05-宗教人类学.ppt

宗教人类学 鲍伊，2004，《宗教人类学导论》，北京：中国人民大学出版社 What is Religion? Anthony F. C. Wallace defined religion as “belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces”. The supernatural is the extraordinary realm outside (but believed to impinge on) the observable world. It is nonempirical and inexplicable in ordinary terms. It must be accepted “on faith.” Supernatural beings---gods and goddesses, ghosts, and souls---are not of the material world. Origins of Religion When did religion begin? No one knows for sure. Any statement about when, why, and how religion arose, or any description of its original nature, can only be speculative. Animism Sir Edward Tylor thought that religion was born as people tried to understand conditions and events they could not explain by reference to daily experience. Tylor believed that our ancestors---and contemporary nonindustrial peoples---were particularly intrigued with death, dreaming, and trance. In dreams and trances, people see images they may remember when they wake up or come out of the trance state. Tylor concluded that attempts to explain dreams and trances led early humans to believe that two entities inhabit the body: one active during the day and the other---a double or soul---active during sleep and trance states. Although they never meet, they are vital to each other. When the double permanently leaves the body, the person dies. From the Latin for soul, anima, Tylor named this belief animism. 万物有灵论：所有的生物与非生物，以及人类，都具有灵魂（或生命力与人格） Tylor proposed the religion evolved through stages, beginning with animism. Polytheism (the belief in multiple gods) and then monotheism (the belief in a single, all-powerful deity) developed later. Because religion originated to explain things people didn’t understand, Tylor thought it would decline as science offered better explanations for many things that religion once elucidated. Magic and Religion Magic refers to supernatural techniques intended to accomplish specific aims. These t