RE220 Lecture Notes - Mircea Eliade, American Psychologist, Thick Description
Document Summary
James frazer: anthropologist, believed religion begins when primitive people see that the world is powered by spirits. Primitive: origin of religion to find common element, the universal, very influenced by another theorist, charles darwin. Everything is divine, can be helpful or not, depends on how you appease them. Begin to see many gods as aspects of one god. Atheism (no supernatural forces if we understand the natural world: contradicts theories because they are still encountering people who are still in animism / polytheism. Helps justify this mentality by imposing their beliefs on less civilized civilizations: not a universal pattern since advanced societies now still have polytheist or animistic beliefs. Study of societies: sees religion as function of society, animism - totemism totem - animal or plant. Symbol of the clan/tribe/group image represents the group, characteristics are important to that group: division of the sacred and profane. What was sacred represented the society or the group: religion as function of society.
