Hume & Rational Religion
What did Hume say about miracles?
What is: A violation of natural laws, and therefore unreliable as evidence for religious truth claims?
What are the three parts of Freud’s model of the psyche?
What are: The id (pleasure principle), ego (conscious self), and superego (moral/reality principle)?
What is Tylor’s definition of religion?
What is: The belief in spiritual beings?
What is Durkheim’s definition of religion?
What is: A unified system of beliefs and practices about sacred things that create social unity?
Who criticized the evolutionary model of religion as judgmental?
Who is: Mary Douglas, who challenged the bias in theories that label non-Christian religions as primitive?
What does Hume say about the "design" argument for God's existence?
What is: It doesn’t solve the problem of existence, it just moves it back one step by assuming God exists?
According to Freud, what is religion a response to?
What is: The repression of unconscious drives and desires that manifest through symbolic cultural forms?
What does Tylor say is the oldest form of religion?
What is: Animism; the belief in spirits inhabiting nature and objects?
What is a totem in Durkheim’s theory?
What is: A sacred symbol representing the group itself, or a kind of social flag for the clan?
What is reductionism in theories of religion?
What is: Explaining complex religious phenomena by reducing them to basic cognitive, social, or psychological forces?
What cognitive trait does Hume say contributes to religion?
What is: Anthropomorphizing; projecting human traits onto non-human forces to explain the unknown?
What is the main claim in Future of an Illusion?
What is: That religion is wish-fulfillment, projecting the protective role of parents onto an imagined deity?
What are the two “laws” in Tylor’s anthropology?
What are: 1) The psychic unity of humankind and 2) The law of intellectual evolution?
What is “collective effervescence”?
What is: The emotional high and shared energy people feel during group rituals, reinforcing group identity?
What is Freud’s idea of religion as a “universal neurosis”?
What is: The soul is the internalized totemic force, linking individual morality with the larger social group?
What two instincts combine to create religion in Hume's theory?
What are: The tendency to anthropomorphize and the desire to explain unknown causes?
What is "displacement" in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory?
What is: Redirecting unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable outlets like art, rituals, or dreams?
What does Frazer argue about the sequence of magic, religion, and science?
What is: Human thought progressed from magic, to religion, and finally to science as the most advanced stage?
How does Durkheim link the soul to the group’s totemic principle?
What is: The soul is the internalized totemic force, linking individual morality with the larger social group?
Why are anthropomorphic gods common, according to cognitive approaches?
What is: Because they're “minimally counterintuitive”; close enough to humans for the brain to process easily?
What kind of approach does Hume use to study religion?
What is: A reductionist, rational, scientific approach that explains religion through human psychology and logic?
How does Freud interpret the Eucharist in Totem and Taboo?
What is: a remnant of the primitive totem feast- the ritualistic killing and consumption of the totem animal, which he equates with the "father" figure, symbolizing an act of communal atonement and identification.?
How does Frazer say myth develops?
What is: As the narrative that explains rituals, originally rooted in magical practices like seasonal fertility rites?
What is Durkheim’s view on the origin and evolution of religion?
What is: That all religions evolve from totemism, and they all serve a social function like creating cohesion?
What does Durkheim say about the idea that some religions are “false”?
What is no religion is false; each serves its society’s needs?