Evolutionary Approaches. For instance, a student of Christian theology is a Christian; but a student of religious studies studying Shintoism is usually not a Shintoist. Chapter 1 in the In light of these considerations, our approach in examining the different world religions in the subsequent chapters mainly falls under religious studies. From its approach, we understand that Sri Aurobindo begins his work clearly within religious prospect, particularly his own relation with yoga, he explains; the practice is not for ourselves alone, but for the Divine; The intent is to find occupation of good in the world, to outcome a spiritual conversion and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. 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. While theology attempts to understand the transcendent or . 1 Review. This approach teaches that there is only one true religion and only one way of salvation. This can often lead to conflicts, including those that arise on religious grounds. 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. The first European missionaries had thought that the native peoples of the Americas or Africa had no religiononly cultures or superstitions. Once colonized, it was discovered that they did have religion after all. There are doubts about how far there can be neutrality and objectivity in the study of religion. Instead, I shall merely sketch an alternative strategy. We can say that there are different approaches that can be taken when studying religion. As stated earlier, French sociologist mile Durkheim (1858-1917) defined religion as a "unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things" (1915). a creation of capitalism, for Weber it is the other way roundcapitalism is largely due to religion, more specifically, the Calvinist religion. Your email address will not be published. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. But because they wanted to know who would eventually be saved and enter heaven, they thought that financial success was one good indicator. Accordingly, God is just the projected ultimate father image that helps humans deal with their feelings of helplessness and guilt. Ascension 120. In this . Religious rituals are behaviors or practices that are either required or expected of the members of a particular group, such as bar mitzvah or confession of sins (Barkan and Greenwood 2003). Durkheim was more interested in the unifying effect of religion among members of a society. The journal is a very significant endeavor since, until we launched it, there was no journal in the study of religion that has focused exclusively on developing a critical approach. But it is necessary to be clear about what objectivity and subjectivity in religion mean. Hence the proposed shift from an analogizing to a disaggregating strategy. First, different disciplines will have different answers to the question of what the concept of religion is for; and as a result they will work with different conceptions of religion. In the literature, lived religion is treated variously as a term, a concept, an approach, and a field of studyor all of these. 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. Particularly, this study used an interdisciplinary approach, that is, a combination of religious and social approaches. The implications of the first approach have been resisted in many quarters. The Comparative Study of Religions World Religions: A Voyage of Discovery, Fourth Edition, considers one religion at a time, chapter by chapter. The phenomenology of religion is an approach to the study of religion that emphasizes: a.) Global studies is a fresh and dynamic discipline area that promises to reinvigorate undergraduate and postgraduate education in the social sciences and humanities. 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. APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION 109 like, the students were asked to read Marx, Freud, Durkheim. Consequently, the systematic study of the doctrines of Buddhism and Hinduism, for instance, are respectively called Buddhist philosophy and Hindu philosophy, and not Buddhist theology and Hindu theology. In fact, the religions of civilized races evolved from the animism of the lower races. TTh 2:40-4:00. Secularism and freedom of religion, in liberal thought, are connected to moral values such as individual autonomy, moral self-determination, freedom of conscience as well as more political ideals such as non-theocratic constitutional democracy, separation of church and state, and non-establishment of the dominant religion. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives. It is the opium of the people (Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right). 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! It may perhaps intensify your religious experience. It can be seen to designate: a) religion as practised in particular locations or by particular people; b) a specific modality of religious practice; c) the fundamental nature of all religion. Peter Connolly. Can we categorize all religions within Ninian Smart definitions? 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. Marrett (1866-1943) was, similar to Tylor, an anthropologist who studied religion and who adopted the evolutionary approach. If we get rid of the concept of religion, can we adequately express and protect those values? (Peter Connolly,pp1-2Approche to the Study of Religion,Biddles L.T.D.) The Hijab Controversy in Political Philosophy (Oxford University Press 2008). 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. Durkheim argued that "religion happens . At this juncture, let us x-ray some of the approaches in studying religion scientifically. Yet the strategy of disaggregating religion has a further, more portentous implication for normative political theory. Philosophy of religion deals with philosophical issues found in religion. describing how religion is experienced by practitioners. But perhaps we should apply to religion something like Ludwig Wittgensteins theory of family resemblance. People often do truly unique things for their faith. If your specific country is not listed, please select the UK version of the site, as this is best suited to international visitors. Approaches to the Study of Religion. In addition to the main scriptures of a particular religion, theology often involves the study of the works of recognized theologians who are usually believers of the religion. Most approaches come up with what are called theories of religion, referring to accounts or explanations of the origins and functions of religion. These different reasons might lead to different approaches to the study of religion. For critics, this is visible in three different ways. The other sense of the subjectivity of religion is properly a matter for theology and the philosophy of religion. The book is a vast collection of rituals, myths, and religions organized by patterns and themes, which made extensive use of sources from primitive and folk cultures (Paden 2005, 213). Here I focus on two objectionswhich, for ease of presentation, I call the anthropological and the normative objection. Briefly, the arguments from causation and motion claim that the series of causes and effects, and movements in the world, must begin with God being the first cause and mover; the argument from design claims that the intricate design of the world cannot be attributed to mere chance but only to God as the divine intelligence; the argument from necessity claims that there must be a God who is a necessary being (one who has always been existing) to explain how contingent beings (those that presently exist but previously did not) have come to exist; and the argument from degrees of perfection claims that there must be a God whose perfection serves as the standard for determining the degrees of qualities that we attribute to things (like that they are good or better). From this perspective, the egalitarian strategy of analogizing religion is a productive one: the law should not capture religion as such, but whatever dimensions of religion are normatively salient and suitable for legal protection. These different approaches disagree about the essence of religion, but all three camps operate within a shared account of the human. In this post, I briefly set out three distinct approaches to the study of religion: criticizing religion, upholding religion, and disaggregating religion. Religion is both a fascinating and an essential subject of study. The people who take these courses are usually involved in religion themselves ,many are involved a in religious communities or, wishing to know more and learn regarding the religious beliefs of others. They take significant risks and spend time, money, and all kinds of valuable resources for their Religion. 3 Phenomenological. In my opinion, the study of different approaches to the study and comprehension of religions is indeed an exciting and important topic. If religion is a western concept that has been used to shore up the authority of the colonial and sovereign state, through shifting, arbitrary demarcations between religion tradition, culture, reason, and the nation, then scholars should be wary of treating it as a stable, coherent object of academic study. According to a number of scholars (often influenced by Foucauldian or post-colonial thought), the category of religion is deeply implicated in the history and practice of western statism and imperialism. Methodologies provide a lense of analysis from which to view the field of religous studies. On the contrary, religion, as it is studied in the secular state university, is both a category and an aspect of human behavior that must be subjected to the same types of scrutiny as any other category of human behavior that one may study. There are many ways of studying religions. As a belief system, religion shapes what people think and how they see the world. Other researchers of religion, such as Cornelius Petrus Tiele (1830-1902), preferred the term ' comparative religion '. the myths of a religion. This course introduces students to the variety of academic approaches to the study of religion and to the procedures and sources used in writing academic papers in religious studies. If theology focuses on a particular religion, religious studies examine the different religions of the world. 300 Cadman Plaza West 15th Floor Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA 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. 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. Lesson Transcript. The History of Religion as a Sociological Concept Understanding Religious Pluralism in India. This article examines three anthropological theories explaining how religion has evolved and continues to evolve. Approaches to ReligionSpring 2010REL 111. So critics confuse an empirical inquiry (describing what religion is) with a normative inquiry (accounting for its status in the law). We may conclude saying that maybe religions will never combine in to one global faith ,but we do think that the society is moving towards a global ideology that have a space for religion and identify the contributions of the diverse ethnicity and traditions and bring a new way in helping us to work together for the support of human values and spirituality. Among the many faiths represented here are Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It fosters innovative research, nurtures new generations of social scientists, deepens how inquiry is practiced within and across disciplines, and mobilizes necessary knowledge on important public issues. The SSRC is an independent, international, nonprofit organization. Thus, the bracketing means forgetting about beliefs of ones own that might endorse or conflict with what is being investigated. This decline is accompanied by a rise in the share of U.S. adults who say they seldom or never attend religious services (from 27% in 2007 to 30% in 2014). This approach is known as comparative religion. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UKEssays.com. Another reason is that questions about the origins and functions of religion have often been conflated with questions about the truth of religion, and this has led to controversies that tend to hinder the development of common concepts, methodologies, and problems. 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. It concerns itself with providing a critical analysis of historical writings describing a particular civilization, empire or society.Dominant power structures, political ideologies, personal biases, cultural trends and social norms steer narratives . Religion can be said to be subjective in at least two senses. There are religions, however, in which even worship rituals are not central. 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. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Such distinctions, however, only serve to shore up the arbitrary power that the state has to demarcate the sphere of its own sovereignty. village and nad level bring in solidarity and unity among different social segments . Theologians adopt a more content-based approach: they study the texts and dogma which capture our fundamental dependence on a greater order of things. It is present in varying forms in the religions of the lower races up to the civilized races of mankind. For this reason, let us examine the ideas of another pioneering anthropologist of religion, namely Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917). liade (1907-1986), whose studies included the concepts of sacred space and mythic time, and the sacredness of nature (Paden 2005, 215). Phone: 212-377-2700 Fax: 212-377-2727. Moreover, in the absence of a tight definition there will always be a number of disputed cases. The academic study of religion is an inherently interdisciplinary field, incorporating textual studies of the world's sacred texts, language studies, art, history, philosophy, anthropology, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, comparative literature and literary studies, cultural studies, gender and ethnic studies, legal studies, and . If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! In his own words: Man is on a transitorily passage . Corrections? In the last quarter of the 20th century, four approaches to cultural studies drew growing attention. Let me get back to the starting point of our inquiry: Is religion a valid category of scholarly research? These studies suggest the significance of religion in health communication and in our . . This includes such traditional points of departure as history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and sociology, but also the natural sciences, and such other approaches as feminist theory, discourse . He explains that such experience definitely will change positions on previous views regarding religious tradition. 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. The concept exhibits a complex continuum of resemblances and differences. In sum, the anthropological objection urges us to take both ordinary language and ordinary experience seriously. 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. These theologians, through their works, systematically explain the main doctrines of their own respective religions. Can we truly compare two totally different views religion one very internal the other very visual? Nevertheless, common to all these different terms and their respective definitions of approach was the motivation to dispense with theologically orientated normative constructions in the study of religion. Some of these theories may be controversial, or questionable, for some people; nonetheless, knowing them broadens our understanding of the meaning and nature of religion. Office hours: MW 3-4, TTh 1-2:30. and by appointment. Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood have shown, for instance, that liberal secularism requires individual beliefnot communal observance, rituals or embodied pietyto be taken as the essence of religiosity. So he is proposing a mystical goal and from his yogic teachings he guides,shows and achieves that. Approaches to the Study of Religions. APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION WILLIAM E. ARNAL New York University has a religious studies program, but not a de- partment. R.R. Significance is reported at the p < .10 level. No consensus among scholars concerning the best way to study religion has developed, however. Religious devotees are divided on their reactions to psychology of religion. For our purposes, we shall examine certain approaches to the study of religions that are based on certain academic disciplines. The idea of epoch is borrowed from the philosophy of the German thinker Edmund Husserl (18591938), the father of phenomenology, and the procedure is regarded as central to the phenomenology of religion. It may well be true that the boundaries between religion and other cognate concepts such as tradition, culture, ideology, faith, reason, and so forth are porous and fuzzy. Two famous and highly influential Christian theologians who also engaged in philosophy of religion were St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Ninian Smarts approach to religion is described in his academic literature as a completely new way to the thinking of religion. The adherent of a faith is no doubt authoritative as to his own experience, but what of the communal significance of the rites and institutions in which the adherent participates? 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