Ritual And Religion In The Making Of Humanity

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Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity

Author : Roy A. Rappaport
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521296908
Total Pages : 566 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (969 download)

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Book Synopsis Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity by : Roy A. Rappaport

Download or read book Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity written by Roy A. Rappaport and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-25 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roy Rappaport argues that religion is central to the continuing evolution of life, although it has been been displaced from its original position of intellectual authority by the rise of modern science. His book, which could be construed as in some degree religious as well as about religion, insists that religion can and must be reconciled with science. Combining adaptive and cognitive approaches to the study of humankind, he mounts a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance, seeing it as co-extensive with the invention of language and hence of culture as we know it. At the same time he assembles the fullest study yet of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions which we take to be religious and has been central in the making of humanity's adaptation. The text amounts to a manual for effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from anthropology, history, philosophy, comparative religion, and elsewhere.

Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (113 download)

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Book Synopsis Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity by :

Download or read book Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

How God Becomes Real

Author : T.M. Luhrmann
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691234442
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis How God Becomes Real by : T.M. Luhrmann

Download or read book How God Becomes Real written by T.M. Luhrmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.

Religion in Human Evolution

Author : Robert N. Bellah
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674063090
Total Pages : 777 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion in Human Evolution by : Robert N. Bellah

Download or read book Religion in Human Evolution written by Robert N. Bellah and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal

Ecology, Meaning, and Religion

Author : Roy A. Rappaport
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780938190271
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Ecology, Meaning, and Religion by : Roy A. Rappaport

Download or read book Ecology, Meaning, and Religion written by Roy A. Rappaport and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Two enterprises have proceeded in anthropology since ts earliest days. One, objective in its aspirations and inspired by biological disciplines, seeks explanation and is concerned to discover laws and causes. The other, subjective in its orientation and influenced by philosophy, linguistics, and the humatities, attempts interpretation and seeks to elucidate meanings. I take any raditcal separation of the two to be misguided, for the relationship between tem, with all of its difficulty, ambiguity, and tension, is a reflection of, or metaphor for, the condition of a species that lives in terms of meanings in a physical world devoid of intrinsic meaning but subject to causal law. The concept of adaptatioon when applied to human society must take account of meaning as well as cause, and of the complex dynamic of their relationship." -from the book.

Religion of the Gods

Author : Kimberley Christine Patton
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199723287
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (232 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion of the Gods by : Kimberley Christine Patton

Download or read book Religion of the Gods written by Kimberley Christine Patton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many of the world's religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, a seemingly enigmatic and paradoxical image is found--that of the god who worships. Various interpretations of this seeming paradox have been advanced. Some suggest that it represents sacrifice to a higher deity. Proponents of anthropomorphic projection say that the gods are just "big people" and that images of human religious action are simply projected onto the deities. However, such explanations do not do justice to the complexity and diversity of this phenomenon. In Religion of the Gods, Kimberley C. Patton uses a comparative approach to take up anew a longstanding challenge in ancient Greek religious iconography: why are the Olympian gods depicted on classical pottery making libations? The sacrificing gods in ancient Greece are compared to gods who perform rituals in six other religious traditions: the Vedic gods, the heterodox god Zurvan of early Zoroastrianism, the Old Norse god Odin, the Christian God and Christ, the God of Judaism, and Islam's Allah. Patton examines the comparative evidence from a cultural and historical perspective, uncovering deep structural resonances while also revealing crucial differences. Instead of looking for invisible recipients or lost myths, Patton proposes the new category of "divine reflexivity." Divinely performed ritual is a self-reflexive, self-expressive action that signals the origin of ritual in the divine and not the human realm. Above all, divine ritual is generative, both instigating and inspiring human religious activity. The religion practiced by the gods is both like and unlike human religious action. Seen from within the religious tradition, gods are not "big people," but other than human. Human ritual is directed outward to a divine being, but the gods practice ritual on their own behalf. "Cultic time," the symbiotic performance of ritual both in heaven and on earth, collapses the distinction between cult and theology each time ritual is performed. Offering the first comprehensive study and a new theory of this fascinating phenomenon, Religion of the Gods is a significant contribution to the fields of classics and comparative religion. Patton shows that the god who performs religious action is not an anomaly, but holds a meaningful place in the category of ritual and points to a phenomenologically universal structure within religion itself.

Religion as a Human Capacity

Author : Timothy Light
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047401697
Total Pages : 479 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion as a Human Capacity by : Timothy Light

Download or read book Religion as a Human Capacity written by Timothy Light and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prepared in honor of E. Thomas Lawson, the essays in Religion as a Human Capacity offer a broad range of cognitivist theoretical explorations of religion, as well as cutting-edge applications of cognitive and other contemporary theories to religious data.

Ritual

Author : Catherine Bell
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199739471
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Ritual by : Catherine Bell

Download or read book Ritual written by Catherine Bell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-12-29 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self-expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium.

Ritual: A Very Short Introduction

Author : Barry Stephenson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199943591
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

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Book Synopsis Ritual: A Very Short Introduction by : Barry Stephenson

Download or read book Ritual: A Very Short Introduction written by Barry Stephenson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual is part of what it means to be human. Like sports, music, and drama, ritual defines and enriches culture, putting those who practice it in touch with sources of value and meaning larger than themselves. Ritual is unavoidable, yet it holds a place in modern life that is decidedly ambiguous. What is ritual? What does it do? Is it useful? What are the various kinds of ritual? Is ritual tradition bound and conservative or innovative and transformational? Alongside description of a number of specific rites, this Very Short Introduction explores ritual from both theoretical and historical perspectives. Barry Stephenson focuses on the places where ritual touches everyday life: in politics and power; moments of transformation in the life cycle; as performance and embodiment. He also discusses the boundaries of ritual, and how and why certain behaviors have been studied as ritual while others have not. Stephenson shows how ritual is an important vehicle for group and identity formation; how it generates and transmits beliefs and values; how it can be used to exploit and oppress; and how it has served as a touchstone for thinking about cultural origins and historical change. Encompassing the breadth and depth of modern ritual studies, Barry Stephenson's Very Short Introduction also develops a narrative of ritual's place in social and cultural life. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Rituals and Practices in World Religions

Author : David Bryce Yaden
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030279537
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis Rituals and Practices in World Religions by : David Bryce Yaden

Download or read book Rituals and Practices in World Religions written by David Bryce Yaden and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-02-03 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book codifies, describes, and contextualizes group rituals and individual practices from world religious traditions. At the interface of religious studies, psychology, and medicine, it elucidates the cultural richness of practices and rituals from numerous world religions. The book begins by discussing the role that religious rituals and practices may play in the well-being of humans and the multi-dimensional cultural and psychological complexity of religious rituals and practices. It then discusses rituals and practices within a number of religions, including Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, Sikh, Hindu, Confucian, and other traditions. There is a need for a more inclusive collection of religious rituals and practices, as some practices are making headlines in contemporary society. Mindfulness is one of the fastest-growing psychological interventions in healthcare and Yoga is now practiced by tens of millions of people in the U.S.A. These practices have been examined in thousands of academic publications spanning neuroscience, psychology, medicine, sociology, and religious studies. While Mindfulness and Yoga have recently received widespread scientific and cultural attention, many rituals and practices from world religious traditions have remained underexplored in scholarly, scientific, and clinical contexts. This book brings more diverse rituals and practices into this academic discourse while providing a reference guide for clinicians and students of the topic.

Ritual, Performance and the Senses

Author : Jon P. Mitchell
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 0857854968
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (578 download)

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Book Synopsis Ritual, Performance and the Senses by : Jon P. Mitchell

Download or read book Ritual, Performance and the Senses written by Jon P. Mitchell and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual has long been a central concept in anthropological theories of religious transmission. Ritual, Performance and the Senses offers a new understanding of how ritual enables religious representations – ideas, beliefs, values – to be shared among participants. Focusing on the body and the experiential nature of ritual, the book brings together insights from three distinct areas of study: cognitive/neuroanthropology, performance studies and the anthropology of the senses. Eight chapters by scholars from each of these sub-disciplines investigate different aspects of embodied religious practice, ranging from philosophical discussions of belief to explorations of the biological processes taking place in the brain itself. Case studies range from miracles and visionary activity in Catholic Malta to meditative practices in theatrical performance and include three pilgrimage sites: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the festival of Ramlila in Ramnagar, India and the mountain shrine of the Lord of the Shiny Snow in Andean Peru. Understanding ritual allows us to understand processes at the very centre of human social life and humanity itself, making this an invaluable text for students and scholars in anthropology, cognitive science, performance studies and religious studies.

Why We Believe

Author : Agustin Fuentes
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 030024925X
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Why We Believe by : Agustin Fuentes

Download or read book Why We Believe written by Agustin Fuentes and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging argument by a renowned anthropologist that the capacity to believe is what makes us human Why are so many humans religious? Why do we daydream, imagine, and hope? Philosophers, theologians, social scientists, and historians have offered explanations for centuries, but their accounts often ignore or even avoid human evolution. Evolutionary scientists answer with proposals for why ritual, religion, and faith make sense as adaptations to past challenges or as by-products of our hyper-complex cognitive capacities. But what if the focus on religion is too narrow? Renowned anthropologist Agustín Fuentes argues that the capacity to be religious is actually a small part of a larger and deeper human capacity to believe. Why believe in religion, economies, love? A fascinating intervention into some of the most common misconceptions about human nature, this book employs evolutionary, neurobiological, and anthropological evidence to argue that belief—the ability to commit passionately and wholeheartedly to an idea—is central to the human way of being in the world.

Creation of the Sacred

Author : Walter Burkert
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674175709
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (757 download)

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Book Synopsis Creation of the Sacred by : Walter Burkert

Download or read book Creation of the Sacred written by Walter Burkert and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacrifice is essential to all religions. Could there be a natural, even biological, reason? Why are sacrifice and numerous other religious rituals and concepts shared by so many different cultures? In this extraordinary book, one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient religions explores the possibility of natural religion.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion

Author : Robert A. Segal
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0470656565
Total Pages : 36 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (76 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion by : Robert A. Segal

Download or read book The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion written by Robert A. Segal and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-04-12 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore a rigorous but accessible guide to contemporary approaches to the study of religion from leading voices in the field The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion delivers an expert and insightful analysis of modern perspectives on the study of religion across the humanities and the social sciences. Presupposing no knowledge of the approaches examined in the collection, the book is ideal for undergraduate students who have yet to undertake extensive study in the humanities or social sciences. The book includes perspectives from those in fields as diverse as globalization, cognitive science, the study of emotion, law, esotericism, sex and gender, functionalism, terror, the comparative method, modernism, and postmodernism. Many of the topics covered in the book clearly hail from religious studies, while others are grounded in other areas of academia. All of the chapters contained within are written by recognized authors who show how their chosen discipline contributes to the understanding of the phenomenon of religion. This book also includes topics like: A comprehensive exploration of multiple approaches to religious study, including anthropology, economics, literature, phenomenology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology A review of various topics germane to the study of religion, including the study of the body, cognitive science, the comparative method, death and the afterlife, law, magic, music, and myth A selection of subjects touching on modern trends in extremism and violence, including chapters on terror and violence, fundamentalism, and nationalism A discussion of the influence of modernism and postmodernism in religion Ideal for undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students in humanities and social science programs taking courses on religion and myth, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion will also earn a place in the libraries of specialists working in the fields of Religious Studies, Theology, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Political Science, History, and Philosophy.

Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi

Author : T. C. Kline III
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438451962
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi by : T. C. Kline III

Download or read book Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi written by T. C. Kline III and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-06-12 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenges traditional views to consider Xunzi as a religious thinker. Xunzi, a founding figure in the Confucian tradition, is one of the world’s great philosophers and theorists of religion. For much of the last century, his work has been seen largely as critical of religion, particularly the popular beliefs and invocations of supernatural forces that underpin so many religious rituals. Contributors to this volume challenge this view and offer a more sophisticated picture of Xunzi. He emerges not as critic, but rather as an adherent of religion who seeks to give religious practices meaning even though many religious beliefs are mistaken or self-serving. Each essay offers a powerful illustration of Xunzi as both a religious devotee and as a philosopher of religion, drawing on a wide array of disciplines and methodologies. T. C. Kline III is an independent scholar and the coeditor (with P. J. Ivanhoe) of Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi. Justin Tiwald is Associate Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University and the coeditor (with Chung-ying Cheng) of Confucian Philosophy: Innovations and Transformations.

God

Author : Reza Aslan
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0553394738
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (533 download)

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Book Synopsis God by : Reza Aslan

Download or read book God written by Reza Aslan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity’s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God. In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large. In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we’re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.” But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature—our compassion, our thirst for justice—but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments. More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives. Praise for God “Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.”—HuffPost “Tantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan’s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.”—The Seattle Times “A fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “[Aslan’s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it’s thoroughly mind-blowing.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “Aslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Culture, Mind, and Brain

Author : Laurence J. Kirmayer
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108580572
Total Pages : 683 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (85 download)

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Book Synopsis Culture, Mind, and Brain by : Laurence J. Kirmayer

Download or read book Culture, Mind, and Brain written by Laurence J. Kirmayer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-24 with total page 683 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent neuroscience research makes it clear that human biology is cultural biology - we develop and live our lives in socially constructed worlds that vary widely in their structure values, and institutions. This integrative volume brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from the human, social, and biological sciences to explore culture, mind, and brain interactions and their impact on personal and societal issues. Contributors provide a fresh look at emerging concepts, models, and applications of the co-constitution of culture, mind, and brain. Chapters survey the latest theoretical and methodological insights alongside the challenges in this area, and describe how these new ideas are being applied in the sciences, humanities, arts, mental health, and everyday life. Readers will gain new appreciation of the ways in which our unique biology and cultural diversity shape behavior and experience, and our ongoing adaptation to a constantly changing world.