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- describe how religion uses a wide variety of symbols to communicate messages and meanings<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- identify symbolic representation in religious artifacts<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- analyze the reciprocal relationship between religious symbolism and representation and the Humanities<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- interpret a religious symbol to extract and interpret meanings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Investigating Religion in the Humanities<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Religion has played a significant role in shaping the human social experiences and interpretations of reality. There are many different approaches to studying religion and religious phenomena. The apologetic<\/em> approach offers an internal interpretation of religion from the perspective of the believers. Others aim to \u2018debunk\u2019 ideas religious ideas and beliefs. From an academic perspective, scholars can take a socio-historical approach that correlates the social and historical circumstances that give rise to religious movements and\/or a social analytical approach to identify the role of religion in society and individual experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Religious Evolution: 19th<\/sup> century<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
In early anthropology, anthropologists aimed to identify the development of religion among humans by constructing evolutionary models that situated specific religious systems along a linear trajectory. E.B. Tylor (1832-1917) was among the first anthropologists to interrogate beliefs systems and he employed a functionalist evolutionary perspective to interpreting different religious systems. According to Tylor, humans created religion to answer questions about life and death, and he organized different religions from \u2018primitive\u2019 animism to \u2018advanced \u2018monotheism\u2019 (Segal in Hinnells 2005). In his book, The Golden Bough<\/em> (1890), James George Frazer also relied on a functionalist evolutionary perspective to distinguish the difference between magic <\/em>and religion.<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nOne of the most notable bodies of research within the functionalist approach to religion comes from French sociologist, Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). In his book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life <\/em>(1912), Durkeim argued that religion is not an external force outside of society, but it is<\/em> society. His framework is based on a dichotomy between the sacred<\/em> and the profane<\/em>; while the profane represents the daily and mundane, the sacred is set apart and forbidden. He defined religion as \u2018a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, which unite one single moral community into a \u2018church\u2019. <\/em> According to Durkeim, religious beliefs and practices do not come from an outside force, but they come from within<\/em> the collective moral force<\/em> of a society and have been set apart to imbue authority to the belief system. He argues that society needs religion in order to maintain moral and social order, enforce values and norms, and bond the community. People establish social bonds through shared beliefs and practices, and this allows people to sacrifice their ego, or individualism, to the common good of the group. Durkheim describes deity, or \u2018God\u2019 as the embodiment of a society; the traits and characteristics are projected onto what he refers to as a \u2018mirror in the sky,\u2019 society looking up at itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that time, anthropologists relied on second-hand information from missionaries and naturalists to develop their conclusions. In the early 20th<\/sup> century, E.E. Evans-Pritchard criticized functional evolutionary models of religion for failing to address the unique social contexts that shape each religious system. While some scholars have continued to address religion from an evolutionary perspective (Bellah 1964), Evans-Pritchard set the stage for an anthropological approach to religion as a system of symbols and meanings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Religion as a Cultural System<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
In the 20th<\/sup> century, scholars began addressing religion from an interpretive analytical framework that aimed to develop a better understanding of the symbols and meanings that comprise religion as a cultural system. In the his book, The Interpretation of Cultures<\/em> (1966\/73), Clifford Geertz defined religion as<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2018a\u00a0system of symbols\u00a0which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in people by formulating\u00a0conceptions of a general order\u00a0of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations\u00a0seem uniquely realistic.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
From his perspective, religion provides frameworks for life that shape human behavior by offering a blueprint to understand deep questions that science and reason fail to answer and providing webs of meaning to appease insecurities. Religion can relive anxiety about life after death, and offer interpretive frameworks on how to organize and structure reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider the different interpretive religious frameworks regarding homosexuality presented in the two documentary trailers below: Be Like Others<\/a> and The Bible Tells Me So<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Victor Turner focus on symbolic practice in his theoretical framework that addressed ritual and rites of passage. Turner expanded Arthur Van Gennup\u2019s (1909) three-phase model for ritual transition: separation \u2013 transition \u2013 incorporation. According to Van Gennup, disorder induced by social change is managed through the symbolic performance of transition within rites of passage. Prior to the change, the individual (or group of individuals) is separated from the group. They then partake in a transitional performance where they leave their former position or identity. When they rejoin the group, they assume their new identity or position. Van Gennup describes the middle, or transitional, phase as the liminal period that is characterized as \u2018anti-structure\u2019 because the individual or group in transition are outside of the social order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Jonas_Soederlund\/publication\/321103675\/figure\/fig1\/AS:632629175021568@1527841957248\/Stages-in-the-rites-of-passage.png\")
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