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Studying religion anthropologically

Definitions and theories



Studying religion “anthropologically” Studying “religion” anthropologically “Studying” religion anthropologically Pre-scientific approaches/apologetics Historical /evolutionist theories Psychological theories
Emotionalist theories Psychoanalytic theory Intellectualist theories
Primitive mentality versus psychic unity Lévi-Straussian structuralism Neurological theories
Social theories Functionalism Historical materialism
Structural functionalism Symbolic/interpretive anthropology “Modular” theories
The “building block” approach: Wallace
The evolutionary and agency approach: Guthrie, Boyer, and Atran
Conclusion

As humans, we marvel at and ponder our existence, our behavior, and the world around us. Out of this self-reflection, humans have arrived at many different understandings and approaches, but there is one recurring theme in many of their answers: We are not alone. There are other beings and forces in the world and, even more so, other beings and forces significantly like ourselves, with minds and wills and personalities and histories. Such a being or force, as the theologian Martin Buber (1958) expressed it, cannot be treated as an object or “it” but must be treated as a person or “thou.” Between such beings/forces and humans there are relations and obligations which can only be called “social”; they are part of our society and our culture. They extend our society and culture far beyond ordinary humans, sometimes as far as society and culture can be extended—to the Ultimate.


Such systems of thought and action we refer to as religions. Observers have always been particularly fascinated with religion; it is uniquely dramatic, colorful, and powerful. This does not mean, however, that humans always particularly understand each other’s—or their own—religion. Preoccupation with the drama and color of religion can actually interfere with understanding, making it decontexualized or overly exotic. And, of course, not all humans share this benevolent curiosity about other religions.
Since religions allege to speak of the real (even of the Really Real), humans exhibit a strong tendency to condemn religious diversity as religious error. Of course, the same challenge potentially faces us in the investigation of any human activity. We might be enchanted at the complexity and diversity of spoken language or clothing styles or food habits, or we might find other languages or clothing or food silly, disgusting, or obscene and condemn them. One thing that we probably would not do though is to declare another language or clothing style or cuisine “false.”
Anthropology does not approach religion to falsify it nor to verify it nor even to judge it. Anthropology is not the seminary, intending to indoctrinate the student into any one particular religion. It is not apologetics, attempting to prove or justify some religion; neither is it an exercise in debunking any or all religion. Anthropology starts out with a different interest and a different agenda and, therefore, with differ- ent tools and concepts. What does it mean to study religion anthropologically? The most illuminating thing might be to approach this question backwards, beginning with anthropology, then turning to religion, and ending with study.


Studying religion “anthropologically”

Many disciplines explore religion—psychology, sociology, theology, even biology in some instances. Each has its own focus and interest. The anthropological study of religion must be distinguished and distinguishable from these other approaches in some meaningful ways; it must do or offer something that the others do not. It must raise its own specific questions, come from its own specific perspective, and practice its own specific method.
Anthropology can best be thought of as the science of the diversity of humans, in their bodies and their behavior. Thus, the anthropology of religion will be the scien- tific investigation of the diversity of human religions. The questions it might ask include:

• What is the range of diversity of religion? How many different kinds of religions and religious beliefs, practices, institutions, etc., exist?
• What commonalities or even universals are there between religions? Are there any things that all religions do or believe?
• What relationships exist between various parts of any single religion, or between a religion and its social and even natural environment? Are there any regular patterns that we can discern across religions?


Anthropology, like every discipline, starts to address its questions from a unique disciplinary perspective. Studying religion biologically implies a biological perspective (emphasizing physical traits, perhaps most importantly the brain), while studying religion psychologically implies a psychological perspective (focusing on internal “mental” phenomena and processes). Anthropology, as we will see, has been open to and has profited from these and many other approaches. Still, it has developed some distinctive concepts, tools, and emphases. Central to anthropology is the concept of culture, the learned and shared ideas, feelings, behaviors, and products of those behaviors characteristic of any particular society. To study anything anthropologically—language, politics, gender roles, or eating habits—is, therefore, to look at it as learned and shared human behavior. Since it must be observable, anthropology also treats it as public behavior, not primarily something that is “private” or “in people’s heads”; it is also not initially in people’s heads but rather, since it is learned and acquired instead of innate, initially “outside” the individual in his or her social environment. In a word, culture is a set of practices in which humans engage and, among other things, about which they talk and in terms of which they act. Therefore, anthropology does not limit itself to texts or history (although it certainly considers these) but rather to culture lived by the actual members of the society.
This basic orientation leads to three aspects of the “anthropological perspective.” First, anthropology proceeds through comparative or crosscultural description. Anthropology does not consider only our own society and culture or others similar to it. It begins from a premise of diversity and attempts to embrace the full range of diversity of whatever is under investigation. It aims to explore and describe each single culture or aspect of culture in rich detail. This tends to manifest in a process and a product. The process is fieldwork, traveling to and living among the subjects of our study for long periods of time, observing and participating in their lives. Hence, the principal activity of anthropology is generally considered to be participant observation. The product is the “case study” or ethnography, an in-depth and up-close account of the ways of thinking and feeling and behaving of the people we study. Therefore, anthropological writings tend to be “particularistic,” to describe the “small” or the “local” intensively. However, and fortunately, anthropology does not emphasize the local for its own sake; as Stanley Tambiah wrote, the point of ethnography is “to use the particular to say something about the general” (1970: 1). This is an important and redefining approach because no particular group or culture is typical or representative of humanity—in fact, there is no such thing as “typical” or “representative” language or politics or religion—yet each sheds some light on the general processes by which culture works. Such an insight will be particularly valuable when we turn below to discussions of large-scale and even “world” phenomena, which we often take as typical or consistent across vast expanses of area and numbers of people. Rather, we will find that these phenomena vary widely from place to place—that all religion, like all politics, is local. Not only that, but we find that ideas, practices, and values differ within a society, that not all members of even the smallest societies act or think exactly alike. In other words, cultures are internally diverse, and culture (including religion) is more “distributed” than shared.


Second, anthropology adopts a position of holism. We start from the presumption that any culture is a (more or less) integrated “whole,” with “parts” that operate in specific ways in relation to each other and that contribute to the operation of the whole. From our examinations of cultures, anthropology has identified four such areas of function in all cultures (although not always equally elaborated or formalized in each). These four “domains” of culture are economics, kinship, politics, and religion. Each makes its distinct contribution to society, but each is also “integrated” (although sometimes loosely) with all of the others, such that if we want to under- stand the religion of a society, we must also inevitably understand its political arrangements, its kinship system, and even its economic practices. These major cultural domains are also connected to, reflected in, and affected by more pervasive matters of language and gender. And, finally, all of these elements are located within some environmental context.
Third, anthropology upholds the principle of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism grasps that each culture has its own “standards” of understanding and judging. Each occupies its own universe of meaning and value—of what is true, important, good, moral, normal, legal, and so on. It is patently obvious that the same behavior may be normal in one society, abnormal or criminal or nonexistent in another. We know that the same soun

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1ศึกษาศาสนา anthropologicallyDefinitions และทฤษฎีศึกษาศาสนา "anthropologically" Studying "ศาสนา" anthropologically "การศึกษา" ศาสนา anthropologically scientific ก่อน วิธี/apologetics /evolutionist ประวัติศาสตร์ทฤษฎีทฤษฎีทางจิตวิทยาEmotionalist ทฤษฎีทฤษฎีทฤษฎี Psychoanalytic Intellectualistความคิดดั้งเดิมเมื่อเทียบกับทฤษฎีระบบประสาท structuralism สามัคคี psychic Lévi Straussianทฤษฎีสังคมศาสตร์ Functionalism นิยมวิภาษโครงสร้าง functionalism Symbolic/interpretive "Modular" ทฤษฎีมานุษยวิทยาวิธี "สร้างบล็อก": Wallaceวิธีเชิงวิวัฒนาการและหน่วย: Guthrie, Boyer และ Atranบทสรุปเป็นมนุษย์ เราเที่ยว และไตร่ตรองของเราดำรงอยู่ ลักษณะการทำงานของเรา และโลกรอบตัวเรา จากการมองนี้ มนุษย์มาถึงเปลี่ยนความเข้าใจแตกต่างกันและแนวทางมาก แต่มีหนึ่งซ้ำ ๆ ในคำตอบของพวกเขา: เราไม่ใช่คนเดียวกัน มีสิ่งมีชีวิตอื่น ๆ และกองกำลังในโลก แล้ว แม้จำนวนมาก เทพและกองอื่น ๆ อย่างมีนัยสำคัญเช่นตนเอง จิต wills และสับสน และหาก กำลังหรือแรง เป็นเช่นตามนักบวช Buber มาร์ติน (1958) ไม่ถือว่าเป็นวัตถุหรือ "มัน" แต่ต้องเป็นบุคคลหรือ "พระองค์นั้น" ระหว่างมนุษย์และสวรรค์/กองกำลังดังกล่าว มีความสัมพันธ์และข้อผูกพันที่สามารถเท่านั้นถูกเรียกว่า "สังคม" พวกเขาเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของสังคมและวัฒนธรรมของเรา ขยายสังคมของเรา และสามารถขยายไกลเกินมนุษย์สามัญ บางครั้งเท่าที่ทำสังคมและวัฒนธรรมวัฒนธรรม — การที่ดีสุด เช่นระบบความคิดและการกระทำที่เราหมายถึงเป็นศาสนา ผู้สังเกตการณ์ได้เสมอโดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งหลงใหลศาสนา โดยเฉพาะละคร สีสัน และมีประสิทธิภาพได้ นี้ไม่ได้หมายความว่า อย่างไรก็ตาม ว่า มนุษย์เสมอโดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งความเข้าใจของผู้อื่น — หรือตนเอง — ศาสนา Preoccupation ละครและสีของศาสนาจริง ๆ แล้วอาจรบกวนความเข้าใจ การทำ decontexualized หรือแปลกใหม่มากเกินไปได้ และ แน่นอน มนุษย์ไม่ใช้ร่วมกันนี้อยากกลายเกี่ยวกับศาสนาอื่น ๆSince religions allege to speak of the real (even of the Really Real), humans exhibit a strong tendency to condemn religious diversity as religious error. Of course, the same challenge potentially faces us in the investigation of any human activity. We might be enchanted at the complexity and diversity of spoken language or clothing styles or food habits, or we might find other languages or clothing or food silly, disgusting, or obscene and condemn them. One thing that we probably would not do though is to declare another language or clothing style or cuisine “false.”Anthropology does not approach religion to falsify it nor to verify it nor even to judge it. Anthropology is not the seminary, intending to indoctrinate the student into any one particular religion. It is not apologetics, attempting to prove or justify some religion; neither is it an exercise in debunking any or all religion. Anthropology starts out with a different interest and a different agenda and, therefore, with differ- ent tools and concepts. What does it mean to study religion anthropologically? The most illuminating thing might be to approach this question backwards, beginning with anthropology, then turning to religion, and ending with study.Studying religion “anthropologically”Many disciplines explore religion—psychology, sociology, theology, even biology in some instances. Each has its own focus and interest. The anthropological study of religion must be distinguished and distinguishable from these other approaches in some meaningful ways; it must do or offer something that the others do not. It must raise its own specific questions, come from its own specific perspective, and practice its own specific method.Anthropology can best be thought of as the science of the diversity of humans, in their bodies and their behavior. Thus, the anthropology of religion will be the scien- tific investigation of the diversity of human religions. The questions it might ask include:• What is the range of diversity of religion? How many different kinds of religions and religious beliefs, practices, institutions, etc., exist?• What commonalities or even universals are there between religions? Are there any things that all religions do or believe?• What relationships exist between various parts of any single religion, or between a religion and its social and even natural environment? Are there any regular patterns that we can discern across religions? Anthropology, like every discipline, starts to address its questions from a unique disciplinary perspective. Studying religion biologically implies a biological perspective (emphasizing physical traits, perhaps most importantly the brain), while studying religion psychologically implies a psychological perspective (focusing on internal “mental” phenomena and processes). Anthropology, as we will see, has been open to and has profited from these and many other approaches. Still, it has developed some distinctive concepts, tools, and emphases. Central to anthropology is the concept of culture, the learned and shared ideas, feelings, behaviors, and products of those behaviors characteristic of any particular society. To study anything anthropologically—language, politics, gender roles, or eating habits—is, therefore, to look at it as learned and shared human behavior. Since it must be observable, anthropology also treats it as public behavior, not primarily something that is “private” or “in people’s heads”; it is also not initially in people’s heads but rather, since it is learned and acquired instead of innate, initially “outside” the individual in his or her social environment. In a word, culture is a set of practices in which humans engage and, among other things, about which they talk and in terms of which they act. Therefore, anthropology does not limit itself to texts or history (although it certainly considers these) but rather to culture lived by the actual members of the society.This basic orientation leads to three aspects of the “anthropological perspective.” First, anthropology proceeds through comparative or crosscultural description. Anthropology does not consider only our own society and culture or others similar to it. It begins from a premise of diversity and attempts to embrace the full range of diversity of whatever is under investigation. It aims to explore and describe each single culture or aspect of culture in rich detail. This tends to manifest in a process and a product. The process is fieldwork, traveling to and living among the subjects of our study for long periods of time, observing and participating in their lives. Hence, the principal activity of anthropology is generally considered to be participant observation. The product is the “case study” or ethnography, an in-depth and up-close account of the ways of thinking and feeling and behaving of the people we study. Therefore, anthropological writings tend to be “particularistic,” to describe the “small” or the “local” intensively. However, and fortunately, anthropology does not emphasize the local for its own sake; as Stanley Tambiah wrote, the point of ethnography is “to use the particular to say something about the general” (1970: 1). This is an important and redefining approach because no particular group or culture is typical or representative of humanity—in fact, there is no such thing as “typical” or “representative” language or politics or religion—yet each sheds some light on the general processes by which culture works. Such an insight will be particularly valuable when we turn below to discussions of large-scale and even “world” phenomena, which we often take as typical or consistent across vast expanses of area and numbers of people. Rather, we will find that these phenomena vary widely from place to place—that all religion, like all politics, is local. Not only that, but we find that ideas, practices, and values differ within a society, that not all members of even the smallest societies act or think exactly alike. In other words, cultures are internally diverse, and culture (including religion) is more “distributed” than shared.


Second, anthropology adopts a position of holism. We start from the presumption that any culture is a (more or less) integrated “whole,” with “parts” that operate in specific ways in relation to each other and that contribute to the operation of the whole. From our examinations of cultures, anthropology has identified four such areas of function in all cultures (although not always equally elaborated or formalized in each). These four “domains” of culture are economics, kinship, politics, and religion. Each makes its distinct contribution to society, but each is also “integrated” (although sometimes loosely) with all of the others, such that if we want to under- stand the religion of a society, we must also inevitably understand its political arrangements, its kinship system, and even its economic practices. These major cultural domains are also connected to, reflected in, and affected by more pervasive matters of language and gender. And, finally, all of these elements are located within some environmental context.
Third, anthropology upholds the principle of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism grasps that each culture has its own “standards” of understanding and judging. Each occupies its own universe of meaning and value—of what is true, important, good, moral, normal, legal, and so on. It is patently obvious that the same behavior may be normal in one society, abnormal or criminal or nonexistent in another. We know that the same soun

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เรียนศาสนาสังคมวิทยา

เดอ จึง nitions และทฤษฎี



เรียนศาสนา " สังคมวิทยา " เรียน " ศาสนา " สังคมวิทยา " เรียน " ศาสนาสังคมวิทยาก่อนจึง scienti C วิธี / ประวัติศาสตร์ / evolutionist าทฤษฎีจิตวิทยาทฤษฎี

intellectualist คนเจ้าอารมณ์ทฤษฎีทฤษฎีจิตวิเคราะห์ทฤษฎี