Clifford Geerts names Overview Nature of Religion Ahura Mazda The supreme creator god of the Zoroastrians Wise Lord Zoroastrians revere a host of divine entities that they believe to function as agents and deputies of Ahura Mazda The good god whom all praise and thanks are due During the Sasanian era Zoroastrian tradition explores the philosophical idea that the ultimate power of Ahura Mazda is in any substantial way compromised by the activity of the evil spirit Allah The Qur an presents its view of divinity in direct and unambiguous declarations of faith in the one and only God creator sustainer judge and sovereign Lord over all creation Muslims consider it a sin to associate any other being with God Allah is not the name of a particular deity Arabic word for God Lord of all beings Demands faith and worship of all rational creatures God s attributes are referred to in the Qur an as the most beautiful Expands on the provisional definition dimensions of religion American anthropologist Religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful pervasive and long lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic Cult New religious movements are often referred to as cults Originally meant worship Now it is implied with movements that are seen as fraudulent coercive and that the leaders demand excessive unquestioning dedication from their followers Ex Jonestown the Branch Davidians the Peoples Temple the Unification Church the Moonies the international Society for Krishna Consciousness the Hare Krishna movement Postulates two ultimate principles opposing each other and more or less evenly Dualism matched The principles are often personifies as good and evil gods Gerardus van der Leeuw Theologian and historian of religions Published a wide ranging survey Religion in Essence and Manifestation which treated religion as a response to a divine stimulus Found definite examples in Christian traditions Hagia Sophia Former Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica Once an imperial mosque Now a museum in Istanbul Served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral Jonestown Agricultural commune established in Guyana in 1972 Lead by Reverend Jim Jones More than 900 of the people committed mass suicide on the order of Reverend Jones Jones established the Peoples Temple in the 50s and a decade later he established rural settlements in California The goal of Jones was an overhaul of the existing world order Sought uncritical dedication The mass suicide was carried out after a number of investigations convinced Jones and his followers that evil forces were closing in on them and that the only honorable escape was death Known for his work in comparative religion particularly on Hindu and tribal Saw religion as a response to a transcendent reality which he called the sacred Christian and Muslims are members of missionary religions that tend to draw clear boundaries between themselves and outsiders and then encourage those on the other side of the line to cross over and join them Mircea Eliade traditions Missionary Religions Monotheism Greek for worship of only one god Thought to justify the idea of a single monarchy Western civilization owes ancient Israel for the idea of monotheism Before the actual term was coined the characteristic could be seen in the West in Judaism Christianity and Islam Exclusive Declares that the faithful should worship only one god and worshipping any others is an abomination and or other gods don t even exist The Birth of the Gods The Origin of Primitive Beliefs by Guy E Swanson maintains that monotheism is associated with social complexity reflecting the establishment of a multi layer hierarchy Polytheism The worship of many gods May represent the attribution of human motivations to natural phenomena Polytheistic Greek society adopted the family principle which arranged all the gods into a large extended family Rudolf Otto German philosopher of religion Disturbed by the turn of the century tendency to explain religion as social conditions First wrote an article in 1910 that criticized the cultural evolutionist perspective of a work on ethnic psychology In 1917 he wrote The idea of the Holy a best seller Describes a sense of mystery as numinous which he believed was a common feature of all religions specifically with Christians The exclusion in principle of all religious groups institutions and identities from public support acceptance influence in decision making Ex Arguments for Sunday closing Seek to remove Christianity s privileged influence over social standards and Secularism norms The Satan The devil is a subtle figure in Judaism Christianity and Islam who most likely want to affirm God s purpose and power have been reluctant to make room for a second locus of ultimate power Mentioned in both the New Testament and in the Qur an known as Shaytan and Iblis Not found in the Old Testament Not found in the Hebrew creation story The satan can be found in the book of Job The satan is Hebrew for adversary and designates a court official not a Transitioned from adversary to Satan sometime between the Old and New The devil appears to emerge in Judaism and Christianity during the height of personal name Testaments Persian influence Structuralism A theoretical paradigm in sociology anthropology linguistics and semiotics Elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger overarching system or structure Works to uncover the structures that underlie all things that humans do think perceive and feel Philosopher Simon Blackburn says structuralism is the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations These relations constitute a structure and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture Yahweh National god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah Name most likely originated from the god El head of the Bronze Age Seems to be unique to Israel and Judah Typically a divine warrior who leads heavenly army Bound to a covenant to Israel that says Yahweh will protect them if they only worship him Indigenous Religion Axis Mundi Termed by Mircea Eliade The central point where the spiritual realms of the heavens and the underworld intersected with the earth Conflict Dualism Handsome Lake emphasized a new
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