Northfield Interfaith Alliance Religions of the World General Introduction to the Academic Study of Religions Ted Thornton The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) emphasized in his work the functional role of religion in societies: that is to say, he held that religion reflects and reinforces the values a society stands for and connects people with one another (no one is ever alone). In his best known book, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Durkheim wrote, The general conclusion of the book which the reader has before him is that religion is something eminently social. Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a manner of acting which take rise in the midst of the assembled groups and which are destined to excite, maintain or recreate certain mental states in these groups. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1915, p. 10. http://www.archive.org/details/elementaryformso00durkrich This idea led Durkheim to define religion as a system of ideas with which the individuals represent to themselves the society of which they are members. ( Elementary Forms, 257). At this point, it s a good idea to recall that the etymology ( origins ) of the word religion derive from the Latin words religio and ligo, (meaning to bind or tie together," just as ligaments bind human tissues together). This etymology is useful in
helping us recall the notion that religion s function is primarily to connect people with one another, whether or not a deity (god or goddess) is part of the picture or not. Durkheim spent years in the South Sea Islands studying the indigenous religious practices of the people who lived there (we will examine indigenous religions when we reach the final sections of the Huston Smith text). He theorized that by examining religion in its more elementary forms he would gain an understanding of its true function. Religions have always helped people address the big moments of life: birth, growing up, marriage, and especially the mystery of death (a mystery because no one knows for sure what comes after). The earliest recorded example of a person grappling with the mystery of death is in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. In the story, the legendary King Gilgamesh is plunged into the depths of despair when his dear friend Enkidu dies. This event leads Gilgamesh to grapple with the problem of his own mortality. He cries out, How can I keep silent? How can I stay quiet? My friend, whom I loved has [turned] to clay, my friend, Enkidu, whom I loved, has [turned to clay.] Shall I not be like him, and also lie down, [never] to rise again, through all eternity? SB (Standard Babylonian) Tablet X, 67-71//144-148 A friendly tavern-keeper reminds him that he, and all other human beings, are mere mortals and must one day die. Then, he offers Gilgamesh some advice on how to cope with this hard truth: Said the tavern-keeper to Gilgamesh: O Gilgamesh, where are you wandering? The life that you seek you never will find: When the gods created mankind, death they dispensed to mankind, life they kept for themselves. But you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full, Enjoy yourself always by day and by night! Make merry each day, dance and play day and night! Let your clothes be clean, Let your head be washed, may you bathe in water! Gaze on the child who holds your hand, Let your wife enjoy your repeated embrace!
OB Sippar Tablet III, 1-13 Important Vocabulary Notes for Discussions of Religions Theist from the Greek word theos meaning god : one who believes in a divine being. Atheist from the Greek a+theos meaning no god : one who does not believe in the existence of any divine being or beings. Agnostic from the Greek a+gnosis meaning not knowing : one who does not know whether divine beings exist or not. A Note About Myth, Symbol, and Ritual Myths Stories like the Gilgamesh Epic (see above) are often classified as myths. From the Greek mythos meaning "story, a myth is a story with an ambiguous sense of time and space (Star Wars is a good contemporary example: "A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."). Myths recount extraordinary deeds done by extraordinary beings for the purpose of telling why things are as they are: in the case of Gilgamesh, why all living things eventually die. So, myths are not merely fables or fairy stories; they are important sources of the truth of how societies live, how they see the purpose and meaning of life, how they see the world, and what they prize, value, or deem important. As such, myths are important source materials for students of history or religions who want to know in greater depth the people or societies they are studying. Perhaps few capture the function of myth better than Chief Bromden does in Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Before he begins narrating his tale, the Chief says, "What I am about to tell you is true even if it didn't happen." Harvey Cox, one of my favorite teachers in seminary, in his book How to Read the Bible. New York: HarperOne, 2015, p. 25) says that a myth is a narrative that, although not necessarily factually accurate, is nonetheless true in a deeper and more significant sense. A myth is essentially true because it is a symbol [a symbol that moves, narratively speaking], and a symbol is something that points beyond itself to a truth that might be difficult or impossible to express in ordinary language. In this sense a myth is a narrated symbol just as a ritual is an enacted symbol. For example, when we say the Adam and Eve story is a myth, we suggest it is a story that is not empirically factual, but one that nonetheless illuminates a profound truth about the human condition. Much of the difficulty we have reading the Bible today results from literalism - when we mistakenly look for facts instead of recognizing and appreciating the profound truth of myth. There seems to be a lesson here for those who are serious about religion and especially about the academic study of religion: we would do well to rid ourselves of our obsession
with facts at the expense of truth. This obsession is a curse of the modern positivism that dominates so much of our contemporary social and political lives, a philosophy that holds nothing is true except that which can be validated by means of science or reason. In the late 1800s, English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the previously unknown civilization of ancient Crete by taking seriously the possibility that one of the myths of Ancient Greece, the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, contained at least some grains of historical truth. He went to Crete, began digging, and, in relatively short order, out of the ground came the remains of what we today call Minoan Civilization (2200-1100 B.C. E.), named after the mythical King Minos and the half bull-half human monster, the Minotaur. In 1986, I photographed some of the remains of the Minoan Civilization Evans excavated.
Pictures top to bottom from Minoan Knossos: Reconstruction of Minoan Palace of Knossos, mural, procession of offerings toward Queen/Goddess; figurine, bull and acrobats; stone horns; mural, bull and acrobats --- second millennium BCE, National Museum, Heraklion, Crete (photographs: Ted Thornton, 1986) Symbols Mary P. Fisher says that some myths employ the literary device known as allegory : the use of concrete symbols and other imagery to represent key truths or other abstract ideas. So, what are symbols? The Greek etymology of our word symbol consists of two words: syn and ballow, meaning to throw together (think of the English word ball here). A symbol throws together an image (literary or pictorial) with an idea or a larger reality that it represents (for example, an image of a god or goddess that represents the infinitely
larger reality of the deity itself. Symbols, then, are powerful because they represent realities far greater than themselves. Symbols are best thought of as pointers lighting the way toward the things they represent. As we shall see, Hindus do not believe their gods and goddesses reside in their images. The images merely remind them or point the way toward the deity. Looking at symbol another way, Fisher tells us that the biblical prophet Ezekiel s symbol dry bones represents the people of ancient Israel. The bones, scattered over the landscape represent Israel s suffering. The bones rattling back together again represent the restoration of Israel (some commentators have seen in Ezekiel s story the origins of the later Jewish and Christian idea of bodily resurrection from the dead). Rituals Many religious people regularly reenact their myths in practices called rituals. From an Old English root meaning to honor, a ritual is a prescribed or scripted set of actions designed to remind practitioners of what they believe to be true. Additionally, rituals may include actions the practitioners believe will connect them directly with gods, goddesses, or spirits (as is the case with the Oglala Sioux Sun Dance), or will bring about desired results (such as healing, insight, or wisdom). Pay special attention to myths, symbols, and rituals in the religious traditions we will study in this course. A Note on the Negative Aspects of Organized Religion One of the more painful sides of religion is the role it has played throughout history in violent and cruel human behavior. The Canadian theologian Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916-2000) had some useful advice for his students. He used to say that only people can be true or untrue; only people can be good or evil. Things like religions and sacred texts cannot be true or untrue or good or evil because they are inanimate: they are not alive; they cannot make choices. They simply are. Truth and untruth, good and evil are choices, and, as such, they apply only to creatures who can make choices. To this way of thinking, religions and sacred texts are true only insofar as they encourage people to be true to their god and to themselves and one another as individuals who are committed to membership in a particular religion. After Nine-Eleven, it became common to say that the problem is not what Islam does to Muslims; the problem is what some Muslims (very few, really) are doing to Islam. The same could be said about the way Christians or any other religious persons have behaved throughout history: it isn t what Christianity has done to Christians that makes them act a certain way; it s the cruelties some Christians have committed in the name of Christianity. Put another way, it isn t so much a clash of civilizations that is the source of so much violence and misunderstanding in the world today as, in the words of the Aga Khan, a clash of ignorance.