Methodological problems recovering earliest human
culture
Reading "physical culture"
Difficulty with associating indigenous cultures
with primitive humanity
Primitive culture vs. primitive technology
Goddess theory
Marija Gimbutas
primitive g/Goddess worship
patriarchy
Supporting Evidence
ubiquitous female figurines
Critique
Schmidt: ubiquitous male sky gods
Sympathetic magic
Animism
Primitive / primal / indigenous / pre-literate /
pre-industrial / oral / etc.
Nature as alive / Populated with spirits
Totemism
Taboo
Ancestor worship
Models for the origins of religion
Evolutionary theories
Nature religion (Max Müller)
Response to the powers of nature
Misinterpretation of dreams (Edward Tylor)
Appearance of departed in dreams leads to
belief in spirits and afterlife
Magic (Sir James Frazer)
Magic begins as proto-technology, but then
gives rise to explanations that become
religion
Society (Emil Durhkeim)
Perception of 'other' in society yields
personalization in 'god'.
Exclusion of magic as not religion because
not social
Psychological theories
Mana (Robert Codrington)
Experience of the impersonal powers in the
world
Pragmatism (William James)
Consistent repeated experience, by certain
individuals, of "something there"
Religion is perpetuated by the fact that it
'works' (in terms of transformed lives and
pushing people beyond their normal limits)
Numinous experience (Rudolf Otto)
Experience of the mysterium tremendum
gives rise to concept of transcendent, non-
contingent reality (a priori)
Sacred/Profane (Mircea Eliade)
Experiences like those Otto describes yield
concept of sacred vs. profane, which is the
fundamental defining element of religion
Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud)
Oedipus myth is version of primordial
human experience in which tribal men
overthrow and kill their father, eating his
body. Through guilt, the father comes back
to haunt them and becomes the primordial
god figure.
Religion is perpetuated by the tradic
Psycho-anatomy of id-ego-superego, where
superego represents god standing in the
place of (imagined) parental authority
Id
Ego
Superego
Subconscious
Inate theories
Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl)
Appears to be a fundamental feature of
human nature, even instinctive
Ontological model (Anselm, René Decartes)
Knowledge of God is built into human
psyche. Because God exists and is our
creator, s/he is revealed to us at the most
fundamental level of our being.
All known cultures reflect this knowledge
(Wilhelm Schmidt) at some level, even if
they have drifted from that knowledge in
its purist form (e.g. into animism or
agnosticism).
Miracles
Metatechnology
Magic vs. prayer
Perception vs. reality
definitions:
a) everything
-- babies, etc.
b) intervention of g/God within natural
parameter where timing suggests
intentionality
-- toddler & train story
c) violation of laws of nature (again, with
suggestion of intentionality)
-- most Bible miracles
theology of miracles
a) transcendentalism, deism, etc.
b) g/God is willing/able to participate/intervene
in normal course of events
c) g/God is willing/able to violate laws of nature
laws of nature for us not necessarily same as
for God