RELS 161 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Waggle Dance, Ethology, National Hockey Association
26 Jan 2016
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Document Summary
Our beliefs dictate our religion (conversion: when you change your beliefs well then maybe you have changed your religion. Beliefs cause results in the world: post-protestant religious outlook: belief = heaven, idea that beliefs do something in the world (go to heaven at the time of tribulation, new atheist outlook: beliefs = terrorism (religious violence) Religion as something that we do: go to special places (church/pilgrimage, eat/ do not eat special things, wear a particular clothing/carry special items, perform special actions = ritual. Ethology: study of animal behaviour (nha: non human animal behaviour) Is ritual strictly a human activity: do animals perform rituals? (waggle dance of the bees) Animal behaviour can be: stylized, repetitive (same kind of dance ritual, communicative. Ritualization: process by which purely instrumental acts become communicative. Communicative act: goal is more than doing the particular action itself (bees dance to. Instrumental act: goal is the action itself (fleeing predator) communicate messages to other bees)
