Anthropology of Religion

Anthropology of religion

Anthropology of religion is studying all the types of religion, religious phenomena, the relationship between ritual, ceremony, myth and various forms of magic and their relations with the classic sphere of the religion.

Anthropology of religion is not limited to describe, to inventory, to classify, religious facts. It regards religion as a part of the culture and it tries to explain the similarities and differences between religious phenomena from various societies, without privileging monotheistic institution that has shaped our consciences. Anthropology of religion does not close nor in Antiquity or in the Third World, but handles in the same time Nepalese rites, Papua myths, the shamans of Siberia and exorcists from Bretagnia. For a long time, it has focused on small societies with a low sense of culture, sometimes archaic, where often tribal and religious phenomenon is confused. The anthropology of religion engage in exchanges of information, points of view and methods with a series of neighboring disciplines, all intending to pave the way for the understanding of religion.

A theoretical definition of religion can be "a system of symbols which works to establish provisions and strong motivations, persistent and long lasting, and formulation of conceptions of a general nature on the existence, and endowing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the provisions and motivations seem extremely realistic."

From the point of view of a writer, religion is “the relation of man to his own nature, – therein lies its truth and its power of moral amelioration; – but to his nature not recognized as his own, but regarded as another nature, separate, nay, contra-distinguished from his own: herein lies its untruth, its limitation, its contradiction to reason and morality; herein lies the noxious source of religious fanaticism, the chief metaphysical principle of human sacrifices, in a word, the prima materia of all the atrocities, all the horrible scenes, in the tragedy of religious history” - Ludwig Feuerbach, The essence of Christianity

The way I see religion - the belief in the supernatural, sacred or divine and in dogmas, values and institutions associated with this belief.

Over time, religion was the largest and best-organized form of mass manipulation. With its help, multiple pages in history have been changed. Under the sign of the right religion were wars, were held crusades, were people burned at the stake, however not aimed at purifying evil, but other interests.

Those who were behind all these horrors were people who had access to a much vaster information base, knowing some of the truth about Earth. They used religion as a tool to steamroller rich people, to serve their interests, to make them more powerful than they were.

To this end many ancient writings have been deliberately distorted or modified (the most obvious example is the Bible) and many other books that were revealing for human consciousness were put to storage because ordinary people not being able to access the enlightenment.

The truth sets you free, and those who were hiding the truth, knew it. Man is a spiritual being composed of body and soul. Just as the body requires to be fed to survive, as well the spirit needs spiritual food to survive. And the food that feeds the spirit is the necessity to believe in something. You cannot say you do not believe in anything as long as you are smart enough to realize that man is a human being with a mechanism so complex that tends to perfection, to be evolved out of nothing.