REL 1000 Lecture : 9 10 Notes
Document Summary
African traditional religions: difficulties with studying atrs (african traditional religions): Africa is very diverse; people speak different languages, live in different regions. Hard to separate out religion because religion and non-religion coexist. There is no distinction between the natural world and another realm. Hard to identify what"s religion and what"s not. Involves a lot of guesswork and that guesswork becomes colored by our preconceived world ideas. Prior of 1900african religions were nearly universal in sub-saharan africa. That has declined to only 25% in 2000. Only 25% of africans practice african religions, the vast majority is christian and muslim: generalizations: Different to generalize because africa is a big continent. Tend to be instrumentalists (the focus/goal is to bring about real world change). Tend to be theistic (belief in deities generally: the supernatural: The high god- one god that is higher than the others. Yoruba is a massive cultural group, considered a religion. Described as a male, has children, has lesser deities.
