RELI 1000 Lecture 3 Outline of Current Lecture II What Really is the Origin of Religion III Animism Edward Burnett Taylor 1832 1917 IV Magic James George Frazer 1854 1941 Current Lecture Taylor 1832 1941 o E B Taylor was born in 1832 in Camberwell London to o His parents Joseph Taylor and Harriet Skipper were Quakers and owned a London brass factory o He was influenced by both Christianity and theories of evolution Charles Darwin everything in society evolves Education o A self educated anthropologist Professor at Oxford University o Pioneered the field of cultural anthropology o Studied customs beliefs of people who lived in primitive conditions Pre historic communities Tribal communities of the present day o Thesis How did ideas like the soul and the spirit come to be Famous work Primitive Culture 1871 Social Evolution o Influence of social evolutionism A cultural mindset based on the assumption that all societies and cultures evolve from primitive to civilized societies o Humans and religions in these societies evolved as well These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Progress began with hunting food gathering farming trade and industrialization Early humans Savages were primitive who hunted and gathered food In middle ages they adopted agriculture farming Modern cultures embrace trade science and industry The origin of religion o Pre historic people primitive savages developed religion out of the need to explain puzzling and threatening aspects of human existence e g death dreams trances and visions o Death was puzzling because the dead seemed to live in dreams memories other psychic phenomena o Religion is the belief in spiritual beings All religions ancient or modern are about belief in spiritual beings beings that think act and feel like human beings personified Animism o Religion emerged from the failure of savages to distinguish between waking and sleeping the living and the dead animate and inanimate o Religion evolved from animism Animism meaning the belief that everything has a soul or spirit is the essence origin of religion The idea of the soul or the shadow self first existed in primitive minds It led to the belief in nature spirits plants animals mountains rivers etc Animism represents the primal form of religion Evolution of religion o Belief in nature spirits progressed towards belief in polytheism then later in monotheism o Soul spirits animism primal o Deities many gods polytheism o Single God monotheism J G Frazer o Sir James George Frazer a Scottish social anthropologist was born 1854 1941 in Glasgow Scotland in a Protestant family o He studied at the University of Glasgow and Trinity College Cambridge o Frazer s interest in social anthropology was aroused by reading Taylor s Primitive Culture o His work The Golden Bough 1890 1915 Basic Argument o Magic is the origin of religion o There are 3 stages in the human intellectual progress evolution of religious ideas The magical The religious The scientific o Human s main concern is to extend mastery over the world and their destinies o Their need to feel in control led to magic the lowest form of religious practice First Attempt Magic o The conviction that humans have the ability to control or predict the natural world through manipulation of the mystical and or the supernatural power mana o Events objects people and physical phenomena can be manipulated o Magical rites formulas were used to manipulate impersonal sacred in an attempt by humans to explain control the world Second Attempt Religion o Religion arose out of the failure of magic produced religion o Through magic humans realized that they could not master or tame the world and nature o They became dependent on nature supernatural beings associated with nature through religion o Religion is an attempt by humans to overcome helplessness and vulnerability through cajoling and supplicating the gods Ritual prayer and sacrifice are necessary to win the God gods Dear God if you would grant me what I desire then I will give you a gift in return Third Attempt Science o Science is the third attempt to control the world It is an indicator of human development stage born out dissatisfaction with religious conceptions explanations o Because magic religion are based on mistaken understanding of the world they will both decline as scientific explanations increased Critique of Taylor Frazer o No evidence that the age of magic preceded religion In indigenous communities they studied magic and religion co exist o Social evolutionism is contradicted by existence of monotheism and polytheism together in one society There is no evidence of intellectual progression in the way humans conceive the sacred holy No progression from mana animism polytheism monotheism or vice versa o In spite of critics Taylor and Frazer s theories have thrived because of concepts they introduced animism and magic Devolutional Theory o Evidence that Indigenous communities have a concept of a High God validated by other scholars Andrew Lang 1844 1912 Wilhelm Schmidt 1868 1954 E E Evans Pritchard 1902 1973 o Wilhelm Schmidt 1868 1954 Australian ethnographer philologist argued Monotheism may have been the first conception of a deity from which animism ancestral spirits and polytheism later devolved