Christianity and the World PDF

Homo religiosus Mircea Eliade’s view (ontological approach) “a being fundamentally hardwired with an orientation toward a greater and awesome Other.” “Religion consists of those beliefs, practices, rituals and feelings that are directed toward the Center, the primal time, the “zone of absolute real...

Homo religiosus Mircea Eliade’s view (ontological approach) “a being fundamentally hardwired with an orientation toward a greater and awesome Other.” “Religion consists of those beliefs, practices, rituals and feelings that are directed toward the Center, the primal time, the “zone of absolute reality.” Problem? The problem of the ontological approach Two Major Problems “The first is that the definition of religion in terms of spiritual or supernatural content, while seemingly straight forward, actually only defers the question: we are left wondering how to define “spiritual” or “supernatural,” neither of which, it turns out, is much easier to define clearly that religion itself.” “The second problem is that they assume, without giving any particular good reasons why, that whatever characteristics they identify as constitutive of religion are important characteristics.” “첫 번째는 영적 또는 초자연적 내용 측면에서 종교를 정의하는 것은 간단해 보이지만 실제로는 '영적' 또는 '초자연적'을 어떻게 정의할지 의문을 남길 뿐이라는 점이다. “영적” 또는 “초자연적”이라는 단어의 정의는 종교 자체를 명확하게 정의하는 것보다 더 쉽지 않은 작업이다.” “두 번째 문제는 특별히 타당한 근거를 제시하지 않은 채 종교를 구성하는 특징이 무엇이든 그것은 중요한 특징이라고 가정한다는 점이다” Religion as a Cultural System Clifford Geertz (1966, 4) “Religion 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.”