Origins of Religion and Supernatural Beliefs

• Humans have always pondered life's meaning and the universe, with some clues available about how people of the past addressed these questions.
• 50,000 years ago, communities buried the dead with tools/objects, which indicates preparation for an afterlife.
• 30,000 years ago, Chauvet cave artists in France created animal scenes/abstract symbols suggesting a supernatural belief system focused on hunting safety.
• Clay Venus figurines later appeared across Eurasia, expressing fertility/motherhood ideas, seen as magical.

Defining Religion

• Studying supernatural beliefs is vital and challenging for anthropologists due to the difficulty of defining "religion".
• The conventional concept of "religion" is not universally recognized, with many cultures lacking a direct translation.
• Many societies do not distinguish between "religious" or "spiritual" practices from daily habits.
• Spirits are not always called “gods”, and some societies blur the natural/supernatural.
• Concepts like heaven, hell, or prayer are not universal.
• Cultural relativism and an emic perspective are crucial for anthropologists studying supernatural beliefs.
• Differences in cultural assumptions can cause misunderstandings, as seen in Sir James Frazer's early anthropological work.
• Frazer, relying on reading and questionnaires, applied his own opinions and dismissed spiritual beliefs in "The Golden Bough" as false.
• Sir E.B. Tylor defined religion narrowly as "belief in supernatural beings," excluding many worldwide beliefs.
• Emile Durkheim saw religion as practices and social institutions uniting a community, emphasizing spiritual beliefs' role in relationships.
• Religious beings, as perceived, often display familiar personalities and agency.
• Religion can be defined as the means by which society/culture includes the nonhuman, a deliberately broad definition.
• Many religions share "magical" ideas or rituals, with a complex relationship between religion and magic.
• Marcel Mauss viewed religion and magic as opposite poles, with magic being private and religion being public/community-focused.
• Contemporary anthropologists find the distinction artificial, though magic can be defined as attempts to control supernatural forces.
• Terms like magic and sorcery are outsider labels, with local language being preferred to describe spiritual beliefs.

Theories of Religion

• Sir James Frazer initiated efforts to understand why cultures develop diverse spiritual beliefs.

• Anthropologists in the early 20th century used a functional approach, focusing on how religion fulfills human needs.

• Bronislaw Malinowski (1931) believed religious beliefs met psychological needs, as seen in Trobriand Islanders' rituals before voyages because the men felt like they had less control over the dangers ahead.

• George Gmelch (1971) documented "baseball magic" among athletes, with rituals to improve luck.

• Malinowski, as a functionalist, believed religion provided shared values/norms for social solidarity.

• Emile Durkheim saw religion as building connections through shared definitions of the sacred and profane.

• Sacred things are treated with great awe versus profane things which are treated with disregard.

• Durkheim defined religion as a unified system of beliefs/practices uniting a moral community, and celebrating the sacred creates collective effervescence amplifying emotional impact.

• Mary Douglas explored how definitions of sacred/profane structure beliefs, like kosher dietary rules.

• Karl Marx viewed religion as an ideology justifying power inequalities, creating an illusion of happiness amid capitalism.

• Institutions like the Christian church legitimized the political and economic order, and believed obedience brought comfort after death, dissuading them from fighting for current conditions.

• Religion's legitimizing role is seen in divine rulers in ancient Egypt/Inca and in U.S. officials taking oaths on holy books.

• Sigmund Freud viewed religion as preventing people from acting on deepest desires, using the Oedipal complex as an example.

• Freud proposed religious beliefs provide rules suppressing anti-social instincts, and in "Totem and Taboo", he developed "totemic religions" to regulate interactions with disruptive objects/relationships

• Marvin Harris analyzed the Hindu prohibition against killing cows based on the work of Durkheim, Marx, and Freud.

• Harris suggested cows are seen as sacred primarily for economic reasons, being more valuable alive for milk or labor.

• Clifford Geertz defined religion as "a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations”.

• Geertz suggested religious practices made cultural ideas visible, and anthropologists interpret them to discern values.

• Religious symbols reinforce values, and the Christian cross demonstrates deeper ideas about life and sacrifice.

• Symbolic approaches treat beliefs as "text" or "performance interpretable by outsiders.

• Symbolic approaches risk misinterpretation due to complex combinations of values and feelings; emic and etic explanations can vary widely when studying religious beliefs and practices.

Elements of Religion

• Despite diverse supernatural beliefs, belief systems share characteristics such as cosmology, belief in the supernatural, rules governing behavior, and ritual.
• Cosmology explains the origin and history of the world, while belief in the supernatural assumes a realm beyond direct human experience.

Religious Cosmologies

• Religious cosmologies explain the origin of the universe and the principles governing reality.
• Ancient Greeks believed the world began with Chaos, from which deities like Erebus and Nyx emerged, and the cosmos was ordered in a hierarchy.
• Traditional Navajo stories describe a universe of fourteen stacked plates, where creation began in the lower levels.
• The Biblical Book of Genesis describes creation through "God is responsible", an act shared with the Greek and Navajo.
• Cosmologies prompt questions about interpretation: whether they are literal truths or symbolic.
• Cultural relativism encourages understanding diverse interpretations without judgment, and the key is to consider the function a religious cosmology has in the wider society.

Belief in the Supernatural

• Religions have spirits, divinities, or forces not bound by natural laws, with supernatural entities that are anthropomorphic or like the power of the wind.

Abstract Forces

• Many cultures are organized around belief in an impersonal supernatural force which known as animatism.
• The concept of mana, originating from Oceania, refers to a general sense of power and the ability to accumulate mana in locations/one's body was seen as gaining potency.
• The idea of mana has spread beyond its origin, appearing in media like Magic: The Gathering and World of Warcraft.
• The presence of animatism can be seen in “the force” featured in Star Wars.

Spirits

• The line between natural and supernatural is vague, and many believe humans have a supernatural element coexisting with the natural body which is called the soul.
• The Tausūg believe the soul has four parts: transcendent, life-soul, breath, and spirit-soul.
• Many believe the spirit survives death, either remaining on Earth or departing to the supernatural.
• Spirits of the deceased are assumed to be needy, leading to traditions of veneration.
• Proper treatment of ancestor spirits brings blessings, while displeasure causes havoc, solved through offerings.
• Some animist religions believe plants, animals, and objects have a spiritual element, and Tylor believed animism was the earliest practice, forming spiritual beliefs based on dreams and a need to answer questions about life.
• No belief system is inherently more sophisticated than another, and many animist religions exist today.
• Shintoism recognizes spirits known as kami in plants, animals, rocks, and places.

Gods

• The most powerful non-human spirits are gods with personalities or relatable qualities and are often anthropomorphic or zoomorphic.
• Belief systems organized around God are categorized as monotheism or polytheism.
• Monotheistic religions recognize one God, and polytheistic religions include multiple gods.

Rules of Behavior

• Religious beliefs help to define acceptable behaviors and specify punishments which is an element of important social control
• Buddhism demonstrates connections between beliefs and everyday rules, emphasizing meditation and personal insight, and includes karma as a moral force.

Rituals and Religious Practitioners

• Victor Turner defined ritual as "a stereotyped sequence of activities...designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors' goals and interests."
• wedding rituals have a concrete purpose or goal, but rituals are also symbolic, and their objects and activities “stand in for” or mean more than what they actually are.
• There are three types of ritual:
• rite of passage: transitions individuals between life stages.
• rite of intensification: actions bring a community together.
• revitalization rituals: resolve serious problems through spiritual intervention.

Rites of Passage

• Arnold Van Gennep describes rites of passage which occur in three stages: separation, liminality, and incorporation.
• Individuals are removed from their current social identity which begins preparations.
• The liminal period involves tests preparing them for social roles, and individuals return to the community with new status.

Rites of Intensification

• Rituals used to bind members of a community which creates unity that encourages people to see themselves as a member of the community.
• One example is the Nagol diving ceremony by the island of Pentecost in Vanuatu in the South Pacific which intends a good harvest.

Rites of Revitalization

• All rites originate in difficult circumstances.
• One ritual occurred on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific, as a way to make sense of their rapid transformation as a community in the War which led the islanders to discover John Frum was the cause of developments through an ancestral spirit.

Religious Practitioners

• Rituals can be complicated, so practitioners are responsible.
• There are three categories: priests, prophets and shamans:
• Priests, who may be of any gender, are full-time religious practitioners.
• Shamans carry out rituals when needed, but also participate in the normal work of the community.
• A Prophet claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm/can communicate divine messages.

Conclusion

• Anthropology provides a unique perspective for the study of religious beliefs, the way people think about the supernatural, and how the values and behaviors these beliefs inspire contribute to the lives of individuals and communities.