WORLD RELIGIONS COMPLETE LECTURE NOTES ALL PowerPoint notes and lectures and elaborations from professor 1 12 2016 Separation of church and state state can use violence law enforcement uses violence violence is not used by individuals because it is an infringement on the state s rights to use violence religion is not supposed to infringe on what the state does Prayer in public school congress in the 60 s ruled that prayer in school was a violation of the separation of church and state politics state violence education law enforcement religion church home personal prayer individual prayer private protestant Christianity personal relationship with Christ as opposed to a public one what we view as religion is viewed through our lens through our own ideological systems and so it s hard to think of it in any other way What is religion definitions of religion religion is the belief in an ever living God that is in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the universe and holding moral relations with mankind James Martineau the essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence Friedrich Schleiermacher both defined faith as a universal essence a feeling of faith Rudolph Otto faith is mysterium tremendum Mircea Eliade man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself shows itself as something wholly different from the profane Genetic fallacy religion arose out of the myths and cults based upon an original personification of natural phenomena Max Muller religion originated in ancestor worship which eventually became Ghosts and then Gods Herbert Spencer a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things that is to say things set apart and forbidden beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church all those who adhere to them Durkheim genes same units Refers to the idea that religion once all started as the same thing Karl Marx religion is the sign of the oppressed creature it is the opium of the people religion is only the illusory sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself religion offers an illusory hope of happiness in life after death in order to compensate for the social and economic miseries of present existence religion is present to give the oppressed hope and to keep them oppressed businesses decide peoples lives and it s all about economics the whole world is a business religion is the hope for the oppressed and the future that they will never have Freud Jung Yinger Sigmund Freud Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis a neurotic thing going into the subconscious religion arises from humanity s infantile wish to defend itself from the forces of and terrors Carl Jung Collective unconscious Religion can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life a shared mysterium tremendum the idea that we all have universal archetypes Religion as a universal phenomenon temples and shrines found in all places and all times not ethics people can reject religion and still be morally good religion is a human activity that satisfies one s inherent spiritual needs and desires Religion refers to institutions and rigid communities spiritual refers to hierarchical things that were mindlessly thrown around Patriarchy an institution beliefs men are superior to women messiah as a man God as man Masuzawa scholars used to assume that religion was a universal ubiquitous phenomenon to be found anywhere in the world at any moment in history believes that this approach to religion as a universal phenomenon is unhistorical and essentializing not all religions practices and beliefs fit into clear 4 aspects of religion a good definition will keep in mind these four aspects Bruce Lincoln s model 1 transcendent discourse an oral or written tradition preserved over time that is imbued with sacred value by the community 2 sets of practices the ritual and the ethical 3 community mostly same texts same precepts same sorts of practices 4 institutions structures staffed by officials and functionaries that speak for the community and the religion itself Discourse written or spoken communication or debate v to speak or write authoritatively about a topic Normative establishing relating to or deriving from a standard or norm Ideology the ideas and manner of thinking characteristic of a group social class or individual Sui generis Latin used to describe the idea that religion is separate from all other institutions religion is different from politics religion CAN function on violence Bruce Lincoln s definition Religion consists of A discourse whose concerns transcend the human temporal and contingent and that claims for itself a similarly transcendent status A set of practices whose goal is to produce a proper world and or proper human subjects as defined by a religious discourse to whish these practices are connected A community whose members construct their identity with reference to a religious discourse and its attendant practices An institution that regulates religious discourse practices and community reproducing them over time and modifying them as necessary while asserting their eternal validity and transcendent value 1 14 2016 Review The state and violence an idea that only the state should have the right to violence education JFK and prayer in schools marking the line between what is religious and what is not privacy of religion JFK s statement when the Supreme Court banned prayer in schools It s okay just pray at home prayer is personal and private to a person familial anything that was defined as religious was personal and private confined to the home Dirkhiem tended to maintain this distinction he advocated the thought that religion shouldn t be a public thing he also advocated that there was a moral system behind it churches collective spaces D said there should be a collective space he was pushing back what other scholars were saying like Karl Marx Karl Marx s view on religion it was the opium of the people he believed that everything that you were was defined by the material dimensions of your life economics all you are is business and money religion to Marx was nothing but an illusory thing a way for the oppressed to think that they were more than cheap labor Schliermacher religion is absolute dependence a personal feeling religion is a universal essence a feeling that you were dependent on something outside of
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