Anthony Francis Clarke Wallace Archived from the original on 27 November 2003 Retrieved 22 November 2017 Sources Edit Adams Charles Joseph 2017 Classification of Religions Encyclopaedia Britannica Archived from the original on 29 October 2020 Retrieved 22 November 2017 Bowie Fiona 1999 The Anthropology of Religion An Introduction Oxford Blackwell Cassirer Ernst 2006 1944 Lukay Maureen ed An Essay On Man An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture Hamburg Meiner ISBN 978 3 7873 1423 2 Cotrupi Caterina Nella 2000 Northrop Frye and the Poetics of Process Toronto University of Toronto Press ISBN 978 0 8020 8141 4 Durkheim Emile 1912 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Eller J D 2007 Introducing Anthropology of Religion New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 203 94624 4 Feuerbach Ludwig 1841 The Essence of Christianity Geertz Clifford 1966 Religion as a Cultural System In Banton Michael ed Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion London Tavistock published 2006 pp 1 46 ISBN 978 0 415 33021 3 Glazier Stephen 1999 Anthropology of Religion A Handbook Westport CT Praeger Guthrie Stewart Elliott 2000 Projection In Braun Willi McCutcheon Russell T eds Guide to the Study of Religion London Cassell ISBN 978 0 304 70176 6 Harvey Van A 1995 Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion Cambridge England Cambridge University Press published 1997 ISBN 978 0 521 58630 6 1996 Projection A Metaphor in Search of a Theory In Philips D Z ed Can Religion Be Explained Away Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion London Palgrave Macmillan pp 66 82 doi 10 1007 978 1 349 24858 2 4 ISBN 978 1 349 24860 5 Mackey James Patrick 2000 The Critique of Theological Reason Cambridge University Press Manickam T M 1977 Dharma According to Manu and Moses Bangalore Dharmaram Publications Marett Robert Ranulph 1932 Faith Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion New York Macmillan Company Retrieved 21 November 2017 Nelson John K 1990 A Field Statement on the Anthropology of Religion Berkeley California University of California Berkeley Archived from the original on 2 March 2007 Retrieved 21 November 2017 Pandian Jacob 1997 The Sacred Integration of the Cultural Self An Anthropological Approach to the Study of Religion In Glazier Stephen D ed Anthropology of Religion A Handbook Westport Connecticut Praeger Walbridge John 1998 Explaining Away the Greek Gods in Islam Journal of the History of Ideas 59 3 389 403 doi 10 1353 jhi 1998 0030 ISSN 1086 3222 S2CID 170321617 Weber Max 2002 Baehr Peter R Wells Gordon C eds The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Other Writings Translated by Baehr Peter R Wells Gordon C New York Penguin Books ISBN 978 0 14 043921 2 External links EditHomepage of The Society for the Anthropology of Religion within American Anthropological Association Anthropology of Religion Page Archived 20 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine M D Murphy University of Alabama Andrew Lang Anthropology and Religion The Making of Religion Chapter II Longmans Green and C London New York and Bombay 1900 pp 39 64 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Anthropology of religion amp oldid 1152075472, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
