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Seven Theories of Religion
Seven Theories of Religion introduces a sequence of "classic" attempts to explain religion scientifically, presenting each in brief outline and in non-technical language. It considers first the views of E.B. Tylor and James Frazer, two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative
study of religion. It explores the controversial "reductionist" approaches of Freud, Marx, and Emile Durkheim, then explains the program of their most outspoken opponent, the Romanian-American scholar Mircea Eliade. Further on, it examines certain newer methods and ideas advanced by the English
ethnographer E.E. Evans-Pritchard and by the American Clifford Geertz, two of the present century's most celebrated names in fieldwork anthropology. Each chapter offers biographical background, exposition of the theory, comparative analysis, and critical assessment. Easily accessible to students in
introductory religion courses, Seven Theories of Religion is an enlightening treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject.
study of religion. It explores the controversial "reductionist" approaches of Freud, Marx, and Emile Durkheim, then explains the program of their most outspoken opponent, the Romanian-American scholar Mircea Eliade. Further on, it examines certain newer methods and ideas advanced by the English
ethnographer E.E. Evans-Pritchard and by the American Clifford Geertz, two of the present century's most celebrated names in fieldwork anthropology. Each chapter offers biographical background, exposition of the theory, comparative analysis, and critical assessment. Easily accessible to students in
introductory religion courses, Seven Theories of Religion is an enlightening treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 1996
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November 26, 2022
Daniel L. Pals Seven Theories of Religion describes seven different attempts to describe what religion is, how it arose, and what it means to society. The book begins with a look at the two writers who first attempted to study religion through a scientific lens: E.B. Tylor and James Frazer. Both men described what they perceived as the evolution of religion across numerous societies around the world.
They each described essentially the same progress, from primitive magic to animism (where everything in the world was inhabited by some spirit) to polytheism to monotheism. Each step represented an evolutionary advance, with each new religion superior to the one that preceded it.
These two theorists used methods that are now considered scientifically unsound, basing their theories entirely on secondhand reports of “primitive” cultures that they took at face value. While their conclusions have been rejected, their work in gathering field reports from around the world and exposing universal patterns in religious belief and practice became invaluable to later generations of psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists. Frazer’s The Golden Bough in particular, while flawed, represents a monumental effort of research, scholarship and synthesis.
After Tylor and Frazer’s attempt to outline a worldwide history of religious thought, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim took “the science of religion” in another direction. Each was more concerned with the function of religion in the life of the individual and in the context of the broader society.
Durkheim’s interpretation of religion’s role is the most charitable of the three. He sees the religious rituals in which the entire community participates as a form of social glue, reinforcing social bonds and reaffirming shared values. In Durkheim’s view, the “god” of all religions is society itself, which is the life-giving entity to which all contribute and from which all benefit. The individual cannot live without the protection and cooperation of his neighbors. Religious belief states this in its moral and ethical codes, and ritual reminds the individuals of their place in the community. Religion’s function is ultimately to reinforce social structures.
Marx’s view is much simpler. Religion, he famously said, is the opiate of the masses. It’s a delusion that serves the ruling classes by convincing the powerless not to seek their due in this life, but to accept instead that they will be rewarded after death, when the game is over. It’s a pernicious delusion the perpetuates social inequality and unnecessary suffering.
And that’s about all he has to say. For Marx, no topic is worth thinking about except as it relates to class and economic struggle, and if he can dismiss a subject as monumental as religion in a sentence as concise as that, so much the better, for then he can return to flogging his favorite bogeyman, the capitalist.
Many critics have pointed out that religion exists in all human societies, and that Marx’s criticism doesn’t address its significance in cultures that do not exhibit the crushing economic inequalities of nineteenth century industrial Europe. Marx has nothing to say to this, and though there is some truth to his assertion that religion is used a tool to quell dissent and maintain the power of the ruling classes, that’s as far as his dismissive view can take us.
Of all the views presented in Pals' book, Freud’s stands out the most, and not because of the insight it provides about religion, but because of the insight it gives us into the man. Freud was openly hostile to religion, which he saw as a useless remnant of humanity’s ignorant and superstitious past.
Freud examines the Judeo-Christian religion and finds it to be just another manifestation of the Oedipus Complex. It is, in fact, “the universal human neurosis.”
While the personal Oedipus Complex involves a little boy’s desire to kill his daddy so he can screw his mommy, religion is the social Oedipus Complex that stems from an event in the distant prehistory of the human race, when the sons of the tribal chief rose up and killed Big Daddy so they could take over. Chaos ensued, and then the sons all agreed that killing Big Daddy–as much as they wanted to do it–was a bad idea, and from now on, they should worship him instead.
Freud gives no evidence of the historical event of Big Daddy’s murder. He merely posits it as a fact so he can insert his Oedipus Complex into the story and have it neatly explain everything.
Freud was an exceptionally gifted writer. You’ll see that especially in his case studies, which are striking, insightful, and fascinating. Even among the best writers, very few express ideas with such clarity, force and depth of perception.
But his ideas are tainted by an obsessive focus on sexuality–and a perverse kind of sexuality at that–as well as an obsessive concern for his reputation and his legacy. I sometimes think the man wanted to be a cult leader. Maybe he was.
In his memoirs, Carl Jung describes the meeting with Freud that led to their break. While Freud insisted that everything in the subconscious mind could be explained by sexual desires (and primarily by taboo sexual desires), Jung insisted that there was much more going on in human life, and that the symbols of religion and mythology best captured the powerful irrational knowledge that reason and logic could never fully express.
Please, Freud said (and I’m paraphrasing here), don’t drag us back into the muck of religion and superstition.
In Jung’s description of the encounter, there was almost a desperation in Freud’s plea, like he knew this was the one thing that could undo him and his reputation and his cult: a deeper and broader truth, shapeless, darker, harder to pin down.
Freud was held in high esteem by his colleagues and disciples because he had “nailed it.” He had reduced all of human psychology to a single story. This trend toward reductionism was a hallmark of nineteenth and early twentieth century science. Marx and Freud and many others believed that scientific study could lead us to a single theory that explained everything in society in the same way that the study of physics and chemistry exposed the immutable and universally applicable laws of atoms and molecules. If the story of psychology turned out to be more complex that Freud proclaimed, if he hadn’t actually nailed it, where would his reputation be then?
If you’re a thinking person, or if you’re not a man, you’ll see one glaring hole in Freud’s Oedipal theory right up front: it says nothing about girls or women. What motive would they have to kill daddy and get in bed with mommy?
Freud has a convenient explanation for that. Girls are just boys who had the terrible misfortune of being born without a penis, so they spend their whole lives longing for one.
So, already this guy has a faulty understanding of one half of the human race and no understanding of the other. Now he’s going to try to explain the infinitely complex phenomenon of religion. And of course, in doing so, he turns to his trusty explanation of everything else in human nature: kill daddy, screw mommy.
There’s a saying that, to a man whose only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This is Freud.
Again, he’s a brilliant writer and a brilliant man. His examinations of individual patients are insightful, nuanced and extraordinarily well expressed. The conclusions he draws from his observations, however, show a mental block, a personal hangup that likely describes his own psychology, and that he unknowingly projects onto others. Maybe Freud himself had an Oedipus Complex. That doesn’t mean everyone else does.
Like Marx, whose monomaniacal obsession was economic inequality, Freud’s conclusions contributed less to posterity than his methods. Freud asked questions and listened, and lo and behold, he learned from his patients! (This is a lesson many doctors still haven’t taken to heart.)
Likewise, Marx looked at all social structures, practices, and beliefs in terms of how they represented and reinforced the values of the ruling class. Both he and Freud provided the twentieth century with new methods of inquiry that opened up new models of understanding. If they were unable to apply broad and expansive interpretations to the world they studied, that was likely due to peculiarities of their own psychologies.
Near the end of his life, the satirist Jonathan Swift said that a single experience in his boyhood provided the pattern for all of his later experience. While fishing on a river, he caught a big one. He could see the fish beneath the water as he hauled it in, but when it got to the surface, it dropped off the hook and swam away.
This is the pattern in Swift’s satire: high hopes dashed time and again by cruel reality. Reading Freud, I get the sense that his formative experience was getting turned on while nursing at mommy’s breast. He then spent the rest of his life trying to explain away a painful case of infantile blue balls. Meanwhile, eight-year-old Karl–savagely ill-tempered and without a nickel in his pocket–was the only kid on the block to end up empty-handed after the ice cream truck drove by. And by God, the world was going to pay for that injustice, to the tune of twenty million Soviet lives!
After discussing the reductionist views of religion espoused by Durkheim, Marx and Freud, Daniel Pals turns his attention to the richer examinations carried out by Mircea Eliade, E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Clifford Geertz. All three spent considerable time living in societies outside the West, and all believe that you cannot come to any theory of religion without understanding how it is experienced by those who believe in and practice it.
Needless to say, these three provide deeper, more nuanced and sympathetic portraits of what they set out to study. While Eliade aims at a comparative view of various belief systems, Evans-Pritchard and Geertz, both anthropologists, spent years living among the subjects of their studies to produce richly detailed ethnographies.
Regarding the approach these last three took, Pals makes a passing comment that deserves elaboration. The anthropologists, he points out, recognized that the mistake of the reductionist thinkers was to try to explain religion from the outside. That’s like a person trying to explain a book without any understanding any of the words it contains.
This is an excellent metaphor. Let’s run with it and do a little thought experiment. Let’s say Karl Marx was illiterate. Everywhere he goes–the park, the train station, the coffee shop–he sees people opening books, staring into them for hours as if paralyzed and entranced. Occasionally they laugh or cry, or knit their brows in consternation.
“What’s going on?” he wonders. “It’s as if some drug has taken possession of them. And they do this willingly! The books don’t force themselves into people’s hands. People seek them out, open them on purpose, hold them in front of their faces, become blind and insensitive to the world around them, and sink into an opiated stupor.”
“Yes,” says Freud, “I’ve noticed it too. It’s a universal neurosis. They treat these fetishistic objects as if there’s something of value inside.”
“The race will never be free,” says Marx, “until we rid them of this scourge!”
“Indeed,” says Freud. “It’s our duty to enrich humanity by eradicating this superstitious fetish.”
Marx: “Right. And the only path to our goal is violence. Who shall we kill first?”
Freud: “Daddy.”
Sylvia Plath: “Count me in!”
They each described essentially the same progress, from primitive magic to animism (where everything in the world was inhabited by some spirit) to polytheism to monotheism. Each step represented an evolutionary advance, with each new religion superior to the one that preceded it.
These two theorists used methods that are now considered scientifically unsound, basing their theories entirely on secondhand reports of “primitive” cultures that they took at face value. While their conclusions have been rejected, their work in gathering field reports from around the world and exposing universal patterns in religious belief and practice became invaluable to later generations of psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists. Frazer’s The Golden Bough in particular, while flawed, represents a monumental effort of research, scholarship and synthesis.
After Tylor and Frazer’s attempt to outline a worldwide history of religious thought, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim took “the science of religion” in another direction. Each was more concerned with the function of religion in the life of the individual and in the context of the broader society.
Durkheim’s interpretation of religion’s role is the most charitable of the three. He sees the religious rituals in which the entire community participates as a form of social glue, reinforcing social bonds and reaffirming shared values. In Durkheim’s view, the “god” of all religions is society itself, which is the life-giving entity to which all contribute and from which all benefit. The individual cannot live without the protection and cooperation of his neighbors. Religious belief states this in its moral and ethical codes, and ritual reminds the individuals of their place in the community. Religion’s function is ultimately to reinforce social structures.
Marx’s view is much simpler. Religion, he famously said, is the opiate of the masses. It’s a delusion that serves the ruling classes by convincing the powerless not to seek their due in this life, but to accept instead that they will be rewarded after death, when the game is over. It’s a pernicious delusion the perpetuates social inequality and unnecessary suffering.
And that’s about all he has to say. For Marx, no topic is worth thinking about except as it relates to class and economic struggle, and if he can dismiss a subject as monumental as religion in a sentence as concise as that, so much the better, for then he can return to flogging his favorite bogeyman, the capitalist.
Many critics have pointed out that religion exists in all human societies, and that Marx’s criticism doesn’t address its significance in cultures that do not exhibit the crushing economic inequalities of nineteenth century industrial Europe. Marx has nothing to say to this, and though there is some truth to his assertion that religion is used a tool to quell dissent and maintain the power of the ruling classes, that’s as far as his dismissive view can take us.
Of all the views presented in Pals' book, Freud’s stands out the most, and not because of the insight it provides about religion, but because of the insight it gives us into the man. Freud was openly hostile to religion, which he saw as a useless remnant of humanity’s ignorant and superstitious past.
Freud examines the Judeo-Christian religion and finds it to be just another manifestation of the Oedipus Complex. It is, in fact, “the universal human neurosis.”
While the personal Oedipus Complex involves a little boy’s desire to kill his daddy so he can screw his mommy, religion is the social Oedipus Complex that stems from an event in the distant prehistory of the human race, when the sons of the tribal chief rose up and killed Big Daddy so they could take over. Chaos ensued, and then the sons all agreed that killing Big Daddy–as much as they wanted to do it–was a bad idea, and from now on, they should worship him instead.
Freud gives no evidence of the historical event of Big Daddy’s murder. He merely posits it as a fact so he can insert his Oedipus Complex into the story and have it neatly explain everything.
Freud was an exceptionally gifted writer. You’ll see that especially in his case studies, which are striking, insightful, and fascinating. Even among the best writers, very few express ideas with such clarity, force and depth of perception.
But his ideas are tainted by an obsessive focus on sexuality–and a perverse kind of sexuality at that–as well as an obsessive concern for his reputation and his legacy. I sometimes think the man wanted to be a cult leader. Maybe he was.
In his memoirs, Carl Jung describes the meeting with Freud that led to their break. While Freud insisted that everything in the subconscious mind could be explained by sexual desires (and primarily by taboo sexual desires), Jung insisted that there was much more going on in human life, and that the symbols of religion and mythology best captured the powerful irrational knowledge that reason and logic could never fully express.
Please, Freud said (and I’m paraphrasing here), don’t drag us back into the muck of religion and superstition.
In Jung’s description of the encounter, there was almost a desperation in Freud’s plea, like he knew this was the one thing that could undo him and his reputation and his cult: a deeper and broader truth, shapeless, darker, harder to pin down.
Freud was held in high esteem by his colleagues and disciples because he had “nailed it.” He had reduced all of human psychology to a single story. This trend toward reductionism was a hallmark of nineteenth and early twentieth century science. Marx and Freud and many others believed that scientific study could lead us to a single theory that explained everything in society in the same way that the study of physics and chemistry exposed the immutable and universally applicable laws of atoms and molecules. If the story of psychology turned out to be more complex that Freud proclaimed, if he hadn’t actually nailed it, where would his reputation be then?
If you’re a thinking person, or if you’re not a man, you’ll see one glaring hole in Freud’s Oedipal theory right up front: it says nothing about girls or women. What motive would they have to kill daddy and get in bed with mommy?
Freud has a convenient explanation for that. Girls are just boys who had the terrible misfortune of being born without a penis, so they spend their whole lives longing for one.
So, already this guy has a faulty understanding of one half of the human race and no understanding of the other. Now he’s going to try to explain the infinitely complex phenomenon of religion. And of course, in doing so, he turns to his trusty explanation of everything else in human nature: kill daddy, screw mommy.
There’s a saying that, to a man whose only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This is Freud.
Again, he’s a brilliant writer and a brilliant man. His examinations of individual patients are insightful, nuanced and extraordinarily well expressed. The conclusions he draws from his observations, however, show a mental block, a personal hangup that likely describes his own psychology, and that he unknowingly projects onto others. Maybe Freud himself had an Oedipus Complex. That doesn’t mean everyone else does.
Like Marx, whose monomaniacal obsession was economic inequality, Freud’s conclusions contributed less to posterity than his methods. Freud asked questions and listened, and lo and behold, he learned from his patients! (This is a lesson many doctors still haven’t taken to heart.)
Likewise, Marx looked at all social structures, practices, and beliefs in terms of how they represented and reinforced the values of the ruling class. Both he and Freud provided the twentieth century with new methods of inquiry that opened up new models of understanding. If they were unable to apply broad and expansive interpretations to the world they studied, that was likely due to peculiarities of their own psychologies.
Near the end of his life, the satirist Jonathan Swift said that a single experience in his boyhood provided the pattern for all of his later experience. While fishing on a river, he caught a big one. He could see the fish beneath the water as he hauled it in, but when it got to the surface, it dropped off the hook and swam away.
This is the pattern in Swift’s satire: high hopes dashed time and again by cruel reality. Reading Freud, I get the sense that his formative experience was getting turned on while nursing at mommy’s breast. He then spent the rest of his life trying to explain away a painful case of infantile blue balls. Meanwhile, eight-year-old Karl–savagely ill-tempered and without a nickel in his pocket–was the only kid on the block to end up empty-handed after the ice cream truck drove by. And by God, the world was going to pay for that injustice, to the tune of twenty million Soviet lives!
After discussing the reductionist views of religion espoused by Durkheim, Marx and Freud, Daniel Pals turns his attention to the richer examinations carried out by Mircea Eliade, E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Clifford Geertz. All three spent considerable time living in societies outside the West, and all believe that you cannot come to any theory of religion without understanding how it is experienced by those who believe in and practice it.
Needless to say, these three provide deeper, more nuanced and sympathetic portraits of what they set out to study. While Eliade aims at a comparative view of various belief systems, Evans-Pritchard and Geertz, both anthropologists, spent years living among the subjects of their studies to produce richly detailed ethnographies.
Regarding the approach these last three took, Pals makes a passing comment that deserves elaboration. The anthropologists, he points out, recognized that the mistake of the reductionist thinkers was to try to explain religion from the outside. That’s like a person trying to explain a book without any understanding any of the words it contains.
This is an excellent metaphor. Let’s run with it and do a little thought experiment. Let’s say Karl Marx was illiterate. Everywhere he goes–the park, the train station, the coffee shop–he sees people opening books, staring into them for hours as if paralyzed and entranced. Occasionally they laugh or cry, or knit their brows in consternation.
“What’s going on?” he wonders. “It’s as if some drug has taken possession of them. And they do this willingly! The books don’t force themselves into people’s hands. People seek them out, open them on purpose, hold them in front of their faces, become blind and insensitive to the world around them, and sink into an opiated stupor.”
“Yes,” says Freud, “I’ve noticed it too. It’s a universal neurosis. They treat these fetishistic objects as if there’s something of value inside.”
“The race will never be free,” says Marx, “until we rid them of this scourge!”
“Indeed,” says Freud. “It’s our duty to enrich humanity by eradicating this superstitious fetish.”
Marx: “Right. And the only path to our goal is violence. Who shall we kill first?”
Freud: “Daddy.”
Sylvia Plath: “Count me in!”
June 30, 2022
اگر این کتاب در قالب ٧ کتابچهی جداگانه منتشر شده بود این اندازه دلنشین نبود. آنچه این کتاب را ارزشمند میکند این همنشینی رویکردهاست. کتاب ۵ رویکرد سراسر جداگانه به دین را به نمایش میگذارد. بهگونهای که هر یک از این اندیشمندان بزرگ، باور دارند دین، هیچ چیزی جز آنچه آنان میانگارند، نیست. این رویکردها عبارتاند از: تاریخی، روانشناختی، اجتماعی، اقتصادی، اسطورهای و فرهنگی. برخی از این دانشمندان دینستیزند و برخی دین را برای آدمی ناگزیر میدانند. خواندن پهلو به پهلوی نگاههای ایشان بسیار برایم دلنشین بود. بهويژه هر چه به پایان کتاب نزدیک میشدم، رویکردها برایم پذیرفتنیتر و آموزندهتر میشد.
August 11, 2024
True to its title, this book Chronicles seven prominent theories of religion: tylor/frazier, freud, durkheim, marx, eliade, evans-pritchard, and geertz. The format is very accessible while maintaining it's seriousness, and pals does a great job highlighting the innovations, qualities and problems with each theory. Certainly the undertaking is ill fated by design: each thinker is far larger than the 30 pages allotted to him, but the book nevertheless succeeds in tracing an ark from universalizing Christian centric theories to critical theory to intimate anthropology. Thus, I found the book an invaluable primer to start engaging with religious studies more seriously.
January 27, 2021
Religious beliefs is one of the common elements of human cultures, so common that a concern with things not purely mundane (such as belief in spiritual beings, an afterlife, or various deities) might be said to distinguish human societies from those of other animals. But what accounts for the origin of religion and what functions do religion fulfill in human societies? Daniel Pals reviews seven theories of religion that seek to answer these question. They cover an amazing range, from the purely material dialectical theory of Marx, Freud's psychoanalysis and the sociological theory of Durkheim to Clifford Geetrz's cultural anthropology.
For each theory, Pals follows the same pattern: he begins with a biography of the principal exponent of the theory covering also their intellectual mentors and influences, followed by a description of the theory itself. Wherever possible, Pals focuses on a few key texts that expound the theory. Following this, Pals presents an analysis of the theory and concludes with the main criticisms of the theory, in some cases adding defenses of these criticisms or adding his own commentary. A final chapter compares the theories, very ably identifying their commonalities and differences.
The first chapter actually covers two theorists, W. B. Tylor and James Frazer, whose theories are closely related and represent the first phase of European anthropology during the colonial period. Both Tylor and Frazer were concerned with 'primitive' cultures, and both believed that religion emerged out of early humans' attempts to make sense of bewildering and frightening natural phenomena. Their theories have therefore been called "intellectualist," since they argue that primitive cultures put forward explanations for natural phenomena that are based on reason, though their reasoning is limited by their lack of systematic and rigorous method that we moderns take for granted. As example for the "intellectual sense-making" origin of religion, Tyler presents this sequence: early humans noted the difference between dead and living persons, and posited that the critical difference must be due to the presence of something intangible in the living person, a soul. Then, if humans have souls, why not other entities? Perhaps, there are powerful entities without need for material bodies, i.e. pure spirits. With the coming of complex societies with the division of labor, the spiritual world too acquired division of labor, different spirits with power over different things. And in the final step, there emerged in parallel to the emergence of chiefdoms and kingship and empires, a hierarchy in the spirit world, with one supreme God.
Frazer, a classicist by training wrote the monumental, multi-volume "Golden Bough." His main concern was with magic and religion. In line with the "intellectualist" origins of his theories, Frazer posited that magic was a form of early science which was concerned with cause and effect. Certain actions led to specific outcomes; but because the scientific foundations of early society were weak, magic was supposed to work by similarity and contagion. Drizzling water through a sieve to simulate rain would cause it to actually rain, or sprinkling the blood of a sacrificed warrior would make seeds fertile.
Chapter Two turns to Sigmund Freud, explicating his psychoanalytical approach to religion based on three books, "Totem and Taboo," "Future of an Illusion," and "Moses and Monotheism." In "Totem and Taboo" Freud argues that sons' sexual jealousy of fathers leads them to kill the father and take over his harem. To assuage the guilt, they elevate a totem animal to the status of father and place a taboo on its killing; except on specific occasions when they ritualistically kill and consume it. In the "Future of an Illusion," Freud says that religion is a shield against the terrors or nature and death; because we cannot handle the truth, we invent a God as father figure and protector. Finally, in "Moses and Monotheism," Freud presents a theory that I seriously doubt is historically accurate. Moses, a priest of Aten, teaches monotheism to Hebrew slaves, but is killed in a desert rebellion. The Aten cult is thereafter replaced by the Yahweh cult, that imagined a violent, vengeful god. Later prophets return to Moses's early monotheism, and denounce the sacrificial cult (but retain the name of Yahweh). Christianity is plagued by original sin (murder of Moses) and needs to atone through the sacrifice of Christ, as eldest son.
The third chapter focuses on Emile Durkheim, and his sociological theories as explicated in "Elementary Forms of the Religious Life." Durkheim's approach is based on two principles: first, there is something factual called the "nature of society," and second, that it can be studied using the scientific method. Society exists before we are born, it shapes how we think and interact, and survives our deaths. Turning to religion, the realm of the 'sacred' as differentiated from the 'profane.' Durkheim defines the sacred not as its own spiritual sphere, but as everything related to the community (and the profane as the personal and the private). The sociological approach allows Durkheim to conceptualize the 'totem' in a unique way; it is the representation of the "totem principle," a life force that is present in all things, though not in equal measure. The totem represents the clan; so totem worship is worship of the social, the clan. The individual soul is the presence of the totem in each person, the voice of conscience, the commitment to community. The soul is immortal because the totem/clan survive the death of the individual.
In Chapter Four, Pals turns to Karl Marx. For him, religion is part of the superstructure, and an important part since it is an instrument of control and an illusion. Its role along with other elements of the superstructure, is "to contain or provide a controlled release for the deep, bitter tensions that arise from the clash between the powerful and the powerless" (p. 136). Religion is also an evil because it provokes an insidious form of alienation: they take the best qualities in humanity and attribute them to the gods while condemning humans as 'sinners'. This view is attributable to Feuerbach, who stated that humans attribute to God all the values we admire, but Feuerbach did not explain why; Marx explains that it is because portraying humans as wretches makes religion a better instrument of control.
Chapter Five presents Mircea Eliade and his theories, enunciated in three books: "The Sacred and the Profane," "Patterns in Comparative Religion," and "The Myth of Eternal Return." Eliade has very distinct ideas from Durkheim about the 'sacred' and the 'profane.' For Eliade the sacred is an autonomous sphere, which is not derivative of other causes or designed to fulfill any specific function (though they may fulfill such functions, that is not the cause of their origin). In Patterns, Eliade talks about symbols, common objects seen to be reminders of the sacred ("hierophany," or sacralization). Symbols form a hierarchy, with the more universal symbols being higher (a sacred tree vs. the cosmic tree). Eliade finds common patterns in all religions; sky gods, storm gods, fertility gods, gods who die and are renewed. In Eternal Return, Eliade tackles the significance of rituals, which he says re-enact the beginning of time. Humans' greatest fear is that their lives are meaningless. By ritual reenactment, they put every day life into the stream of the eternal sacred.
There is a very interesting discussion of the origins of secularism and science in Eliade's work. Primitive humans lived immersed in the sacred. Both nature and human affairs was part of the sacred. But Judeo/Christianity, with its conceptualization of a "chosen people" whose destiny unfolded according to God's will, sacralized historical events. But it simultaneously desacralized nature; there are no more nature spirits and weather deities but only one creator-god whose sole concern is with human destiny. With this one big desacralization (of nature) accomplished, it was easier for secularism to go one step further and desacralize history too. Thus religious evolution has three phases: archaic religion, Judeo-Christianity, and modern secularism.
Chapter Six takes up Evans-Pritchard’s anthropological theories of religion. His theories are enunciated in two books, both based on extensive fieldwork: “Nuer Religion” and “Theories of Primitive Religion.” The so-called “primitive” peoples are shown as having a sophisticated view of the spiritual life; it is intellectually coherent, and culturally connected. His other distinctive aspect was emphasis on fieldwork. Evans-Pritchard severely criticized other theorists who construct theories as if THEY were called on to create a religion. He says that each culture can be understood only from the inside.
Chapter Seven discusses the work of “interpretive anthropologist” Clifford Geertz, based on his famous book, the “Interpretation of Cultures.” Influenced by Weber via Talcott Parsons, Geertz argued with Weber that human ideas and attitudes should be understood to explain social systems. An action can be understood only if we know the meaning of the acton to the person performing it. From Parsons, Geertz adapted a three tier interpretive framework: individual personalities, social system and cultural system. The cultural system influences both the social system and individual behavior, but it is independent of both. To apprehend this cultural system, Geertz pioneered “thick description,” which along with the action, also described what it means, the intentions of the actor. To cite a famous example, a twitch of the eyelid could be a reaction to a speck of dust, a conspiratorial wink or a flirty leer.
With this approach, Geertz offered a definition of religion as “(1) a system of symbols whcih acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (quoted in Pals, p. 244). Thus the five elements are (1) symbolic system (2) moods and acts (3) world view (4) aura of reality and (5) naturalization of moods and acts.
Specifically, the religious worldview (nature of god, creation, nature of reality) and ethos (values and morals) support and reinforce each other (see p. 255). As situations change, both the worldview and ethos can change, but change in one affects the other too. In the book “Islam Observed” Geertz applied this to the 19th and 2th century history of Morocco and Indonesia. In Indonesia, the pre-existing Hindu-Buddhist “theater-states” (based on public ritual and royal displays) gave way peacefully to Islam. Reaction to Christian colonialism engendered a move to scriptural islam. After Independence, Sukarno tried (unsuccessfully) to emulate the “theater-states” model, but unsuccessfully. In Morocco, religion was based on maraboutism, charismatic Muslim preachers. Colonialism led to the same move towards scriptural islam, but Mohammad V post-independence was able to portray himself as a charismatic Muslim holy man. His grip on power was more secure than that of Sukarno in Indonesia. Despite observing such patterns, Geertz was adamant that each culture was unique and patterns are not generalizible. His “theory” was more a method to approach the uniqueness of each culture.
The concluding chapter compares the seven theories in five criteria: (1) definition of religion, (2) what do they explain (historical origin? socio-psychological causes?) also, reductionist or non-reductionist, (3) range (universalist or particularist, (4) evidence (wide, narrow, or non-empirical/speculative) and (5) theorists’ beliefs (sympathetic or hostile to religion).
According to Pals, in answer to (1) all theories agree that religion is about “belief and behavior associated in some way with the supernatural realm (p. 270). Even Freud and Marx, who argue that religion is delusion, agree that it is a delusion about supernatural beings. On criterion (2), Tyler/Frazer and Eliade address historical origins (how religions emerged) while Freud, Durkheim and Marx identify the social-psychological origins of religion. These three are mostly reductionists, who posit religion as the outcome of exogenous causes. Eliade, Evans-Pritchard and Geerts explicitly reject reductionism, and allocate religion its own autonomous sphere. On criterion (3), most theorists are universalists who sought to explain all religious phenomena in all its manifestations in all times. Evans-Pritchard was particularist in his own approach, refusing to offer any generalizations. But he offered hope that a universal theory might emerge from the accumulation of field-based work such as his. Geertz rejected even the attempt at a universal theory, claiming that all such attempts are misguided and doomed to failure. On criterion (4), Marx and Freud did not offer any field-based evidence, their theories are outcomes of larger theoretical frameworks. Evans-Pritchard and Geertz did extensive fieldwork. Durkheim and Eliade did fieldwork, but also relied on secondary evidence from a number of places. Finally, on criterion (5), Durkheim thought that religion was needed, though he was unsure of its factual bases; while Marx and Freud, thought that it was a delusion, and harmful and in need of extirpation. Tyler and Frazer, firmly atheistic themselves, thought that it was a residue of ignorance. The others were generally sympathetic to belief, especially Eliade.
For each theory, Pals follows the same pattern: he begins with a biography of the principal exponent of the theory covering also their intellectual mentors and influences, followed by a description of the theory itself. Wherever possible, Pals focuses on a few key texts that expound the theory. Following this, Pals presents an analysis of the theory and concludes with the main criticisms of the theory, in some cases adding defenses of these criticisms or adding his own commentary. A final chapter compares the theories, very ably identifying their commonalities and differences.
The first chapter actually covers two theorists, W. B. Tylor and James Frazer, whose theories are closely related and represent the first phase of European anthropology during the colonial period. Both Tylor and Frazer were concerned with 'primitive' cultures, and both believed that religion emerged out of early humans' attempts to make sense of bewildering and frightening natural phenomena. Their theories have therefore been called "intellectualist," since they argue that primitive cultures put forward explanations for natural phenomena that are based on reason, though their reasoning is limited by their lack of systematic and rigorous method that we moderns take for granted. As example for the "intellectual sense-making" origin of religion, Tyler presents this sequence: early humans noted the difference between dead and living persons, and posited that the critical difference must be due to the presence of something intangible in the living person, a soul. Then, if humans have souls, why not other entities? Perhaps, there are powerful entities without need for material bodies, i.e. pure spirits. With the coming of complex societies with the division of labor, the spiritual world too acquired division of labor, different spirits with power over different things. And in the final step, there emerged in parallel to the emergence of chiefdoms and kingship and empires, a hierarchy in the spirit world, with one supreme God.
Frazer, a classicist by training wrote the monumental, multi-volume "Golden Bough." His main concern was with magic and religion. In line with the "intellectualist" origins of his theories, Frazer posited that magic was a form of early science which was concerned with cause and effect. Certain actions led to specific outcomes; but because the scientific foundations of early society were weak, magic was supposed to work by similarity and contagion. Drizzling water through a sieve to simulate rain would cause it to actually rain, or sprinkling the blood of a sacrificed warrior would make seeds fertile.
Chapter Two turns to Sigmund Freud, explicating his psychoanalytical approach to religion based on three books, "Totem and Taboo," "Future of an Illusion," and "Moses and Monotheism." In "Totem and Taboo" Freud argues that sons' sexual jealousy of fathers leads them to kill the father and take over his harem. To assuage the guilt, they elevate a totem animal to the status of father and place a taboo on its killing; except on specific occasions when they ritualistically kill and consume it. In the "Future of an Illusion," Freud says that religion is a shield against the terrors or nature and death; because we cannot handle the truth, we invent a God as father figure and protector. Finally, in "Moses and Monotheism," Freud presents a theory that I seriously doubt is historically accurate. Moses, a priest of Aten, teaches monotheism to Hebrew slaves, but is killed in a desert rebellion. The Aten cult is thereafter replaced by the Yahweh cult, that imagined a violent, vengeful god. Later prophets return to Moses's early monotheism, and denounce the sacrificial cult (but retain the name of Yahweh). Christianity is plagued by original sin (murder of Moses) and needs to atone through the sacrifice of Christ, as eldest son.
The third chapter focuses on Emile Durkheim, and his sociological theories as explicated in "Elementary Forms of the Religious Life." Durkheim's approach is based on two principles: first, there is something factual called the "nature of society," and second, that it can be studied using the scientific method. Society exists before we are born, it shapes how we think and interact, and survives our deaths. Turning to religion, the realm of the 'sacred' as differentiated from the 'profane.' Durkheim defines the sacred not as its own spiritual sphere, but as everything related to the community (and the profane as the personal and the private). The sociological approach allows Durkheim to conceptualize the 'totem' in a unique way; it is the representation of the "totem principle," a life force that is present in all things, though not in equal measure. The totem represents the clan; so totem worship is worship of the social, the clan. The individual soul is the presence of the totem in each person, the voice of conscience, the commitment to community. The soul is immortal because the totem/clan survive the death of the individual.
In Chapter Four, Pals turns to Karl Marx. For him, religion is part of the superstructure, and an important part since it is an instrument of control and an illusion. Its role along with other elements of the superstructure, is "to contain or provide a controlled release for the deep, bitter tensions that arise from the clash between the powerful and the powerless" (p. 136). Religion is also an evil because it provokes an insidious form of alienation: they take the best qualities in humanity and attribute them to the gods while condemning humans as 'sinners'. This view is attributable to Feuerbach, who stated that humans attribute to God all the values we admire, but Feuerbach did not explain why; Marx explains that it is because portraying humans as wretches makes religion a better instrument of control.
Chapter Five presents Mircea Eliade and his theories, enunciated in three books: "The Sacred and the Profane," "Patterns in Comparative Religion," and "The Myth of Eternal Return." Eliade has very distinct ideas from Durkheim about the 'sacred' and the 'profane.' For Eliade the sacred is an autonomous sphere, which is not derivative of other causes or designed to fulfill any specific function (though they may fulfill such functions, that is not the cause of their origin). In Patterns, Eliade talks about symbols, common objects seen to be reminders of the sacred ("hierophany," or sacralization). Symbols form a hierarchy, with the more universal symbols being higher (a sacred tree vs. the cosmic tree). Eliade finds common patterns in all religions; sky gods, storm gods, fertility gods, gods who die and are renewed. In Eternal Return, Eliade tackles the significance of rituals, which he says re-enact the beginning of time. Humans' greatest fear is that their lives are meaningless. By ritual reenactment, they put every day life into the stream of the eternal sacred.
There is a very interesting discussion of the origins of secularism and science in Eliade's work. Primitive humans lived immersed in the sacred. Both nature and human affairs was part of the sacred. But Judeo/Christianity, with its conceptualization of a "chosen people" whose destiny unfolded according to God's will, sacralized historical events. But it simultaneously desacralized nature; there are no more nature spirits and weather deities but only one creator-god whose sole concern is with human destiny. With this one big desacralization (of nature) accomplished, it was easier for secularism to go one step further and desacralize history too. Thus religious evolution has three phases: archaic religion, Judeo-Christianity, and modern secularism.
Chapter Six takes up Evans-Pritchard’s anthropological theories of religion. His theories are enunciated in two books, both based on extensive fieldwork: “Nuer Religion” and “Theories of Primitive Religion.” The so-called “primitive” peoples are shown as having a sophisticated view of the spiritual life; it is intellectually coherent, and culturally connected. His other distinctive aspect was emphasis on fieldwork. Evans-Pritchard severely criticized other theorists who construct theories as if THEY were called on to create a religion. He says that each culture can be understood only from the inside.
Chapter Seven discusses the work of “interpretive anthropologist” Clifford Geertz, based on his famous book, the “Interpretation of Cultures.” Influenced by Weber via Talcott Parsons, Geertz argued with Weber that human ideas and attitudes should be understood to explain social systems. An action can be understood only if we know the meaning of the acton to the person performing it. From Parsons, Geertz adapted a three tier interpretive framework: individual personalities, social system and cultural system. The cultural system influences both the social system and individual behavior, but it is independent of both. To apprehend this cultural system, Geertz pioneered “thick description,” which along with the action, also described what it means, the intentions of the actor. To cite a famous example, a twitch of the eyelid could be a reaction to a speck of dust, a conspiratorial wink or a flirty leer.
With this approach, Geertz offered a definition of religion as “(1) a system of symbols whcih acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (quoted in Pals, p. 244). Thus the five elements are (1) symbolic system (2) moods and acts (3) world view (4) aura of reality and (5) naturalization of moods and acts.
Specifically, the religious worldview (nature of god, creation, nature of reality) and ethos (values and morals) support and reinforce each other (see p. 255). As situations change, both the worldview and ethos can change, but change in one affects the other too. In the book “Islam Observed” Geertz applied this to the 19th and 2th century history of Morocco and Indonesia. In Indonesia, the pre-existing Hindu-Buddhist “theater-states” (based on public ritual and royal displays) gave way peacefully to Islam. Reaction to Christian colonialism engendered a move to scriptural islam. After Independence, Sukarno tried (unsuccessfully) to emulate the “theater-states” model, but unsuccessfully. In Morocco, religion was based on maraboutism, charismatic Muslim preachers. Colonialism led to the same move towards scriptural islam, but Mohammad V post-independence was able to portray himself as a charismatic Muslim holy man. His grip on power was more secure than that of Sukarno in Indonesia. Despite observing such patterns, Geertz was adamant that each culture was unique and patterns are not generalizible. His “theory” was more a method to approach the uniqueness of each culture.
The concluding chapter compares the seven theories in five criteria: (1) definition of religion, (2) what do they explain (historical origin? socio-psychological causes?) also, reductionist or non-reductionist, (3) range (universalist or particularist, (4) evidence (wide, narrow, or non-empirical/speculative) and (5) theorists’ beliefs (sympathetic or hostile to religion).
According to Pals, in answer to (1) all theories agree that religion is about “belief and behavior associated in some way with the supernatural realm (p. 270). Even Freud and Marx, who argue that religion is delusion, agree that it is a delusion about supernatural beings. On criterion (2), Tyler/Frazer and Eliade address historical origins (how religions emerged) while Freud, Durkheim and Marx identify the social-psychological origins of religion. These three are mostly reductionists, who posit religion as the outcome of exogenous causes. Eliade, Evans-Pritchard and Geerts explicitly reject reductionism, and allocate religion its own autonomous sphere. On criterion (3), most theorists are universalists who sought to explain all religious phenomena in all its manifestations in all times. Evans-Pritchard was particularist in his own approach, refusing to offer any generalizations. But he offered hope that a universal theory might emerge from the accumulation of field-based work such as his. Geertz rejected even the attempt at a universal theory, claiming that all such attempts are misguided and doomed to failure. On criterion (4), Marx and Freud did not offer any field-based evidence, their theories are outcomes of larger theoretical frameworks. Evans-Pritchard and Geertz did extensive fieldwork. Durkheim and Eliade did fieldwork, but also relied on secondary evidence from a number of places. Finally, on criterion (5), Durkheim thought that religion was needed, though he was unsure of its factual bases; while Marx and Freud, thought that it was a delusion, and harmful and in need of extirpation. Tyler and Frazer, firmly atheistic themselves, thought that it was a residue of ignorance. The others were generally sympathetic to belief, especially Eliade.
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November 14, 2009An excessively academic study stifled by its polite rhetoric; half the book is fluffed introduction. Selection of theories & major figures is almost incoherent, jammed together for the sake of the project rather than naturally flowing from the actual impact on major thinkers in the last two centuries. This is one of those highly summary books which gives the illusion of information by its selectivity of main ideas from various sources, but in the end makes no conclusions or syntheses or significantly approaches the material in a new & constructive way.
1. Tylor/Frazer: "magic" which can't be disproved to explain the world
2. Freud: neuroticism & projection of childhood needs
3. Durkheim: societal structure & necessity
4. Marx: alienation from the material self (via idealism)
5. Eliade: numinous experiences leading to natural symbolic frameworks
6. Evans-Pritchard: NO theory; can't generalize with "If I was a horse" mentality; each system internally unique & self-dependent
7. Geertz: cultural system--worldview & ethos reinforcing each other
(8. Pals, editor): NO theory; but religion throughout all history is clearly partly free & partly conditioned
1. Tylor/Frazer: "magic" which can't be disproved to explain the world
2. Freud: neuroticism & projection of childhood needs
3. Durkheim: societal structure & necessity
4. Marx: alienation from the material self (via idealism)
5. Eliade: numinous experiences leading to natural symbolic frameworks
6. Evans-Pritchard: NO theory; can't generalize with "If I was a horse" mentality; each system internally unique & self-dependent
7. Geertz: cultural system--worldview & ethos reinforcing each other
(8. Pals, editor): NO theory; but religion throughout all history is clearly partly free & partly conditioned
August 17, 2024
I'm a little surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I don't read a ton of non-fic these days, usually just keeping them for reference. But I read this one cover-to-cover and I'm glad I did.
It annoyed me occasionally. But I think I may have crossed the wires of the author's opinion and the author explaining the opinions of the theorists whom he covered. That, and a predictable (if hard to avoid) tone of pedantry made it occasionally a little heavy.
But I really enjoyed learning more about where some of the 'givens' I've lived with all my life came from. I'm not sure I'll read this in toto again but it has for sure earned a place on my reference shelf.
It annoyed me occasionally. But I think I may have crossed the wires of the author's opinion and the author explaining the opinions of the theorists whom he covered. That, and a predictable (if hard to avoid) tone of pedantry made it occasionally a little heavy.
But I really enjoyed learning more about where some of the 'givens' I've lived with all my life came from. I'm not sure I'll read this in toto again but it has for sure earned a place on my reference shelf.
December 3, 2017
i wanna read this book
March 7, 2019
Bagus banget
April 27, 2021
This contains an interesting combination of theories that covers sociology, pyschology, anthropology, Marxism etc.
August 1, 2021
What is religion, where did it come from, and why do people still use it today? This book looks at the answers given by 7 famous voices from sociology and anthropology and surveyes their theories.
November 21, 2021
Buku yang membuat mu nggak perlu menanyakan lagi eksistensi tuhan
January 15, 2025
salah satuuu favorite sayaaa
February 10, 2017
This is not a book to read in hopes of discovering a general theory of religion. It is, instead, a wonderful study of why such a one-size-fits-all theory will be difficult if not impossible for cultural anthropologists to construct. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and learned much about the truths the seven great students of human religions unearthed and also the errors that rendered each one's work far from perfect.
November 15, 2013
sangat menarik sekali ketika melihat pandangan agama dari berbagai tokoh, katakanlah marx yang mengatakan agama adalah candu, implikasi logis durkheim merupakan fakta dan fenomena sosiologis, agama itu hanyalah ilusi oleh freud dan beberapa tokoh lain pun memakai berbagai pandangan masing-masingnya. dan silahkan anda akan menambahkan subyektifis anda sendiri mengenai agama menurut anda pribadi..
December 30, 2015
I thoroughly recommend this book to help one study the many theories of religions from the academic standpoint. This book is really well put together. I used this book to get me through one of my collage classes at UNCG. It's an amazing book and believe me, I really put this book to good use.
April 30, 2025
just read. it explains how different people try to understand religion, like Freud, Durkheim, and others. pretty cool if you like learning why people believe what they believe. easy to follow and really makes you think
October 27, 2007
just stay calm,read carefully..
August 29, 2008
I found this book helpful to my comprehending these seven theorists, especially Durkheim, though friends tell me Pals' reading is "problematic."
December 23, 2012
I wrote some review about this book on my blog: joehudijana.wordpress.com
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May 29, 2017Buku seven theories of religion, yang diterjemahkan dengan judul dekonstruksi kebenaran : kritik tujuh teori agama ini menjelaskan secara singkat, tapi dengan analisis yang tajam bagaimana perdebatan tentang agama ada dan terjadi ditengah kita. Dengan 7 teori yang dikemukakakan dan diulas tiap babnya- meliputi biografi singkat, perkenalan teori, analisis, kritik- cocok bagi siapapun juga yang ingin masuk secara serius untuk menjadi pembuka (introduction) bagi karya-karya selanjutnya yang ada.
Dimulai dari pemaparan sejarawan victorian Taylor dan Fraze, buku ini mengeksplorasi ide paling dini dan sederhana tentang agama dan tuhan orang-orang primitif. Kemudian dilanjutkan dengan pandangan kaum reduksionisme seperti Marx, Freud dan Durkheim. Marx mereduksi agama semat-mata sebagai perpanjangan dari faktor agama, Freud mereduksi agama menjadi semata-mata sebagai faktor psikologi manusi yang dikaitkan dengan kesadaran manusia akan phalus dan konflik masa lalunya seperti kisah oedypus complex, dan Durkheim ebagai seorang sosiolog yang menekankan pada objektifitas masyarakat mereduksinya agama sebagai integrasi sosial. Agama bagi ketiga sarjana tersebur tidaklah faktor nyata dalam manusia. Agama ada dikarenakan faktor-faktor lainnya.
Penjelasan yang cukup memuaskan dimulai dari para antropolog empiris dan sosiolog Prancis yang menolak klaim-klaim reduksionisme, Eliade. Bagi Eliade, agama adalah persoalan sakralitas. Dimana skaralitas inilah yang menentukan berbagai aspek dari kehidupan profan. Bukan sebaliknya. Dan apabila kita ingin memahami agama, maka kita harus melepas baju "ego ilmiah" kita dan masuk pada sakralitas orang yang beragama tersebur. Pitchar lebih tegas lagi, bahwa agama ada secara naluri dalam hati dan naluri manusia baik sebagai makhluk individual maupun sosial. Rasionalitas agama tidak bisa dinilai dari perspektif barat yang superior. Tapi rasionalitas tersebut dinilai dari kompelsitas dan komprehesifitas ide agama itu sendiri.
Teori terakhir dijelaskan oleh antropolog cerdas Amerika, Cliffor Geertz menjadi penutup buku ini. Ia menekankan bahwa agama selalu berkaitan denga kebudayaan. Kebudayaan selalu bersifat partikular. Maka dari itu tidak mungkin akan pernah ada satu teori umum (general theory) tentang agama, yang ada hanyalah bagaimana kita menemukan agama dalam partikularitas-partikularitas tersebut.
Buku yang amat bagus untuk dipahami bagi siapapun yang tertarik akan ide tentang agama.
Dimulai dari pemaparan sejarawan victorian Taylor dan Fraze, buku ini mengeksplorasi ide paling dini dan sederhana tentang agama dan tuhan orang-orang primitif. Kemudian dilanjutkan dengan pandangan kaum reduksionisme seperti Marx, Freud dan Durkheim. Marx mereduksi agama semat-mata sebagai perpanjangan dari faktor agama, Freud mereduksi agama menjadi semata-mata sebagai faktor psikologi manusi yang dikaitkan dengan kesadaran manusia akan phalus dan konflik masa lalunya seperti kisah oedypus complex, dan Durkheim ebagai seorang sosiolog yang menekankan pada objektifitas masyarakat mereduksinya agama sebagai integrasi sosial. Agama bagi ketiga sarjana tersebur tidaklah faktor nyata dalam manusia. Agama ada dikarenakan faktor-faktor lainnya.
Penjelasan yang cukup memuaskan dimulai dari para antropolog empiris dan sosiolog Prancis yang menolak klaim-klaim reduksionisme, Eliade. Bagi Eliade, agama adalah persoalan sakralitas. Dimana skaralitas inilah yang menentukan berbagai aspek dari kehidupan profan. Bukan sebaliknya. Dan apabila kita ingin memahami agama, maka kita harus melepas baju "ego ilmiah" kita dan masuk pada sakralitas orang yang beragama tersebur. Pitchar lebih tegas lagi, bahwa agama ada secara naluri dalam hati dan naluri manusia baik sebagai makhluk individual maupun sosial. Rasionalitas agama tidak bisa dinilai dari perspektif barat yang superior. Tapi rasionalitas tersebut dinilai dari kompelsitas dan komprehesifitas ide agama itu sendiri.
Teori terakhir dijelaskan oleh antropolog cerdas Amerika, Cliffor Geertz menjadi penutup buku ini. Ia menekankan bahwa agama selalu berkaitan denga kebudayaan. Kebudayaan selalu bersifat partikular. Maka dari itu tidak mungkin akan pernah ada satu teori umum (general theory) tentang agama, yang ada hanyalah bagaimana kita menemukan agama dalam partikularitas-partikularitas tersebut.
Buku yang amat bagus untuk dipahami bagi siapapun yang tertarik akan ide tentang agama.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews