RELS 161 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Roy Rappaport, National Hockey Association, Ethology

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELS 161
• Professor: Ian Alexander Cuthbertson

Document Summary

This is a post-protestant religious outlook: belief= heaven (one in which belief, text, & religious community is primary; if you have the appropriate beliefs, you will go to heaven) Going to special places/moving around (ex. church/pilgrimage) Eat/do not eat special things (ex. not eating meat on fridays) Wear special or particular clothing/carry special or particular items. Ethology: the study of animal behaviour (nha: non-human animal behaviour) Ritualization: process by which purely instrumental acts become communicative. Instrumental act: for some concrete direct purpose (the goal is the action itself) (ex. fleeing a predator) Communicative act: goal is more than action itself (ex. Ethology: all animal ritual" is functional (evolutionarily advantageous) (ex. bees only do dance when needed so they do not waste energy=functional) Useful in complicated situations: mating, controlling territory, establishing hierarchies, etc. Ethological insight: humans are animals, therefore human rituals are products of biology/evolutionary advantage.