Hello, and welcome to think, think, think!
My name is Filip, and today we're talking about religion
What is religion? How can we define this word?
Unfortunately, within academic comparative religion
there is no official definition of the word 'religion'
It's a word that could be interpreted in many different ways
Despite this, many scholars have attempted
to define what religion is
two well-known examples of this are
the anthropologist E. B. Tylor, who defined religion as
"Belief in supernatural beings"
which is a quite narrow definition especially in comparison
to Clifford Geertz, who wrote that religion is
"A system of symbols which acts to establish powerful,
pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men,
by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence
and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality
that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic"
These are two very different ways of interpreting religion
but as we've mentioned before
you can't say that one is more right than the other
I think we'd all agree that Christianity is a religion, but
is Scientology a religion?
is Jediism a religion?
or is football a religion?
It all depends on how you define the word
The role of religion within a society and underlying causes
have also been explored at numerous occasions
Émile Durkheim is known for his sociological theories on religion
He argues that religion primarily is
a collection of symbols and practices with the intention
of creating an enhanced sense of group feeling or belonging
He wrote:
"The idea of society is the soul of religion"
in his studies of Australian totem culture
Durkheim argues that
gods, or in this case, totems
work as a symbol of which a group can gather around
and identify themselves with
the god in this case represent the group
and when the god is worshipped, it's actually
the worship of the group or the tribe
This also goes for non-religious aspects of society
When we think of the USA as a nation
we might think of the American flag
or a white-tailed eagle.
The flag and the white-tailed eagle become a representation
or a symbol for the American people
Another theory on the functions of religion are
Sigmund Freud's psychological theories
To him, religion is a faulty sense of security
sort of like a teddy bear to a child.
He has a negative attitude towards religion and
considers it superstition that we should outgrow as human beings
There is however a huge problem with all these understandings of religion
and that is, that all of these researchers are
from a western - i.e. European or North-American - background
a problematical part of this is that they work from a
western and specifically Christian framework
as to what religion actually is.
A very common idea held in Sweden is that
religion's central aspect is "belief", i.e belief in a god
But this is a very Christian way of viewing it -
the notion that religion mainly is "belief" is very Lutheran
and if you'd ask a Muslim or a Hindu what religion is all about
they might give you different answers
for example that it's about family, to act in a certain way, or a way of life
Another great example of pointing out this problem
is to look at the books of the Swedish elementary schools
In these books, all religions are presented with the same framework
All religions are presented with three central categories
that define the religions, they are:
The man, the book/text and the faith
and this is, as said before, a Christian framework
The man is Jesus,
the book is the Bible
and the faith is the Christian theology
But the problem occurs when we try to apply this framework
on other religions. Partly, because these three categories
aren't as important in other religions, but also because
you create a christocentric idea of religion
If we try to understand Islam out of these categories
then Muhammad is "the man"
the Qur'an becomes "the book"
As if Muhammad is Islam's "Jesus",
and the Qur'an is Islam's "Bible"
when this couldn't be further from the case
the Qur'an has an entirely different role and purpose within Islam
than the Bible has within Christianity
If you would attempt to compare, it would be more accurate
to compare the Qur'an in Islam with Jesus within Christianity
But even these types of comparisons are problematic
This christocentric idea of religion that is being taught in school
can lead to great misunderstandings,
and ignorance towards other religions, and lead to huge problems.
Another question that is relevant to researchers on religion
is the relation between religion and other aspects of society
Today, in the west we tend to segment parts of our society
Politics has its own place,
Culture has its own place,
Sports has its own place, and
Religion has its own place
But this is a very modern and western way of seeing things
and hasn't always been like this historically,
and still isn't perceived as such in many parts of the world.
The very famous researcher on religion,
Talal Asad, argues against this notion.
He says that
"Religion as a phenomenon separated from politics,
law and science have emerged from a unique, Western (post-reformation) history"
In other words, he thinks religion is completely inseperable
from other aspects of society, as we typically would do in the West
Not all researchers on religion agree with Asad
I personally believe that you can use 'religion' as a term,
both in a general context, and also within research
as long as you are using it carefully, and with all these problems in mind
If you're interested in more content like this, feel free to watch other episodes of T3
Or visit my English-speaking channel Let's Talk Religion on YouTube
Thank's for watching!
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