For example different opinions regarding the Trinity between Roman Catholics and Jehovah Witnesses. It is a childish illusion for, as Freud remarked, religion originates in the helplessness and anxiety of childhood and early manhood (quoted in Merkur 2005,166). They argue, for example, that exemptions from general laws can be justified on the ground of conscience; and that what the state should not establish are conceptions of the good. Sociology in general looks at people's . Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. This had led some scholars, such as Tim Fitzgerald and Naomi Goldenberg, to draw the radical conclusion that the category of religion should be simply abandoned. An internal theory of religion is a particular religions account of its own origins and functions (e.g., Christianitys own account of the origins and functions of the Christian religion); while an external theory of religion is an account of the origins and functions of particular religions, or religion in general, using the methods of certain academic disciplines. While for Marx religion isa creation of capitalism, for Weber it is the other way roundcapitalism is largely due to religion, more specifically, the Calvinist religion. Briefly, the arguments from causation and motion claim that the series of causes and effects, and movements in the world, must begin with God being the first cause and mover; the argument from design claims that the intricate design of the world cannot be attributed to mere chance but only to God as the divine intelligence; the argument from necessity claims that there must be a God who is a necessary being (one who has always been existing) to explain how contingent beings (those that presently exist but previously did not) have come to exist; and the argument from degrees of perfection claims that there must be a God whose perfection serves as the standard for determining the degrees of qualities that we attribute to things (like that they are good or better). Ascension 120. It studies religion in relation to other social institutions and compares religious beliefs and practices across cultures. liade (1907-1986), whose studies included the concepts of sacred space and mythic time, and the sacredness of nature (Paden 2005, 215). Two famous and highly influential Christian theologians who also engaged in philosophy of religion were St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Attempts have been made to find a distinctive ingredient in all religions, such as the numinous, or spiritual, experience, the contrast between the sacred and the profane, and the belief in one or more gods. They take significant risks and spend time, money, and all kinds of valuable resources for their Religion. Significance is reported at the p < .10 level. He illustrate the introduction of Phenomenology saying, a lot of opinions have been written about not only the physical interchange of races but;, also ethnical and cultural, and especially upon values, so what take place when religions and their tradition convene? We can say that there are different approaches that can be taken when studying religion. Aside from being exploited, the workers were also dehumanized or alienated in the workplace. "The notion that such a study is the objective and comparative study of religion. The growth of various disciplines in the 19th century, notably psychology and sociology, stimulated a more analytic approach to religions, while at the same time theology became more sophisticated and, in a sense, scientific as it began to be affected by and thus to make use of historical and other methods. Religion is also studied within cultural geography, which studies how cultural processes spread. Sociologists study religion as both a belief system and a social institution. The journal is a very significant endeavor since, until we launched it, there was no journal in the study of religion that has focused exclusively on developing a critical approach. The study of religion can roughly be divided between descriptive and historical inquiries on the one hand and normative inquiries on the other. To a large extent and outside the main trend in social science, these approaches were mostly oriented toward meaning, symbolism, language and discourse.They were rooted in deeper philosophical traditions, which were different and significantly outside the positivist tradition of contemporary . Furthermore, if theology studies a particular religion always from the inside, religious studies study different religions mostly from the outside. Approaches to Studying Religion (three courses): Three courses, one in each area, covering more than one major religious tradition; level II or level III courses may be used to fulfill this requirement; a general education course in . Although there is still no agreement on this issue, the frontier between traditional religions and modern political ideologies remains a promising topic of study. Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood have shown, for instance, that liberal secularism requires individual beliefnot communal observance, rituals or embodied pietyto be taken as the essence of religiosity. What may be the way forward in the teaching and definition of religion is to accept the singularity of each religion and each individuals faith and seek ways in which they can be accommodated within a safe international environment that moves away from empirical definitions. 10. The study of religion emerged as a formal discipline during the 19th century, when the methods and approaches of history, philology, literary criticism, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and other fields were brought to bear on the task of determining the history, origins, and functions of religion. Copyright 2003 - 2023 - UKEssays is a trading name of Business Bliss Consultants FZE, a company registered in United Arab Emirates. Will the globalization lead to a kind of universal religion, as prediction might lead, or it will be turned in a lively variety of many different beliefs? Sociology studies human societies, their interactions, and the processes that preserve and change them. Discussion about religion has been complicated further by the attempt of some Christian theologians, notably Karl Barth (18861968), to draw a distinction between religion and the Gospel (the proclamation peculiar to Christianity). The etymological meaning of the word theologybased on its Greek origin, namely theo, which means God, and logos which means discourse or study,is study of God. Theology, however, is not just limited to the study of the nature ofGod, for it also studies in a systematic way the main doctrines of a particular religion. Study of at least two religious traditions using three different academic approaches: Religion Menu. On the other hand, some view it as a way of purifying religion from the idolatry or worship of human-made objects. Thus, some political ideologies, such as communism and fascism, have been regarded as analogous to religion. During his time, Marx observed that the capitalists, in their pursuit of profits, eventually exploited the workers. Psychology of religion is the application of the different psychological theories and methods to explain religious phenomena, which include the belief in God, religious experiences and behaviors, and spirituality. Among the many faiths represented here are Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. So he is proposing a mystical goal and from his yogic teachings he guides,shows and achieves that. develop an informed understanding of the diversity of world religions. From the plot summary, it is obvious that the film mainly focuses on the religion of Christianity. First, as religion is not a thing but a term of art, it is perfectly legitimateas suggested abovethat different dimensions of it are appropriated in different disciplines and areas of life. Christian neo-orthodoxy can be placed as a middle position between traditional orthodoxy and liberalism. As we examine the different disciplinal approaches to the study of religion, we shall briefly touch on some of the external theories of religion. Religious fundamentalism is the approach of those religious groups that look for the literal interpretation of original religious texts or books believing that teachings obtained from . Copyright 2019 - 2022 Elcomblus Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ( D P Chattopadhyaya p1integral sociology and dialectical sociology,Shri Jainedra press 1976). It may perhaps intensify your religious experience. Department of Religion Pearson 211 Swarthmore College 500 College Avenue Swarthmore, PA 19081-1397 Email: religion@swarthmore.edu Phone: (610) 328-8045 Fax: (610) 328-7687 Erin has an M.Ed in adult education and a BS in psychology and a BS in management systems. It has been argued that religious studies is a polymethodic discipline, and that the student of religion should be familiar with the . They suggest that, even though historically the liberal state may have defined itself in relation to a problematic construal of religion, it has since broadened the scope of its moral concern, and is therefore less vulnerable to charges of ethnocentrism. Carl Jung (1875-1961) was the founder of analytic psychology, the name given to Jungs psychological-therapeutic system which divides the unconscious mind into the personal and the collective. In fact, the religions of civilized races evolved from the animism of the lower races. As to the first sense, one of the challenges to the student of religion is the problem of evoking its inner, individual side, which is not observable in any straightforward way. India is a multi-cultural and a diverse nation with a flourishing history of pluralism that has been thriving for thousands of years. The disaggregating approach helps us answer this critique. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs. This is a legitimate perspective from the standpoint of faith. The author will attempt to evaluate the strengths and weakness of two approaches to religion and try to compare the work of the two representations and their methodology .The first is Professor Ninian Smart as he wrote widely, regarding different topics in religions, with papers and articles appearing in a vast range of publication sand television worldwide developing his own vision and philosophy of human progress and spiritual evolution. The adherent of a faith is no doubt authoritative as to his own experience, but what of the communal significance of the rites and institutions in which the adherent participates? But objections have been brought against all these attempts, either because the rich variety of religions makes it easy to find counterexamples or because the element cited as central is in some religions peripheral. The final approach to world religions is exclusivism. Bonferroni correction compensates for multiple . The belief in the soul as something separate from the body though residing in the body resulted from dealing with certain biological questions such as those concerning the difference between a living body and a dead one; the causes of waking, sleep, trance, disease, and death; and the origin of dreams and visions involving human images. Much of the interesting work done in anthropology, sociology, and religious studies departments, for example, draws on both the first and the second approach). This means that a student of theology is a follower of the particular religion he/she is studying; whereas a student of religious studies is usually not a follower of the religions he/she is studying. Muller, an authority of Sanskrit (the classical religious language of India), urged that the study of religion should not be limited to the religions of the Mediterranean (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) and that the great religions of the East should also be seriously studied. Approaches to Religious/Worldview Studies 1 Sociological. the myths of a religion. We can confirm that the method of study that Smart used in his approach comprehend both external and internal analysis of religion, characterized by phenomenological perspectives. Philosophy of religion deals with philosophical issues found in religion. Looking for a flexible role? These different reasons might lead to different approaches to the study of religion. The goods that the workers helped produced by means of their labor (using the materials and machines owned by the capitalists) were sold in the market at a certain value. The most influential proponent of comparative religion in the nineteenth century was Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900). Continuum International publishing group .2006. Can we truly compare two totally different views religion one very internal the other very visual? The dominant sense in which the contemporary study of religion is understood is the descriptive sense. 42 - 72. In the above definition Marx has stressed few points about religion which require special emphasis. 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