Week 2 - Religious Studies
Week 2 - Religious Studies
Week 2 - Religious Studies
WORLD RELIGIONS
RELIGIOUS STUDIES, AND SPIRITUALITY
HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion (1995), edited by Jonathan Z. Smith, defines religion as follows,
“One may clarify the term religion by defining it as a system of beliefs and practices that are relative to
superhuman beings. This definition moves away from defining religion as some special kind of
experience or worldview. It emphasizes that religions are systems or structures consisting of specific
kinds of beliefs and practices: beliefs and practices that are related to superhuman beings.
Superhuman beings are beings who can do things ordinary mortals cannot do. They are known for
their miraculous deeds and powers that set them apart from humans. They can be either male or
female, or androgynous. They need not be gods or goddesses, but may take on the form of an ancestor
who can affect lives. They make take the form of benevolent or malevolent spirits who cause good or
harm to a person or community. Furthermore, the definition requires that such superhuman beings be
specifically related to beliefs and practices, myths and rituals” (emphasis added).
Bruce Lincoln (b. 1948), one of the most prominent contemporary theorists of religion, asserts in his
definition that a religion always consists of four “domains”—discourse, practice, community, and
institution:
1. A discourse whose concerns transcend the human, temporal, and contingent, and that claims for
itself a similarly transcendent status . . .
2. A set of practices whose purpose is to produce a proper world and/or proper human subjects, as
defined by a religious discourse to which these practices are connected . . .
3. A community whose members construct their identity with reference to a religious discourse and
its attendant practices . . .
4. An institution that regulates religious discourse, practices, and community, reproducing them over
time and modifying them as necessary, while asserting their eternal validity and transcendent
value.
WHAT DO RELIGIONS DO?
Many religions will assert that the ultimate reality is somehow divine. Divine doesn’t necessarily imply that
there is a God or gods– but it often does.
• Revelation
• Sacred text
• Direct Experience
WHAT DOES THIS REVELATION TEACH US?
• Mortality
• Conduct in this world determines our fate after death
• Transcendent Experience
• Spiritual fulfillment
BEYOND THE TRANSCENDENT
• Belief in a divine principle, or set of ultimate truths can help even in out day to day lives:
• It can help face life’s uncertainties, help us to take care of one another, and give us a social group that offers
care and support.
• Sacred art, music, architecture also bring joy through their beauty– even to non-believers and non
practitioners.
DIMENSIONS OF RELIGION
• For Review
• 1. Who is Émile Durkheim, and what is notable about his definition of religion?
• 2. Bruce Lincoln, in his definition of religion, identifies four “domains.” What are they?
• 3. What is “revelation,” and how is it pertinent to the question: What is ultimate reality?
• 4. Identify and briefly describe Ninian Smart’s seven “dimensions” of religion.
• 5. What is “empathy,” and how is it relevant for the academic study of religion?
FOR FURTHER REFLECTION
1. Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, while tending to be dismissive of the enduring importance of religion,
asserted explanations that continue to provoke and to enrich academic consideration of the role of
religion. Based on their statements included in this chapter, how might their perspectives be
provocative and enriching in this respect?
2. This chapter and book pose three prominent questions with regard to the challenges addressed by the
world’s religions: What is ultimate reality? How should we live in this world? What is our ultimate
purpose? Drawing on examples and ideas presented in this chapter, discuss to what extent and in what
ways these three questions are interrelated.
3. Explore the interrelationship of these features of religions in the modern world: globalization,
secularization, and multiculturalism.
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939): Religion would thus be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; like
the obsessional neurosis of children, it arose out of the Oedipus complex, out of the relation to the father.
Karl Marx (1818–1883) : Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the
self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself
again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state,
society. . . . Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the
spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.