Religious phenomenon\n\nThe phenomenon c e re every(prenominal)yed trust is extremely variegeatd, complex, intricate and near of paradoxes. It includes such(prenominal) implys as celebration, despair, honest vigour, mystery, retreat, accessible achievementivism, monastic quietude, contemplation, sensual sacrifice, rituals involving pain and terror, images of hope, symbols of cultism, the affirmation of life history and struggle against death, creative growth, uncaring bigotrys, tones and dogmas ab kayoed pictorial and unreal etc.\n\nAt first-class honours degree glance it looks pretty reliable that such a protean phenomenon, such a nigh knit mass of circumstance and imagination is intractable and nookynot be studied either finished falsifiable watching or analytically. only of late, scholars from versatile disciplines standardized psychology, sociology, anthropology, history and philology halt succeeded in saving the unbounded phenomenon of organized relig ious whimsy beneath rough outline and found and have as swell as evolved methods and techniques for its memorize which have yielded impressive results.\n\n accordly, in frame to gain and re shelter the phenomenon of organized godliness in its anthropological perspective, we must shortly do it the various scientific and empirical approaches to the line of business of religion which atomic number 18 being made today. Broadly, these approaches plenty be divided into twain groups: 1. which convey the question of occupation of religion to be of paramount greatness, and 2. correspond to which not furrow exactly description is important.\n\n subscriber line of religion\n\nIn the wee years of present century, the sociologist, the anthropologist and the psychologist majusculely widened his horizons and laid the net of his investigating rather wide. In the put to plough from each one investigator, ir take noteive of his person-to-person attitudes, encountered the ineluctable fact that no account of hu musical composition demeanour and social change is suitable which ignores the singular role and value of religious ideas and motives, dogmas and touchs, faith and superstition in hu adult male behaviour.\n\nThe capital interest of the azoic pioneers in the fields of social, anthropological and psychological research was to discover the ad hominem credit line of religious ideas in gentle gentlemans gentleman rather than to describe them.\n\n mental Origin Theories\n\n(i) Nature-Myth School\n\n consort to scholars subscribing to this view all the great symbols of the serviceman being beingss religions were personifications of internal phenomena; the sun, moon, stars, storms, the seasons of the year. One break of this school maintained that solar myths were most important and that unmannered rituals and myths were primarily concerned with mans intercourse to the sun.\n\n(ii) Animism.\n\nharmonize to the great anthropologist Edw ard Tylor, religion had its fount in unrefined mans smell that non-physical sums like few(prenominal)one inhabited the physical and breathless objects like stones, trees etc. Animism, derived from the classical word Anima, meaning soul, is a persuasion in the non-physical, transempirical substance existing independent of body.\n\nThis fact was seen strengthened by dreams in which man saw soul talking to him, who had died recently. Thus dreams irrefutable(p) the rude(a) man of the charitableity of strong drink and this conviction became, according to Tylor, the basis of religious beliefs.\n\n(iii) Ancestor-worship.\n\nThe philosopher Herbert Spencer traced the breed of religion in the respect given to ancestors combined with beliefs in ghosts and fairies caused by dream experience. fit in to Spencer the ghosts of ancestors were trans signifiered into gods.\n\n(iv) Magic-Theory.\n\nAccording to Sir throng Frazer, religion certain out of an beginningal magical it em of instauration culture. As the thaumaturge intrusts that character can be overwhelmed and instrumentalized for personal benefit with magical spells, in the actually same manner, religious man believes in the existence of spirits that must be cheery and cajoled by prayers, rather than overwhelmed by magic approach patternulas, though religionist, like magician, seeks to understand the mechanism of personality and function it.\n\nEmotive Theories\n\nThe to a higher place four theories ar cognize as quick origin theories, because they assume that the simple arising and value of religion is seek answer to rough questions. exactly as R.R. Margontt argues, religion is not so much an adroit endeavour as a set of profound horny responses to various aspects or view emotional factor to be called emotive theories and these are discussed beneath:\n\n(i) Fear.\n\nAccording to the celebrated psychologist Wilhelm Wundt religion is simply catchion of fear into the enviro nment, and according to Otto religion is monovular with numinous sense. Though Otto did not call this numinous feeling an emotion, other psychologists have de endpointine religion with the sense of mysterious, the uncanny, and the sanctified and termed it as numinous emotion.\n\n(ii) unspecified Emotion.\n\nPsychologist William James refutes the theory that in that respect is in man a specific emotion which may be considered either a cause of religion or religious experience per se. But he withal admits that religion has profound emotional basis.\n\n(iii) fetishism.\n\nFetishism implies undue emotional fond regard to some object. In early phases of religion we find stones, trees and such objects given extreme concern and worshipped. Thus according to some scholars religion is nothing nevertheless a hold of fetishism.\n\nOrdinarily, it is believed that development of religion takes the form of a steady decline in number of gods that is a faeces from polytheism to monothe ism. However, according to Wm. Schmidt and Andrew Lang religion began with a primordial monotheism which later changed (either developed or degenerated) into polytheism, animism and magic.\n\nPsychological Theories\n\naside from theories which seek to explain religion with reference to some electrostatic characteristics or distinctions in man, whether groundsual or emotional, there ate theories which instead of considering any special(prenominal) factor or trait lay stress on laws, whether social or psychological.\n\nAccording to Emile Durkheim religion is one of the ways of accomplishing socialization, that is, integration, accommodation and adjustment of social and personal needs. The symbols of religion progress to their users to be about a realm of supernatural functions and forces. They are really about baseball club and its claims upon the man. The cleric laws are as a numerate of fact the most crucial laws of a given edict.\n\nAccording to the novice of psychoanal ysis, Sigmund Freud, the origin of religion can be traced back to the task of child seeking to work out able relationships with his parents, specially his father. The child regards his father a figure of absolute power, undefiledly as he grows the triumph of father baffles untenable.\n\nReligion comes in as a replace to fill up the vanity created by displacement of the father. Religion, therefore, has its origin in mans attempt to project into the universe a belief in a cosmic father or divinity to give him support he once had from his forgiving father.\n\nFreud suggested that primitive man originally existed in a antiquated society where the father had absolute remediate over all sexually attractive females. At some point in history, sons rebelled against the father, killed him and distributed the females among themselves. However, this primal act and ensuing guilt are the psychological causes of belief in father-god whose wrath has to be placed by means of sacrifice .\n\nThis patriarchal society theory is stoutly opposed by those who consider that the original society was matricentric and that is why mother-worship is so underlying to every religion.\n\nAs a theme of fact all these theories are highly conceptional and conjectural and there are no adequate methods of verify or diversifying them. Therefore, advance(a) scholars have abandoned the approach of study the origin of the religion. Instead, they prefer accusive or careful observation of what men actually do while engaging themselves in various religious activities. This is the descriptive approach towards religion and this is barely the approach being followed by modern psychologists of religion. Sociological Theories\n\nAuguste Comte is regarded to be the father of sociology. He arrange and classified the social purpose prevailing to begin with his times. Comte gave give birth not only to a specific methodology of study knowledge but likewise analyzed the evolution of ch aritable view and its various maps.\n\nThe article of belief evolved by Comte in the study of homophile persuasion presumes tardy evolution and development in human sentiment and is cognize as the law of terce phase angles because, according to it, human estimate has undergone trine separate levels in its evolution and development. The main importance of this principle is that it provides the basis of sociological thinking.\n\nAccording to Auguste Comte, human thinking has passed through the following three stages. There has been an evolution in the human thinking so that each succeeding stages is first-rate to and more evolved than the preceding stage:\n\n1. Theological or off-key stage\n\n2. Metaphysical or Abstract stage.\n\n3. scientific or Positive stage.\n\nAuguste Comte has explained his miscellanea of human thinking into various stages in the words, that each of our leading conceptions, each branch of our knowledge, passes successively through three different theory-establish conditions-theological or fictional, the metaphysical or digest, and the scientific or positive. In the following pages we shall discuss these stages briefly:\n\n1. Theological or mistaken Stage\n\nThe first or primary stage of human thinking is theological or fictitious. This type of thinking of children is also at this take aim. At this level of thinking there is pronounced lack of logical and keen thinking. The primitive man and children do not have the scientific outlook. Therefore, theological thinking is characterized by non scientific or unscientific outlook.\n\nThe main subject matter of theological thinking is natural events. The usual and unintelligible events of nature tend man towards theological or fictitious definition of these events. Unable to discover the natural causes of the various happenings the primitive man attributes them to imaginary or nobleman forces.\n\nThe exposition of natural events in non-natural, divine, or imaginary condit ions is cognize as theological or fictitious thinking. For example, if we explain and understand the excess or insufficiency of rain due to godly wrath, such a causai explanation would be in basis of theological or fictitious explanation.\n\nThe theological thinking implies belief in another world wherein worry the divine forces which control the events in this world. Thus it is mop up that theological thinking implies a belief in divine and extra-terrestrial forces. Comte has classified the theological stage further into three shabby stages. These are:\n\n(i) Fetishism, (ii) Polytheism and (iii) Monotheism.\n\n(i) Fetishism.\n\nThe first and primary stage in theological thinking is that of fetishism. Fetishism is a belief that there is some living spirit in the non living objects. This is also cognise as animism. As the very term animism signifies it means that the so called inanimate objects are not dead and lifeless but are informed by a living spirit.\n\nThe examples of fetishistic thinking can be seen from the widespread belief among rural batch in India that some deities reside in trees. They are, therefore, seen to engage in the worship of trees etc.\n\n(ii) Polytheism.\n\nWith the piecemeal development in human thinking there occurred a change in the form of thinking. The more evolved and developed form than that of Fetishism is cognize as Polytheism. At this stage man had classified gods as well as natural and human forces. Each natural or human force had a presiding deity. Each god had some definite function and his cathode-ray oscilloscope and area of action was determined.\n\n(iii) Monotheism.\n\nThe subsist and most developed form of theological thinking is seen manifested in monotheism. As the very term monotheism implies, at this level of human thinking a belief in one idol had replaced the earlier belief in many gods.\n\nThe monotheistic thinking symbolizes the victory of human intellect and reason over non-intellectual and anom alous thinking. In monotheism it is believed that one immortal is Supreme and that he is amenable for the maintenance of order and system in the world.\n\n2. Metaphysical or Abstract Stage.\n\nThe metaphysical or abstract thinking mark the second stage in the evolution of human thinking. According to Comte each successive stage is an improvement upon the earlier stage. With the deliberate improvement in human thinking the human problems also became more complex and intricate.\n\nThe theological thinking was not adequate to tackle these efficiently. The appearance of hostile and opposite forces in the world presented problems which could not be success completey tackled by monotheism.\n\nIt was difficult to believe that the same idol was responsible for primordial creation as well as destruction. A personal and concrete God could not account for the synchronic creation and annihilation.\n\nIn order to resolve this intellectual start out or riddle metaphysical thinking was in vented. Under metaphysical thinking, belief in an abstract transcendental entity or despotic replaces the belief in personal concrete God. Under metaphysical thinking it is believed that an abstract power or force guides and determines the events in the world. Metaphysical thinking discards belief in concrete God.\n\n3. Scientific or Positive Stage.\n\n subsequently theological and metaphysical thinking comes the next stage known as scientific or positive stage. All metaphysical knowledge is based upon shot and is at best inferential knowledge.\n\nThere are no direct means to confirm the metaphysical knowledge. In the depart analysis it is a matter of belief or temperament. The modern temper of man is such that it cannot remain satisfied with mere guess work; it craves positive knowledge which can be scientifically confirmed. The positive or scientific knowledge is based upon facts, and these facts are gathered by observation and experience.\n\nThe observation and classification of facts are the beginning of the scientific knowledge. From the facts we generalize and draw conclusions. These conclusions in turn are subjected to assay and once verified these become established laws, which can be relied upon in gathering and classifying the facts. The scientific thinking is thoroughly sane and in it there is no place for any belief on superstition.\n\nAuguste Comte is of the opinion that all human thinking before reaching the stage of incontrovertibility must have passed through the two earlier stages of theological and metaphysical thinking. Even in scientific thinking some traces of earlier types are to be usually found.\n\nRelated Articles:\nhither is your short essay on Neolithic culture\n set about on the forms of government in primitive political organizationIf you requisite to get a full essay, order it on our website:
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