Search

The definition of religion is the basis on which the solution of theological problems depends. Allameh Tabatabai is one of the most prominent contemporary theologians who has proposed several definitions for religion. Considering the importance of the correct definition of religion in theological discussions on the one hand, and the depth of the theological opinions of Allameh Tabataba'i on the other hand, it is necessary to categorize the various definitions he proposed for religion and to present and examine them in a coherent and comprehensive manner. Therefore, in this article, we have used the descriptive and analytical method and by referring to the works of Allameh Tabatabai, we have collected the definitions of religion, and then we have classified and analyzed them. He has put forward different types of definitions of religion based on the scope of the word religion, the type of attitude towards religion and the belongings of religion. Also, he has proposed and criticized some naturalistic definitions of religion. In the criticism of Allameh Tabatabai's definitions of religion, we point out some things, including the fact that Allameh's general definition of religion includes examples other than religions. His introspective definition of religion is the definition of religiousness, not the definition of religion. Allameh's sociological definition of religion is not comprehensive, and his criticism of the definition of religion as mysticism is also problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay introduces the theme issue, "Manufacturing Religion: From Christian Origins to Classical Islam." It emphasizes the enduring relevance of paying attention to matters of classification and definition in the study of religion. The article highlights how the institutionalization and operationalization of understandings of "religion" have social effects, and thus, that the study of religion investigates nothing transcendental or sui generis, but rather ordinary human social actions and events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses one of the major debates that led to the classical understanding of science being found problematic and inapplicable to anthropology: the debate on the definition of religion. It begins with the discovery that terms that are immediately associated with religion, such as “supernatural”, “superhuman”, “spiritual being” and “God”, were, for a number of reasons, quite useless according to the scientific criteria at the time the debate began. In this first part, it is shown that the approach to religion as if there are religious characteristics that are valid everywhere and at all times, transcending time and space, is offensive and unacceptable in the face of inter- and intra-communal differences. Behind this attitude there is an ethnocentrism disguised as science. The problem of definition stems not only from the unsustainability of the claim to universality, but also from the treatment of social issues as if they were separate from each other, as if they had a separate “essence” that did not - and should not - touch each other. On the contrary, they are almost inextricably intertwined and it is hardly possible to separate religious phenomena from other social phenomena. However, when religion is attempted to be defined in this way, that is, as if the human universe is divided into two groups: inside and outside the religious sphere, the meaning and complexity of religious beliefs and practices will be largely lost. Throughout the article, I have tried to show that the monothetical way of defining religion is problematic in that it treats social phenomena as if they have “real” natures or “essences” and attempts to extract these hypothetical “essences”, and that it is not well suited fort his reason for the anthropological study of religion or of any anthropological subject. Instead, I argued at the end of the article that focusing on the multiple realities of human existence and of meaning-making in social life can either lead to a wholesale abandonment of the monothetical attempt to define religion or somehow break through the definitional logjam. All the points in the debate on the definition of religion discussed here can be read as cornerstones of anthropology’s discovery of the obstacles to the exploration of human diversity posed by science and the scientific ideals of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American Christian nationalism highlights the entanglements of identity and power as they relate to the category of "religion." Like many populist movements, Christian nationalism emerges out of a power-devaluation crisis stemming from the diminishment of White Christians' social and political hegemony, coalescing around the affirmation that the US is a properly "Christian" nation. However, an examination of Christian nationalism reveals that the meaning of "Christian" within Christian nationalism cannot be captured by traditional measures of individual religiosity that tacitly presuppose that religion is essentially private, belief-focused, and non-political in nature, but must recognize that it expresses a complex social identity involving multiple social domains (e.g., race, gender, political ideology) and, as such, contests of power. This analysis is significant for religious studies because it suggests that religion is better approached analytically as an active process of socially-shared identity formation than as a belief system or Gestalt of individual religious practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the theoretical and methodological status of the concept of religion in the essentialist interpretation of ethnic community by analyzing the material of foreign researches. The key effort is to reveal whether the essentialist views on ethnic communities are compatible with the constructivist paradigm of religion. The essentialist approach to the notion of an ethnic community now develops in the frame of primordialism, which can be divided into two main directions: cultural and socio-biological. Proponents of the former concentrate on a detailed description of cultural differences between ethnic communities, with cultural diversity being accepted only to describe the essence of a particular ethnic community. Sociobiological primordialists deny cultural features’ status at the face of biological evolution. The common theoretical assumption of primordialisms turns out to be the essentialist vision: an ethnic community is endowed with the essence defined by a number of attributes, including religion. The constructivist approach, however, suggests that religion has no referent in reality and its notion is defined conventionally and empirically. Accepting this approach would deprive religion of its essence. Rendering the essence of religion relative, therefore, means blurring the boundaries defining the essence of an ethnic community. This consequence clearly contradicts the essentialist approach to an ethnic community. Thus, embracing an essentialist approach to ethnic community leads to the need to adopt the essentialist interpretation of religion.

This article aims to understand how the term "spirituality" has been used in the health area, discussing the problems and the possible adversities of its polysemy. To this end, we divide this study into three parts. In the first part, we present the different definitions of "spirituality" in the human sciences, its historical relationship with the Christian theology, and its recent resignification by the New Age. Next, we demonstrate how most of the productions in the health area adopt a reified and essentialized conception of spirituality. In the third section, we discuss the main weaknesses identified in the study. The term spirituality is being used in the medical sciences to allow religion to enter its spaces, including public policies, although secularized. We draw a parallel with the phenomenology of religion to demonstrate the consequences of a misconceived category in the long run. Finally, we identified an overvaluation of the psychological dimension of spirituality to the detriment of the moral and ritual dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Will there be any joint future for science and Islam? Although such questions have recently received considerable attention, more basic questions are often ignored. This article aims at addressing some of those more basic questions through exploring the assumptions that underlie different possible understandings of the question about the future of Islam and science. By investigating the relation between conceptualizations of religion and the question about the future of Islam and science, it will be argued that different understandings of the concept of religion (i.e., whether it denotes real objects, whether it is universal, and whether it is belief centered) lead to extremely different readings of the question. Besides, it will be argued that different answers to the question about the future of Islam and science can be understood in terms of the inference to best theological explanation; thus, the criteria that one assumes for the best theological explanation result in different criteria for evaluation of the answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The landscape of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in Indonesia has been shaped by two elements: first, the progressive adoption of human rights in the new laws and amended constitution, as a result of the democratization which started in 1998; second, the old governance of religion which acknowledges limited religious pluralism and emphasizes harmony over freedom. A striking feature resulting from this combination is the addition of "religious values" as a ground of FoRB limitation in the new chapter on human rights in the amended Constitution, which otherwise draws its inspiration from the ICCPR and other international human rights covenants. Indonesian "public order" and "public morals" are understood to consist of, among other things, respect and protection of religious values. While the emphasis on religious values and public order produces most restrictions, when it comes to limitations to FoRB on grounds of public health, the government seems reluctant to impose necessary restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Jonathan Z. Smith's 1978 essay, "Map is Not Territory," in terms of its definition of religion, allegiance to anthropology and history, and avoidance of relativism. Updated to the author's situation forty years later, it articulates the relation between map and territory as one of asymmetrical dependence governed by the rule that the concrete includes the abstract and exceeds it in value. Reading Smith's essay in light of Donald Davidson's "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme" provides a philosophical argument against radical relativism. Two brief aperçu about Smith frame this account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I review the book “Religion Explained? The Cognitive Science of Religion after Twenty-Five Years.” I discuss all the papers in the book and highlight some recurrent issues.

Engelsk summary: “Why, Wherefrom (and When) Did Religion Appear?” This article presents my reflections on the evolution of religion from the perspective of the cognitive science of religion and the neurobiology of religion. Two important features of the brain were crucial to our evolution, i.e. the expansion of the emotional and subcortical areas on the one hand and the cortex on the other. The former was essential to the development of viable social systems and the latter to the development of stone tool technologies and material culture. Furthermore, the growth of the brain was apparently due to the growing complexity of human social structures that culture brought with it. A key feature of the brain is that it is incomplete in human infants and is first fully matured after two decades of social and cultural life: the unfinished animal that becomes completed through a particular culture. Looking closer at the neuropsychological evidence of our brains and behavior, I have identified four key human features, namely, a finely honed social cognition, a drive to communicate and cooperate, a self-deceptive brain and a superstitious brain prone to unusual mental and/or emotional experiences. These traits, I argue, are prerequisites for religious behavior. In looking through the archaeological records, there is good reason to look beyond our species into the deep hominin past. A likely candidate that seems to have evinced proto-religious behavior is Homo heidelbergensis (between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago). Dansk Resumé: I denne artikel præsenterer jeg med udgangspunkt i den kognitive og den neurobiologiske religionsvidenskab mine refleksioner over religionens evolution. To aspekter af hjernen er afgørende for vores evolution. Den ene er udvidelsen af de emotionelle og indre dele af hjernen og den anden er udvidelsen af hjernebarken. Førstnævnte var en nødvendig forudsætning for udviklingen af levedygtige social systemer og sidstnævnte for udviklingen af stenredskaber og anden materiel kultur. Hertil kommer at hjernens udvikling hang kausalt sammen med den voksende social kompleksitet og den kulturelle udvikling, som denne kompleksitet førte med sig. Hjernen har den særlige egenskab, at den ikke er fuldt udviklet ved fødslen og først er “moden” efter to årtiers sociale og kulturelle liv, hvor også hjerneskallen først er vokset endelig sammen (for kvinder 18 år for mænd 21 år). Således bliver det ufærdige dyr færdiggjort inden for en specifik kultur. Når man ser på de seneste landvindinger inden for neuropsykologien, er der fire kendetegn, som jeg mener, er konstituerende for mennesket. Disse er: en finudviklet social kognition, en kommunikations- og samarbejdsdrift, en bedragerisk hjerne samt en overtroisk hjerne med tendens til ualmindelige mentale og/eller emotionelle oplevelser. Disse egenskaber er en nødvendig forudsætning for religiøst adfærd. Når man ser på de arkæologiske vidnesbyrd i jagten på det religiøse menneske, skal man gå betydeligt længere tilbage end Homo sapiens, ja, man skal langt tilbage i homininlinjen. De første proto-religiøse træk synes at komme til syne med Homo heidelbergensis (mellem 600.000 og 400.000 år siden).

The paper first proposes a new definition of religion which features a novel four-layered element and which does not involve any circularity (as some definitions do); thereby, it allows to clearly distinguish the phenomenon of religion from certain other worldviews, in particular from certain political ideologies (a number of other definitions do not). Relying on the findings, the paper develops two structural conceptual models which serve to describe religious and non-religious belief systems. Further, the definition and the conceptual models allow to establish a clear criterion to distinguish pivotal structural differences between religious and non-religious belief systems. The criterion is based on the concept of two kinds of rationality: first-level and second-level rationalities. These will demonstrate to what degree religion can be a rational enterprise, and what role logic can play in it. The result is a clear-cut line in the structures of religious and certain consistent non-religious belief systems (e.g. a scientific theory). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deconstructing the definitional boundaries between religion and non-religion is recognised as a fruitful area of investigation for scholars of religion. Taking a critical perspective in understanding the gatekeeping practices of legal institutions, norms and practices in shaping the boundary between religion and non-religion is an important aspect of this methodological approach. Investigating legal gatekeeping practices can prompt critical exploration of how they impact on category formation and facilitate analysis of whose interests are served by legally mandated acts of inclusion or exclusion. This discussion will identify recent instances, where the courts have been active in shaping the boundary between religion and non-religion. Firstly, it will consider recent developments in the definitional approach of domestic UK law. Secondly, it will discuss legal responses to the registration of religious groups in Europe and, thirdly, it will explore attempts to extend freedom of religion protections to commercial corporations. Finally, it will offer some concluding remarks on how this survey of recent developments highlights the contemporary configuration of the legal boundaries between religion and non-religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the field of study on Japanese religions, the issue of globalization tends to be associated with the missionary activities of some successful new religious movements, and there is a certain reluctance to approach analytically the dynamics of glocalization/hybridization and the power issues at stake. In this article, I address these and other related problems by taking my cue from the relativizing effects of globalization and a working definition of religion based on the concept of authority. To this aim, I focus on two case studies. The first concerns the ongoing greening of Japanese Buddhism. The second revolves around the adoption of meditational techniques by priests and lay practitioners in Hawaiian Shin Buddhism. My findings show that there are at least four factors underlying the glocalization of Japanese Buddhism, that is, global consciousness, resonance with the local tradition, decontextualization, and quest for power. Moreover, they indicate that it is possible to distinguish between two types of glocalization (glocalization and chauvinistic glocalization) and two configurations of glocalization (juxtaposition and integration). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By an analysis of the Danish Humanist Society and the Danish Atheist Society, the aim of this contribution is to consider one aspect of the borderland of the Danish model of religion. On the basis of a relational approach to the study of religion, I conclude that the Humanist Society from an analytical point of view is a religion while the Atheist Society is not. In this manner, the Humanist Society should be regarded as part of the Danish model of religion while the Atheist Society should not. Therefore, it may be argued that the borderland of the Danish model of religion is located between these two organisations. Dette bidrag undersøger en del af den danske religionsmodels grænseflade gennem en analyse af foreningerne Dansk Humanistisk Samfund og Ateistisk Selskab. På baggrund af et relationelt religionsbegreb konkluderes det, at Humanistisk Samfund analytisk set er en religion og dermed en del af den danske religionsmodel. Med hensyn til Ateistisk Selskab konkluderer analysen, at denne forening analytisk set ikke er en religion men snarere en religionspolitisk forening. Ateistisk Selskab er dermed ikke en del af den danske religionsmodel. Den danske religionsmodels grænseflade kan dermed siges at befinde sig imellem disse to organisationer

First of all, this article presents sociological definitions of religion and then it generally evaluates all these attempts which have tried to define religion. Many sociologist of religion have produced various definitions of religion. However, they have failed to reach a standard definition for it. Because all this definitions have been determined by their various methodological approaches. In my opinion, this is a very natural outcome, since the sociology is very dynamic and complex. This complexity and dynamism do not give a chance to a sociologist of religion to make a universal and standard definition for religion

Copyright of Electronic Turkish Studies is the property of Electronic Turkish Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article claims to uncover the core problematics that have made the debate on defining and conceptualizing “religion" so difficult and argues that this makes it possible to move beyond radical deconstruction towards reconstructing the concept for scholarly purposes. The argument has four main steps. Step 1 consists of establishing the nature of the entity “religion" as a reified imaginative formation. Step 2 consists of identifying the basic dilemma with which scholars have been struggling: the fact that, on the one hand, definitions and conceptualizations do not seem to work unless they stay sufficiently close to commonly held prototypes, while yet, on the other hand, those prototypes are grounded in monotheistic, more specifically Christian, even more specifically Protestant, theological biases about “true" religion. The first line of argument leads to crypto-theological definitions and conceptualizations, the second to a radical deconstruction of the very concept of “religion." Step 3 resolves the dilemma by identifying an unexamined assumption, or problematic “blind spot," that the two lines of argument have in common: they both think that “religion" stands against “the secular." However, the historical record shows that these two defined themselves not just against one another but, simultaneously, against a third domain (referred to by such terms as “magic" or “superstition"). The structure is therefore not dualistic but triadic. Step 4 consists of replacing common assumptions about how “religion" emerged in the early modern period by an interpretation that explains not just its emergence but its logical necessity, at that time, for dealing with the crisis of comparison caused by colonialist expansion. “Religion" emerged as the tertium comparationis — or, in technically more precise language, the “pre-comparative tertium" — that enabled comparison between familiar (monotheist, Christian, Protestant) forms of belief and modes of worship and unfamiliar ones (associated with “pagan" superstition or magic). If we restore the term to its original function, this allows us to reconstruct “religion" as a scholarly concept that not just avoids but prevents any slippage back to Christian theology or ethnocentric bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Sloan Wilson argues that religion has evolved in human beings as a group adaptation. Part of Wilson’s argument relies on an analysis of a randomized sample of religions that he selects from The Encyclopedia of Religion. One significant methodological problem with this strategy is that Wilson offloads the work of defining the boundaries of each religious tradition to the encyclopedia he uses and allows the category ‘religion’ to do the conceptual heavy lifting in his argument. An examination of the way this category is used by Wilson will demonstrate that an insufficient attentiveness to the use of the word ‘religion’ makes Wilson’s argument circular and invalid. Wilson’s argument would be strengthened by rejecting any causal role for the category ‘religion’ and examining specific practices, rituals, and other acts of identification for an adaptive advantage irrespective of their association with the category ‘religion’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pregled is the property of University of Sarajevo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Religion is changing fast in this era of globalization. Major global trends include the growth of Muslims, the shrinking percentage of unaffiliated, and the rapid rise of Christianity in global China. By 2030, China is likely to become the largest Christian country in the world while retaining large numbers of Buddhists, Muslims, and folk religious believers. To capture religious changes more accurately, social scientists of religion must sharpen their measurement tools regarding religiosity; pay more attention to the reality of nonalignment among religious identity, belief, and practice; and acknowledge the reality of nonexclusive/multiple religious beliefs, practices, and identities. Scholars must also take responsibility for developing a clear and nuanced definition of religion, abandon exceptionalist thinking, and seek to discover common patterns of religious change across societies. Conceptual and measurement tools at the disposal of social scientists of religion should enable us to perceive and understand the converging changes of religion in China, the United States, and other societies, without ignoring their historical differences and contemporary particularities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Anthropology and Ethnology were strongly linked to the exploration of religious diversity since their origin in 19th century. Among other things, this exploration was possible by the adoption of such kind of definitions which are remarkably bendy and adaptable, whereas they were created to accept weird beliefs and practices as plenty «religious». The aim of this paper is to give account of the development of those definitions, analyzing its importance in the debates about universality of religion in culture. For that, we collect and analyze the definitions offered by the former anthropologists in 19th century, paying attention the substantive definitions which were successfully generalized in Religious Studies until today. Secondly, we explore the ostensive style of definitions developed through the 20th century. Finally, the revival of the classic definitions will be taken into account, paying attention to the anthropological approaches to religion in final decades of 20th century and the beginnings of 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many centuries, the relations between philosophy and religion were very close--at times indistinguishable. That is not so in the modem secular academy, which houses philosophy along with the study of religion but without noticeable mutual relations between the two. Kevin Schilbrack has ably dealt with that situation in his latest publication 'Philosophy and the Study of Religion'. Schilbrack's diagnoses are acute and most scholars in the study of religion will consider them worth heeding--except, most likely, his calls for more metaphysical concerns based on ideas of 'unmediated experience'. His arguments proceed from current philosophical positions and theories of situated cognition and his appeals are quite convincing. However, they do have one remarkable drawback as this critic sees it: That metaphysics move from the ontological realm to the epistemic (!). That is no mean feat, because as no one really seems to know what metaphysics are in this 'post-metaphysic age', Schilbrack's proposal seems to indicate that metaphysics now become humanly approachable and intellectually tractable. As such, they could justifiably become an integral part of the study of religion--as could philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the field of study on Japanese religions, the issue of globalization tends to be associated with the missionary activities of some successful new religious movements, and there is a certain reluctance to approach analytically the dynamics of glocalization/hybridization and the power issues at stake. In this article, I address these and other related problems by taking my cue from the relativizing effects of globalization and a working definition of religion based on the concept of authority. To this aim, I focus on two case studies. The first concerns the ongoing greening of Japanese Buddhism. The second revolves around the adoption of meditational techniques by priests and lay practitioners in Hawaiian Shin Buddhism. My findings show that there are at least four factors underlying the glocalization of Japanese Buddhism, that is, global consciousness, resonance with the local tradition, decontextualization, and quest for power. Moreover, they indicate that it is possible to distinguish between two types of glocalization (glocalization and chauvinistic glocalization) and two configurations of glocalization (juxtaposition and integration).

For many centuries, the relations between philosophy and religion were very close--at times indistinguishable. That is not so in the modern secular academy, which houses philosophy along with the study of religion but without noticeable mutual relations between the two. Kevin Schilbrack has ably dealt with that situation in his latest publication 'Philosophy and the Study of Religion'. Schilbrack's diagnoses are acute and most scholars in the study of religion will consider them worth heeding--except, most likely, his calls for more metaphysical concerns based on ideas of 'unmediated experience'. His arguments proceed from current philosophical positions and theories of situated cognition and his appeals are quite convincing. However, they do have one remarkable drawback as this critic sees it: That metaphysics move from the ontological realm to the epistemic (!). That is no mean feat, because as no one really seems to know what metaphysics are in this 'post-metaphysic age', Schilbrack's proposal seems to indicate that metaphysics now become humanly approachable and intellectually tractable. As such, they could justifiably become an integral part of the study of religion--as could philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this response to Knut Melvær's discussion of "The Spiritual Illusion: Constructive Steps Toward Rectification and Redescription," I clarify some of the theoretical and methodological background that informed the original article, redress places where Melvær appears to have misread or miscast my positions, and offer some suggestions as to what may really be most at stake in this "spiritual" dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper aims to respond to some of the observations and insights of the five reviewers of our book, The Sacred Is the Profane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of religion is not well known for exporting theory to other subdisciplines, for which the author suggests three causes: a lack of interest in religion from other sociologists, a focus on “normal science” rather than exportable theory, and an insistence that religion is a sui generis analytic category. The author then suggests how this third cause can be remedied by no longer thinking of religion as an analytic category but rather as a site though which religious actors can be studied. Doing so would shift religion to a pragmatic, native category, thereby allowing an easier export of concepts discovered while studying religious groups, in the tradition of sociological classics like taboo and charismatic authority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay considers the question: 'What is religion and is it essentially violent?' Rather than answer the question directly, Martin suggests that it is a loaded question and reflects on what might motivate it. Through a comparison of the concepts of 'religion' and 'child abuse'-as analyzed in Ian Hacking's work on social constructionism-Martin points to the social or political stakes of defining terms tied to normative discourses and which could be designed to pathologize certain behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article utilizes Durkheim's definition of religion to demonstrate the religious dimensions of the Apple phenomenon and by doing that aims to assert the presence of religiosity outside of its conventional sphere. The analysis of Apple consists of four elements of Durkheim's definition--community, beliefs, sacred, and rituals. The devotees of Apple's community base their beliefs on notions of individuality, creativity, and counterculture, and this system of beliefs is supported by a mythos surrounding Apple's history and Steve Jobs's life. The Apple brand itself is the most sacred symbol of the community, protected by the taboo of criticism. The products act as religious fetishes to Apple devotees, and Apple stores function as temples. Followers perform public pilgrimages to store openings and Apple conferences, and private rituals of product unboxing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]