RELI 216 Lecture Notes - Mircea Eliade, Edward Burnett Tylor
18 Feb 2013
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Religion and mythology began with the human perception of overpowering natural phenomena. Myths he believed that myths that are inspired by the sun. He believed that principle gods and heroes of the indo-european people had solar roots, or metaphors. Gods were only names for natural phenomena, and after awhile they were falsely interpreted, personified, and defied. Tylor origin = psychological factors, such as dreams, ecstasies. Lang idea of god is historically among earliest conceptions of humanity so no discussion of an antecedent cause of religion was necessary. Muller differs from tylor"s theory because tylor is looking at psychological factors, as for muller is looking solely at human"s will to overpower natural phenomena. However there are similar because both are looking at human perception: one concerning psychology, and the other at the human will. Muller differs from lang because god existed throughout time, and wasn"t a self-created concept.
