Religious studies

From RationalWiki
Jump to: navigation, search
One of many articles on

Religion

Icon religion.svg
The main players
Critics
Supporting actors


Religious studies is, as indicated on the tin, an academic discipline focused on the study of religion.

At its core, religious studies compares all current and historical religions in some attempt to understand what religion is, why it exists, and what, if anything, it provides humanity. Religious studies is an academic subject that uses a multidisciplinary approach, combining the sciences and humanities. Aspects of anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and more recently neuroscience are combined in an attempt to understand "religion".[1]

Contents

[edit] Separating religious studies from theology

Religious studies is distinguished from theology as theology works from the premise that the religion being studied is "true," while religious studies approaches the subject from a secular, impartial viewpoint and works without premises. People who adhere to the religious practices under study often view this as an implicit assumption that their religion is being regarded as false.

Religious studies is the phenomenological study of religion, meaning that it is focused on the secular study of religion and the impact of religious belief on its adherents. Theology, on the other hand, takes an in-universe approach to the study of religion. As a result theology frequently involves apologetics, while religious studies generally ignores the truth value of religious claims.

[edit] History

The objective study of religion first occurred amongst the ancient Greeks, and studying the history of religion in general was popular for a time amongst Muslim scholars during the Middle Ages.[2] It was not until the 19th century that religious studies began to emerge as its own discipline distinct from the study of history, with the rise of secularism, the decline of the old forms of organized Christianity, and the study of comparative religion.

[edit] Fields of study

[edit] Descriptive religion

Because religious studies in its modern form was developed (like anthropology in general) in a European/Christian context, as explorers contacted a host of different peoples practicing diverse religions and customs, and brought descriptions of what they had seen back to a Christian-dominant civilization, the most common aspect of religious studies is "descriptive" or Classification Studies. This was originally done for the purpose of figuring out how the people in question could be converted to Christianity, but as the field became more academic, the evangelism aspect was greatly de-emphasized.[3]

For the same reason, many such classification studies may assign a religious character to facets of another people's culture that the practitioners themselves do not see as religious,[4] or over-emphasize comparisons of ethnic religions to Christianity.[5]

[edit] Comparative religion

Jesus saves.
Moses invests.
Krishna spends.

The precursor to religious studies as a discipline is the field known as "comparative religion". In the latter part of the 20th century, there emerged from these neat descriptions and classifications a new field, where the aim was to find basic structural similarities in some or even all religions. Out of the comparative study of religion came ideas about "birth-death-rebirth deities", the sacred and profane as seen by humanity, sacred and transitional space, association of women with early divinity, the influence of religions on each other, and the importance of myth and ritual to human society, as examples.

Not all of the theories stood the test of time equally, of course. Mircea Eliade, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and other influential early anthropologists contributed heavily to the understanding of how comparative religion should work as an academic discipline.

One significant problem with comparative religion is the simplification of religion and mythology to make the point that "all religions are fundamentally the same". Mircea Eliade (of The Sacred and the Profane fame), Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell have all been highly criticized for their reductionist deconstruction of religion and myth.

[edit] History of individual religions

The history of any given religion, as told by historians rather than its own clergy has become an increasingly important aspect of religious studies. Christianity, for example, has never been under such deep critical scrutiny as it has been under during the last century.

Religious studies scholars tend to ask questions such as:

  • Where did the religion's ideas come from?
  • What kind of political games influenced the decision to codify particular dogma?
  • When and where and by whom were texts written?
  • Who was the target audience and what was the cultural context of the original text?

While this is possible to do from within the religion, generally people studying a religion's history critically and objectively, will at least be doubtful about whether that religion is true. This was certainly the case with the Christians who studied ethnic religions during the Age of Discovery and beyond, which has in many instances led people to question the studies' accuracy.

[edit] Sociology and religion

See the main article on this topic: Sociology of religion

Anomie and the codification of religion are a major theme in religious studies. This frequently takes the form of analysis of religious conversion experiences and the relationship between religious adherence and participation and the culture at large.

[edit] Cognitive science of religion

The first cognitive theory of religion was proposed by Stewart Guthrie in 1980.[6] The cognitive science of religion (sometimes abbreviated "CSR") as a research program formed during the 1990s and 2000s as an outgrowth of work in the tradition of Guthrie, growing to incorporate interdisciplinary research from cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, evolutionary theory, and philosophy of religion and mind.[7] CSR attempts to integrate multiple dimensions of religion into a broad framework, including cognitive mechanisms, learning heuristics, ritual displays, group competition, and cultural evolution.[8] Key concepts include Justin Barrett's hyper-active agency detection device (HADD),[9] William Irons' concept of religious ritual as a sign of hard-to-fake commitment,[10] and Harvey Whitehouse's imagistic and doctrinal modes of religiosity.[11]

[edit] Magic and ritual

Magic is another area of interest for scholars of religious studies, especially those who focus on anthropology. Because of the functionalist approach that dominates in the field, all forms of folk magic, miracles, and even common religious rituals such Baptism and other rites of passage are treated as existing pretty much on the same level and as treating virtually identical psycho-social needs.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Religion here is in quotes, because a major question in religious studies is, "What is religion?"
  2. At least according to WP
  3. There are cases where Religious Studies are used to promote Christianity.
  4. http://tiny.cc/g6hdfw
  5. For example flood myths are very widespread, but its doubtful that many of them outside of the Middle East bear any relationshiop to the Biblical flood myth.
  6. Stewart Guthrie. A Cognitive Theory of Religion. Current Anthropology, vol. 21, no. 2, April 1980.
  7. What is Cognitive Science? And What Does It Have to do with Religion? John F. Kihlstrom, UC Berkeley
  8. Scott Atran and Joseph Henrich. The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate Deep Commitments to Prosocial Religions. Biological Theory 5(1) 2010, 18–30.
  9. Justin L. Barrett. Exploring the Natural Foundations of Religion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 4, no. 1, Jan. 2000
  10. William Irons. Religion as a Hard-to-Fake Sign of Commitment. In Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment.
  11. Harvey Whitehouse. Modes of Religiosity: Towards a Cognitive Explanation of the Sociopolitical Dynamics of Religion. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Volume 14, Numbers 3-4, 2002 , pp. 293-315(23)
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support