Theories of Religion

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Theories of Religion

• Is there such a thing?

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Four Theories of Religion

• Animism and Magic - Tylor and Frazier
• Religion and Personality - Sigmund Freud
• Society as Sacred - Emile Durkheim
• Religion as Alienation - Karl Marx

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Animism and Magic

• Do You Believe in Magic?

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Tylor and Frazer

• Animism and Magic
• Religion is the explanation of natural
  occurrences.
• Religion explains the infinite power behind
  everything.
• Magic is a method of controlling the elements.
• The practitioners make mental connections which
  will have physical mirrors.

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Examples

• Pawnee Indians believed because the tools which
  touched the blood of a sacrificed maiden that the
  life giving influences of the tools would be
  transferred to the plants through the tools.
• Magic confers power on those who use it.
• The magician becomes the king.
• Kings are those who wield much power through
  magic.

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Sigmund Freud

• Personally speaking

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Religion as Personality

• Religion is a universal obsessional neurosis, a
  clash of opposing desires.
• Healthy people do not need religion. Religion is
  for weak people who cannot face lifes problems
  and so rely on religion to help them with lifes
  difficulties.

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Immature Dependency

• "religion is a symptom of an incomplete or
  pathological development within a personality."
  One depends on religion because one does not have
  mature attitude toward oneself or toward one's
  environment.
• Religious ideas are childhood imaginations of
  father, magic and so on which one uses to
  "actualize" adult behavior.

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Oedipus Complex

• Religion is a way that individuals act or live
  out the Oedipus complex.
• It is the unconscious desire to have sex with the
  parent of the opposite sex usually between the
  mother and son.
• The son replaces his father.

10
Emile Durkheim

• Society is responsible for God

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Society as Sacred

• When people are worshipping a god or gods they
  are really worshipping their clan.
• "The god of the clan, the totemic principle, can
  therefore be nothing else than the clan itself,
  personified and represented to the imagination
  under the visible form of the animal or vegetable
  which serves as totem. excerpt 7 Theories of
  Religion.

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Religion in use

• Thus religion is used to control and modify
  behavior of the clan.
• It determines appropriate behavior and
  consequences for aberration.
• The clan uses religion to embody its principles
  and values.

13
Karl Marx

• Religion is the opium of the people.

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Religion as Alienation

• Religion is an illusion with evil consequences.
• It is used by the oppressors to keep things as
  they are.
• Religion is determined by economics and therefore
  has to be considered along with economics.
• Man makes religion and it alienates.

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Religion is used for control

• The specific form religion takes depends on "the
  shape of social life as determined by the
  material forces in control of it any given place
  and time. Marx asserts that belief in a god or
  gods is an unhappy by product of the class
  struggle, something that should not only be
  dismissed, but dismissed with scorn. 7 Theories
  of Religion

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Sources

• Slide 4 - http//www.swt.edu/rw04/theory-web/imag
  es/tylor_edward.jpg http//www.liceus.com/cgi-bin
  /aco/ant/frazer.jpg
• Slide 6 - http//www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quot
  es/quote-f1.htm
• Slide 9 - http//durkheim.itgo.com/images/bigdurk.
  gif
• Slide 12 - http//www.maoism.org/graphics/marx.jpg
  
• The Seven Theories of Religion by Daniel Pals