Critics have pointed out thatby analogizing religion with individual conscience or conceptions of the goodliberalism reveals its Protestant, individualistic bias, and is unable to capture the fullness of the religious experience. But the historical process itself has to be investigated scientificallythat is, by considering the evidence, using the techniques of historical enquiry and other scientific methods. Summary: 1.Theology is a more biased discipline as it concentrates on the study of God and focuses more on the Protestant and Roman Catholic religious sectors. 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). Accordingly, Calvinists believed in predestination, the view that God has already decided on who will enter heaven or not. The study of religion can roughly be divided between descriptive and historical inquiries on the one hand and normative inquiries on the other. It looks at the percentage of each country's population that belongs to eight major religious groups, as of 2010. From this perspective, it would be a mistake to think that conceptual imprecision is in itself an obstacle to scholarly inquiry. Hence the proposed shift from an analogizing to a disaggregating strategy. Religion and 'The Study of Religions' has many approaches which try to investigate the core of what religion is and what it means to the people who practice it. This approach can be better understood in his ritual dimension, involvement with worshipping, meditations, pilgrimages, sacrifices and healing activities .Of course doctrinal and philosophical dimension is to be taken in consideration without living behind the experimental and emotional dimension and the important ethical and legal dimension. Religion and 'The Study of Religions' has many approaches which try to investigate the core of what religion is and what it means to the people who practice it. As noted, there is a specific pedagogical An internal theory of religion is a particular religions account of its own origins and functions (e.g., Christianitys own account of the origins and functions of the Christian religion); while an external theory of religion is an account of the origins and functions of particular religions, or religion in general, using the methods of certain academic disciplines. 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. This is an important critique, which draws on what I have called the first (critical) and the second (anthropological) approach to religion. These philosophical issues include, among many others, whether we can adequately prove the existence of God, reconcile the existence of evil with the existence of a God who is wholly good and all-powerful, reconcile Gods omniscience (the power to know everything) and foreknowledge (the power to know future events) with human freedom, explain the nature of miracles, determine the meaningfulness of religious language (how religious linguistic expressions acquire their meanings), and many others. Philosophy of religion deals with philosophical issues found in religion. a creation of capitalism, for Weber it is the other way roundcapitalism is largely due to religion, more specifically, the Calvinist religion. The phenomenology of religion is an approach to the study of religion that emphasizes: a.) 3.7 Robert Marrett and Animatism. Your email address will not be published. The aims of the Diploma Programme world religions course are to enable students to: promote an inquiring, analytical and empathetic approach to the study of religion. A more promising method would seem to be that of exhibiting aspects of religion that are typical of religions, though not necessarily universal, such as the occurrence of the rituals of worship. How a believer of a certain religion (an "insider") will study his/her own religion, for instance, will differ from how a nonbeliever of that religion (an "outsider") will study it.Their motivations and methods will be different. On the other hand, some view it as a way of purifying religion from the idolatry or worship of human-made objects. Although there is still no agreement on this issue, the frontier between traditional religions and modern political ideologies remains a promising topic of study. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. As the world's largest democracy, India . Global studies is a fresh and dynamic discipline area that promises to reinvigorate undergraduate and postgraduate education in the social sciences and humanities. First, the practice of religion involves inner experiences and sentiments, such as feelings of God guiding the life of the devotee. Even a commonly accepted definition of religion has proved difficult to establish, though not for lack of trying. Author of. 5 Evangelical Christian. The study of the religious notions of primitive people arose within the context of evolutionary theory. Much of the interesting work done in anthropology, sociology, and religious studies departments, for example, draws on both the first and the second approach). Given this, we, however, also use other approaches especially comparative religion and philosophy of religionwhich we will discuss next. Is religion a valid category of scholarly inquiry? The disaggregated approach does not claim that it captures the fullness of the lived, anthropological reality of religion. Sociologists today employ three primary theoretical perspectives: the symbolic interactionist perspective, the functionalist perspective, and the conflict perspective. She has published extensively in the areas of republicanism and toleration, theories of law and the state, and global justice. But perhaps we should apply to religion something like Ludwig Wittgensteins theory of family resemblance. Kujenga Amani facilitates the exchange of ideas about diverse aspects of peacebuilding in Africa. He illustrate the introduction of Phenomenology saying, a lot of opinions have been written about not only the physical interchange of races but;, also ethnical and cultural, and especially upon values, so what take place when religions and their tradition convene? Depending on the researcher's perspective, it is approached in various and often quite different ways. Sociologists study religion as both a belief system and a social institution. Morgan, Sue. The idea is that one who experiences financial success is blessed and is thus favored by God. This idea led Calvinists to engage in activities that would increase their wealth, paving the way for the development of capitalism. In brief, it is the study of religious phenomena in so far as they may be understood psychologically (Merkur 2005,165). He also introduced a broad program and methodology of comparing religions, which included principles like gaining knowledge of others through their own writings, grouping religions according to their regional, linguistic contexts, and avoiding the common distortion of comparing the positive aspects of one religion with the negative aspects of another (Paden 2005, 212-213). Methodologies in religious studies are the interpretive models on which the analysis of religious phenomena and resources are discussed. Yet we may wonder whether analogizing religion with conceptions of the good is satisfactory. According to William Cavanaughs provocative thesis, the fact that Christianity is construed as a religion, whereas nationalism is not, ensures that the Christians public and lethal loyalty belongs to the nation-state. 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). Durkheim further claimed that more complex societies had more complex religious systems, but they were all same in that they had religions as ways of unifying their societies. Looking for a flexible role? How can we best identify and protect the normative values which historically have underpinned freedom of religion, non-establishment and the like? 10. Certain attempts at a functionalist definition of religion, such as that of the German American theologian Paul Tillich (18861965), who defined religion in terms of human beings ultimate concern, would leave the way open to count these ideologies as proper objects of the study of religion (Tillich himself called them quasi-religions). 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. Contact. The word anthropology means science of human beings or humanity. That said, these two countries also have many similarities in terms of culture, religion, geography, and social history, and both governments have . The study of multiple religious traditions in order to prove the existence or non-existence of God The scholarly examination and comparison of the beliefs, rituals, customs, and traditions of two or more religions As an academic discipline, anthropology studies human beings in aspects ranging from the biology and evolutionary history of Homo sapiens to the features of society and culture that decisively distinguish humans from other animal species. Anthropology has two major fields: physical anthropology, which studies the the origin, evolution, and diversity of people, and cultural anthropology, which studies culture in all of its aspects and uses the methods, concepts, and data of archaeology, ethnography and ethnology, folklore, and linguistics in its descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the world (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2013). The History of Religion as a Sociological Concept The goods that the workers helped produced by means of their labor (using the materials and machines owned by the capitalists) were sold in the market at a certain value. There are many different approaches to finding truth. In light of these considerations, our approach in examining the different world religions in the subsequent chapters mainly falls under religious studies. This approach is known as comparative religion. T here are many ways of studying religions. Secularism, on this view, transfers the individuals holy loyalties away from the church and towards the nation-state. "Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation", in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, Michael Banton (ed. a complex continuum of resemblances and differences, Hindutva and the shared scripts of the global right, Normalizing nationalism through social media in transnational Jain communities. It does this by examining the dynamics of the constituent parts of societies such as institutions, communities, populations, and gender, racial, or age groups (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2013). This is a legitimate perspective from the standpoint of faith. To him, sacred meant extraordinarysomething that inspired wonder and that seemed connected to the concept of "the divine.". In this post, I briefly set out three distinct approaches to the study of religion: criticizing religion, upholding religion, and disaggregating religion. It may perhaps intensify your religious experience. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was the founder of psychoanalysis, which generally claims that our behaviors are largely controlled by our unconscious mind which contains our repressed sexual and violent desires. Tylor cited the association of morality with animism which was little represented in the lower races but became an integral part of the religions ofthe civilized races. The idea is that one who experiences financial success is blessed and is thus favored by God. Religion is also studied within cultural geography, which studies how cultural processes spread. Free resources to assist you with your university studies! (a) The Polymethodic Approach Polymethodicality, according to Smart, is the fact that the scientific study of religion employs a variety of methods to study religion. The interrelations of the various disciplines in relation to religion as an area of . The author will attempt to evaluate the strengths and weakness of two approaches to religion and try to compare the work of the two representations and their methodology .The first is Professor Ninian Smart as he wrote widely, regarding different topics in religions, with papers and articles appearing in a vast range of . 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 . One of the significant sociological findings of Max Weber was the significant contribution of that the Calvinist religious ideas had on the development of the economic system of capitalism. 3.Theology requires its learners to have some degree of faith whereas religious studies does not . document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Social Science Research Council Faculty are drawn from a variety of other departments- including (but not restricted to) history, classics, anthropology, He- brew and Judaic studies, Middle Eastern studies, and fine arts-and there are only a . Moreover, in the absence of a tight definition there will always be a number of disputed cases. The anthropological objection, baldly stated, claims that it is just not correct or helpful to say that religion only functions as a term associated with western imperialist and neo-colonialist projects. Learn about sociologists . We can confirm that the method of study that Smart used in his approach comprehend both external and internal analysis of religion, characterized by phenomenological perspectives. This distinction depends to some extent upon taking a projectionist view of religion as a human product. On the other hand, comparative religion refers to a branch of religious studies that is concerned with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices of two or more particular religions. The Christian theologian, for example, may see a particular historical process as providential. Which of these four approaches do you take in your everyday life, and why? 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 . 427-5290. adlerj@kenyon.edu. The term theology, though often used to refer to Christian theology, also applies to the systematic study of the other monotheistic religions, standardly referring to Judaism and Islam. We also have Confucian, Taoist, and Shinto philosophies; instead of Confucian, Taoist, and Shinto theologies. 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. (Peter Connolly,pp1-2Approche to the Study of Religion,Biddles L.T.D.) Nor does the origin of a concept in itself discredit its uses: the concept may well have been forged in the crucible of missionary and colonial encounters, but its meanings and uses have further proliferated in non-colonial and post-colonial settings, in ways that escaped, distorted, and subverted the original discourse. Durkheim was more interested in the unifying effect of religion among members of a society. Network analysis applied to such data may provide insight into real-life mixtures . A standard line of criticism against this egalitarian strategy has been to argue that it rests on a contested understanding of religion. To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below: If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have your work published on UKEssays.com then please: Our academic writing and marking services can help you! Program design strategies. The findings that focus on the scientific study of religion, including the SSSR and the SSR units within the AAR, are especially highlighted, as are contrasts between sociological and psychological approaches in the academic study of religion. Sullivan demonstrates that religion is too complex, too comprehensive, and too multi-faceted to be adequately captured by the law of the liberal state. Aurobindo offers no guidance upon other religions as his account is purely personal. The apologetic approaches to the study of religion is pro-religion in that it defends religion and attempts to prove that religion is true, right, or good. These studies suggest the significance of religion in health communication and in our . Such distinctions, however, only serve to shore up the arbitrary power that the state has to demarcate the sphere of its own sovereignty. The term fundamentalism can be used in very different religious contexts and texts to describe the devotion and strict loyalty to a set of principles or ideas. London and New York, 1999. But nor does it reduce the normative inscription of religion in the law to a narrow (often ethnocentric) set of concerns and values. 47. As a belief system, religion shapes what people think and how they see the world. Not surprisingly perhaps, the work of those scholars who have most influenced the critical religion school, such as Asad and Mahmood, explicitly aims to provide a thick anthropological description of the complexity and diversity of religious experienceit brings out, for example, the distinctive modes of Muslim religious subjectivity. These two neighboring countries have different legal systems and, of course, their own unique characteristics. To a great extent, the meanings now attached to the terms religion and religions have tended to promote the study of religion in order to understand the world in which we live rather than as part of a desire for personal religious self-fulfillment. 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). New approaches to the study of religion: the cognitive, the biological, and the neurological. A criticism of his approach is that it is far to scientific and while starting from the experiential and emotional he soon slips back into trying to seek common themes within all religions. ), London: Tavistock, 85-126. Continuum International publishing group .2006. 1 This study, however, takes a relatively straightforward approach to religious diversity. 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