RELIGST 2EE3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Totem, Thought Experiment, Complex Differential Form

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELIGST 2EE3
• Professor: Eileen Schuller

Document Summary

Explain the relationship between social groups and the sacred. Sacred: profane distinction: these 2 diff demission, scared protected with rules and regulation, profane is everyday life, anything can be deemed sacred. Religious beliefs always connected to a social group: common belief in a social group created unity. If we understanding something in it"s most basic form we can understand the complex form then. Basic religion was indigenous people in australia. Chose these people as a case study: more interested in a thought experiment would outlines an argument about religion, not how aus people were more thought experiment that draws on elements of social organization. Indigenous social groups in australia organized on basis of clans: clans groups of people are united by kinship. Each clan designated by totem; like a badge, crest. If you in the bear clan you are the bear.