METHODOLOGY

Problem of DEFINING subject matter

There are many "definitions" on offer. Religion derived from "religio" - to bind together.

Religion has proved elusive of definitive definition.

Several languages (eg Hebrew, Arabic, Indian languages - Hindi, Bengali) do not have words for religions yet Jews, Muslims, Hindus speak these languages!

SR is poly-methodological. Uses social sciences (anthropology, psychology), textual study and criticism, history, archeology, observation ......

"The attempt to reduce Judaism to a religion is a betrayal of its true nature" (Milton Steinberg)

"It is hardly possible to say whether [Hinduism] is a religion or not" (Jawaharlal Nehru)

"Buddhism is not a religion in the sense in which that word is commonly understood" (U.Thittila)

"Islam is not merely a ‘religion’ in the sense in which this term is understood in the West"

(S Ramadan; all cited in W. C Smith, 1962, The Meaning and End of Religion, London, SPCK, pp 126 - 127).

Definitions which include ‘theism’ exclude Buddhism and some Hindu tradition (Advaita Vedanta).

There are different ways of "seeing" religion. Our "seeing" is influenced by the definition we prefer, by our a priori ideas (eg religion is a social construct, a psychological mechanism, all religions except my own are human systems, etc.)

Marxist - may see religion as the masses' medicine to help them bear the harsh realities of life/ or as the invention of the few to help to keep themany content with their condition today by offering paradise tomorrow.

Functionalists - religion functions to help create a moral, cultural consensus in society (religion is the SOUL of society).

Freudians: religion is a psychological malady, a prop.

JUNGIANS: religion as a "human sub-stratum" alongside biological and psychological which links to an ARCHETYPE (divine reality)

Both Freud and Jung claimed scientific status for their theories!

Our methodology may determine our focus - theology = beliefs/scriptures; sociology = how religion functions in society, religious organization, etc.; psychology = why people are "religious".

A theologian may see religion as human response to divine revelation (Tillich

A theologian may see religion as human response to divine revelation (Tillich’s responses to questions of "ultimate concern"/expressions of fundamental core values).

Richard Dawkins: cultural memes (norms/values transmitted by non-biological mechanisms/only healthy will survive.

germs live off memes/as parasites, they can not ultimately survive. Religion is a germ.

A Mythological Seeing Some historians trace the origin of religion to primordial 'hero' myths, many of which follow a standard pattern. Heroes express or represent our noblest aspirations, our highest ideals and challenge us to attempt to do and to be what our heroes were

Some Anthropological seeings

James George Frazer (1854 - 1941) religions an outmoded evolutionary stage - first-magic, then religion, then science.

Claude Levi-Strauss - product of human thought (binary opposite - sacred/profane; built on Durkheim.

Geertz - religion as cultural; system/true for those who believe/links way world ought to be with the way that it is.

(1) a system of symbols which 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 (1973 The Interpreation of Cultures, London, Fontana Press, p 90)

Eric Sharpe suggests that we know, in a common sense sort of way, what "religion" is when we see it! (see Understanding Religion, 1983, London, Duckworth).

Religions have building, rituals,texts, etc. - THESE CAN BE STUDIED.

Smart, Whaling, Sharpe (and others) have developed models for studying religions, treating them as multi-dimensional' - by - passing problem of definition

apprehension of "absolute" underlines all elements-

community

ritual

ethics

social action

scripture/myth

concepts

aesthetics

spirituality

Sharpe’s model links nouns with verbs - belief - believing; existential, intellectual, institutional and ethical modes.

W. C Smith says that religion is more verb than noun: "My faith is an act that I make, myself, naked before God ... there is no such thing as Christianity (or Islam ...) ... there is my faith, and yours" (1962 p 191).

this approach allows "us all" to define ourselves

Western scholars "invented"/"constructed" other cultures/religions to JUSTIFY their colonial rule (backward wards needed guardians). Sometimes, scholars ABSTRACTED a singular ESSENCE (which does not really exist).

Edward Said (eg 1978) pointed out how many Western writers on Islam (and on the non-Western world), assuming themselves "superior", posited an irreconcilable difference between themselves, and "others".

They were rational, honest - "others" were ir-rational, dishonest (thus, Muslim sources were "suspect"). "We", however, could understand "them" better than they could themselves. Therefore, "we" had a moral right to "govern" them.

Scholarship, says Said, provided colonialism with the information, and moral justification, it needed; thus we have "Subject races did not have it in them to know what was good for them" ( Sa'id: Orientalism, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1978 p 37). "The white man's burden"; the idea of the West as "parent", the non-West as a "ward". Orientalism creates "abstracts". "Orientalist" scholarship tended to generalize eg all Muslims are dishonest, Islam is the same everywhere (ignoring regional diversity). It "essentialized" Islam; creating a "construct" it could "control".

"Knowledge" gives power - more power requires more knowledge and so in in an increasingly profitable dialectic of information and control. "Knowledge" gives power - more power requires more knowledge and so in in an increasingly profitable dialectic of information and control" (p 36).

"Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient - dealing with it by making statements about it, authoring views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it; in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient" (p 3).

'The word ‘logic’ is very misleading ... The beginning of wisdom, for European students of Oriental religion, lies in the discovery that incongruous beliefs - I mean, of course, beliefs which our minds cannot harmonise - dwell peacefully together in the Oriental brain [and] their owner is quite unconscious of their incongruity. Contradictions ... do not trouble him at all" (1975, The Mystics of Islam, p 130)

Want of accuracy, which easily degenerates into untruthfulness, is ... the main characteristic of the Oriental mind. The European is a close reasoner, albeit he may not have studied logic ... The mind of the Oriental on the other hand, like his picturesque streets, is eminently wanting in symmetry. His reasoning is of the most slipshod description ... (cited in Akbar Ahmed, Discovering Islam, London, Routledge, 1988 p 119).

Not all Western scholarship should be discarded but we need to be critical of what we read: what assumptions inform and shape the texts we read?

Phenomenology: gives priority to "insider voices".

invites us to try to penetrate to the reality/essence of the phenomenon we are studying - instead of imposing ideas/concepts/images.

Invites us to confront our a priori ideas.

Not all will tell the same story - stories differ (men, women, young, old, Orthodox Jew, Progressive Jew/Sunni, Shi'a, etc.).

However, the phenomenologist aims to write an account which will elicit an "amen" from some insiders.

bracket out likes/dislikes

bracket out theories

bracket out philosophical ideas

develop empathy with the inner reality of the phenomenon

penetrate to its very essence.

in other words

bracket out likes/dislikes

bracket out theories

bracket out philosophical ideas

develop empathy with the inner reality of the phenomenon

penetrate to its very essence….. "pass into" the worldview under scrutiny; when you return to your own, you must "interpret"/"make sense" of what you experienced.

We may aim to achieve a degree of "VIRTUAL INSIDERSHIP".

The phenomenological observer is not to be seen as a white-coated diagnostician standing by the patient and noting every symptom - although part of his work will involve such meticulous observations. Rather he seeks to move close enough to the subject of study so that the religious pulse makes itself felt against, or even within, his own skin

The phenomenological observer is not to be seen as a white-coated diagnostician standing by the patient and noting every symptom - although part of his work will involve such meticulous observations. Rather he seeks to move close enough to the subject of study so that the religious pulse makes itself felt against, or even within, his own skin" (Arthur, C. J In the Hall of Mirrors, London, Mowbray, 1986 p 81).

This demands imagination, creativity, becoming an becoming an "actor" - Study of Religions is perhaps more Art than Science!

Pioneers (eg F Max Müller, studied "texts"/classical traditions, tended to generalize. Texts took you back to the essence of a tradition; what comes after is corrupt.

Diversity is now taken seriously; also difference between official PRECEPT, and peoples’ actual PRACTICES.

also - dissident/underclass voice’s (minorities, women - tell stories’ which differ from those of the "powerholders".

This lectures was prepared to accompany readings from chapters one and two of Ian Markham's A World Religions Reader, Second Edition, 2000, Oxford, Basil Blackwell