RLG101H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5-6: Talal Asad, Mircea Eliade, Religion In Israel
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Textbook readings: religion, the basics - malory nye. There is a widespread expectation that to be a christian (or religious) is to believe, generally, in something. Beliefs were then practiced as a much larger dynamic of social and cultural life. Edward tylor gave the famous definition of religion as the belief in spiritual beings. Other religions, however, may emphasize other aspects of behavior than belief, such as ritual. Having faith is a protestant/christian tradition, resulting from the protestant reformation. This idea, due to the dominance of the culture, is often wrongly expected to be shared by everybody. The naturalist argument: our understanding of deities can only be understood in terms of the natural world. The reductionist approach: the divine being is nothing else than the human being/nature, purified. Thus, humankind involuntarily creates god in his/her own image. Horses would draw the shapes of gods like horses, oxen like oxen. this natural predisposition is called anthropomorphism.
