RLG211H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Edward Burnett Tylor, Clifford Geertz, General Order
Document Summary
Theology: study of religion from within a given religious tradition. Searching for absolute truths about the nature of the divine, the good, the cosmos. Religious studies: why we study religion: tries to bracket out questions of truth > your religious beliefs are bracketed out, scholars of religious studies give sympathetic account of what religion means to the people who practice it. A system of symbols which act to establish. Doctor is good can be anywhere he wants, teaches his companions, answers questions humanities never could, Clear cosmology: religion is the belief in spiritual beings. e. b. tylor, primitive culture (1871) Religious experience (1902: intense individual moments of mystical experiences > what happens in solitude, religious beliefs are representations that express the nature of sacred things and the relations they sustain among themselves or with profane things. Religious representations are collective representations that express collective realities
