RELS 161 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder, Waggle Dance, National Hockey Association
22 Feb 2017
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Our beliefs dictate our religion (conversion: problematic, peoples" beliefs can change gradually over time, others can participate in religious rituals without holding those beliefs (e. g. non- Beliefs can cause results in the world: post-protestant religious outlook: belief = heaven, new-atheist outlook: beliefs = terrorism. Religion as something that we do: go to special places (church / pilgrimage, eat / do (cid:374)ot eat special thi(cid:374)gs (cid:894)e. g. kosher, halal, etc. (cid:895, wear special clothing / carry special items, perform special actions = ritual. Ethology: study of animal behaviour (nha - non-human animals) Do animals perform rituals: e. g. elephant graveyards. Animal behaviour can be: patterned, stylized, repetitive, communicative. Ritualization: process by which purely instrumental acts become communicative. Ethology: all animal "ritual" is functional (evolutionarily advantageous: useful in complicated situations: mating, controlling territory, established hierarchies, etc. Ethological insight: humans are animals therefore human rituals are products of biology / evolutionary advantage.
