different approaches to the study of religion

We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. Not surprisingly, religion-making quickly became a tool of colonial and neo-colonial governance. Is religion a valid category of scholarly inquiry? The attempt simply to describe and not judge religious beliefs and practices is often considered to involve epochthat is, the suspension of belief and the bracketing of the phenomena under investigation. 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 can often lead to conflicts, including those that arise on religious grounds. 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. Author of, Robert Segal, Chair in Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland. 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. Philosophy of religion tries to settle issues in religion solely by means of the human power of reasoning. is discussed, followed by discussion on anthropological approaches to study religion. Sociologists use a variety of methods to analyze culture. Other religions are sourced in man's rebellion against God and/or demonic influence. 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. We can say that there are different approaches that can be taken when studying religion. 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 . Is religion a valid category of scholarly inquiry? He regarded the belief in God as a childish and neurotic illusion which rational and realistic persons ought to abandon. The study of religion can roughly be divided between descriptive and historical inquiries on the one hand and normative inquiries on the other. 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. Also we can see the beliefs, symbolim and teachings of Auroville fitting weel within the above detailed classifacations of Smarts dimensions of religion. Network analysis applied to such data may provide insight into real-life mixtures . First, as religion is not a thing but a term of art, it is perfectly legitimateas suggested abovethat different dimensions of it are appropriated in different disciplines and areas of life. Yet the strategy of disaggregating religion has a further, more portentous implication for normative political theory. If your specific country is not listed, please select the UK version of the site, as this is best suited to international visitors. Human biomonitoring (HBM) approaches can provide inter alia information on the chemicals that are in our body at one point in time. 1 Definition of Religion For Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917) religion is the belief in spiritual beings (1871). Philosophy of religion deals with philosophical issues found in religion. The other is Sri Aurobindo who brought a change to the vision of evolution of life into the divinity of life. Historiography then becomes the science that studies the conceptions and production of historical interpretations of human civilization. No consensus among scholars concerning the best way to study religion has developed, however. The final approach to world religions is exclusivism. Sociology is the study of patterns and trends in human societies and cultures. 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 . 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. d.) the impossibility of studying other cultures' religions. Learn about sociologists . In my opinion, the study of different approaches to the study and comprehension of religions is indeed an exciting and important topic. 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. It is the opium of the people (Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right). Marrett (1866-1943) was, similar to Tylor, an anthropologist who studied religion and who adopted the evolutionary approach. Registered office: Creative Tower, Fujairah, PO Box 4422, UAE. But it is necessary to be clear about what objectivity and subjectivity in religion mean. Religion should be disaggregated into a number of different values which relate to the law of the liberal state in different ways. The History of Religion as a Sociological Concept Theologians adopt a more content-based approach: they study the texts and dogma which capture our fundamental dependence on a greater order of things. In Marrett's view, the first form of religion was a belief in an ever-present and ubiquitous force that gave power to all elements of life (Durkheim 203). Two famous and highly influential Christian theologians who also engaged in philosophy of religion were St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. We also study religion in order to learn more about how different aspects of human lifepolitics, science, literature, art, law, economicshave been and continue to be shaped by changing religious notions of, for example, good and evil, images of the deity and the divine, salvation and punishment, etc. Lesson Transcript. Psychology of religion is the application of the different psychological theories and methods to explain religious phenomena, which include the belief in God, religious experiences and behaviors, and spirituality. Attempts have been made to find a distinctive ingredient in all religions, such as the numinous, or spiritual, experience, the contrast between the sacred and the profane, and the belief in one or more gods. T here are many ways of studying religions. In this . 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. How can we best identify and protect the normative values which historically have underpinned freedom of religion, non-establishment and the like? Erin has an M.Ed in adult education and a BS in psychology and a BS in management systems. Can we categorize all religions within Ninian Smart definitions? 300 Cadman Plaza West 15th Floor Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA (Note that no assumption is made about the actual disciplinary location of scholars. It looks at the percentage of each country's population that belongs to eight major religious groups, as of 2010. 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. 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 . It has emerged as the single most important means of communication for those interested in critical approaches to the study of religion. Among the many faiths represented here are Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. But perhaps we should apply to religion something like Ludwig Wittgensteins theory of family resemblance. In his own words: Man is on a transitorily passage . 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. If it is not possible, then cross-religious comparisons would mostly break down, for normally it is not possible to be inside more than one religion. The author as part of his degree course has studied these two vastly differing approaches. For critics, this is visible in three different ways. She is the Director of UCLs Religion and Political Theory Centre. The only appropriate scholarly stance towards this object is one that is critical and skeptical. Manifestations of the sacred. Depending on the researcher's perspective, it is approached in various and often quite different ways. 2 The closer a country comes to having equal shares of the . Ninian Smarts approach to religion is described in his academic literature as a completely new way to the thinking of religion. The disaggregated approach does not claim that it captures the fullness of the lived, anthropological reality of religion. There are many ways of studying religions. The reflexive effect of the study of religion on religion itself may in practice make it more difficult for the student of religion to adopt the detachment required by bracketing. 10. It has been argued that religious studies is a polymethodic discipline, and that the student of religion should be familiar with the . study of religion, attempt to understand the various aspects of religion, especially through the use of other intellectual disciplines. A&C Black, Jan 1, 1999 - Social Science - 286 pages. We're here to answer any questions you have about our services. What may be the way forward in the teaching and definition of religion is to accept the singularity of each religion and each individuals faith and seek ways in which they can be accommodated within a safe international environment that moves away from empirical definitions. On a related note, the historical achievements of liberal secular states might be obscured if secularism is only perceived as a tool of colonial and imperial domination. The point has been made with particular acuity by legal scholar Winnifred Fallers Sullivan in her book The Impossibility of Religious Freedom. Sullivan demonstrates that religion is too complex, too comprehensive, and too multi-faceted to be adequately captured by the law of the liberal state. Peter Connolly. But nor does it reduce the normative inscription of religion in the law to a narrow (often ethnocentric) set of concerns and values. Religious devotees are divided on their reactions to psychology of religion. 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. The phenomenology of religion is an approach to the study of religion that emphasizes: a.) 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. For the last four decades universities and schools have been acting in response to a constant, steady demand for courses upon the study of religion. 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. And skeptical Buddhism, and Jainism only appropriate scholarly stance towards this is! Here are Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism other is Sri Aurobindo who a. Is indeed an exciting and important topic - 286 pages Aurobindo who a. Important means of the liberal state in different ways of, Robert Segal Chair. 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