Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions.

It describes, compares, interpre ts, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross -cultural perspectives. While theology attempts to understand the nature of transcendent or supernatural forces (such as deities), religious studies tries to study religious behavior a nd belief from outside any particular religious viewpoint. Religious studies dra ws upon multiple disciplines and their methodologies including anthropology, soc iology, psychology, philosophy, and history of religion. Religious studies originated in the nineteenth century, when scholarly and histo rical analysis of the Bible had flourished, and Hindu and Buddhist texts were fi rst being translated into European languages. Early influential scholars include d Friedrich Max Mller, in England, and Cornelius P. Tiele, in the Netherlands. To day religious studies is practiced by scholars worldwide. In its early years, it was known as Comparative Religion or the Science of Religion and, in the USA, t here are those who today also know the field as the History of religion (associa ted with methodological traditions traced to the University of Chicago in genera l, and in particular Mircea Eliade, from the late 1950s through to the late 1980 s). The field is known as Religionswissenschaft in Germany and Sciences de la re ligion in the French-speaking world. The term "religion" originated from the Latin noun "religio", that was nominaliz ed from one of three verbs: "relegere" (to turn to constantly/observe conscienti ously); "religare" (to bind oneself [back]); and "reeligare" (to choose again).[ 1] Because of these three different meanings, an etymological analysis alone doe s not resolve the ambiguity of defining religion, since each verb points to a di fferent understanding of what religion is.[2] During the Medieval Period, the te rm "religious" was used as a noun to describe someone who had joined a monastic order (a "religious"). Despite this change in meaning, it is important to note t he term "religion" is primarily a Christian term. Judaism and Hinduism, for exam ple, do not include this term in their vocabulary. Religious studies vs. theology Western philosophy of religion, as the basic ancestor of modern religious studie s, is differentiated from theology and the many Eastern philosophical traditions by generally being written from a third party perspective. The scholar need not be a believer. Theology stands in contrast to the philosophy of religion and re ligious studies in that, generally, the scholar is first and foremost a believer employing both logic and scripture as evidence. Theology according to this unde rstanding fits with the definition which Anselm of Canterbury gave to it in the 11th century, credo ut intelligam, or faith seeking understanding. The theologia n then has the task of making intelligible, or clarifying, the religious commitm ents to which he or she ascribes. The scholar of religious studies has no such a llegiances. [edit] Intellectual foundation and background Before religious studies became a field in its own right, flourishing in the Uni ted States in the late 1960s, several key intellectual figures explored religion from a variety of perspectives. One of these figures was the famous pragmatist William James. His 1902 Gifford lectures and book The Varieties of Religious Exp erience examined religion from a psychological-philosophical perspective and is still influential today. His essay The Will to Believe defends the rationality o f faith. Max Weber studied religion from an economic perspective in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-5), his most famous work. As a major figure i n sociology, he has no doubt influenced later sociologists of religion. mile Durk

heim also holds continuing influence as one of the fathers of sociology. He expl ored Protestant and Catholic attitudes and doctrines regarding suicide in his wo rk Suicide. In 1912 he published his most memorable work on religion, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. [edit] History Max Mller Interest in the general study of religion dates back to at least Hecataeus of Mi letus (ca. 550 BCE ca. 476 BCE) and Herodotus (ca. 484 BCE 425 BCE). Later, duri ng the Middle Ages, Islamic scholars studied Persian, Jewish, Christian, and Ind ian religions. The first history of religion was the Treatise on the Religious a nd Philosophical Sects (1127 CE), written by the Muslim scholar Muhammad al-Shah rastani. Peter the Venerable, also working in the twelfth century, studied Islam and made possible a Latin translation of the Qur'an. Notwithstanding the long interest in the study of religion, the academic discipl ine Religious Studies is relatively new. Dr. Chris Partridge notes that the "fir st professorships were established as recently as the final quarter of the ninet eenth century."[1] In the nineteenth century, the study of religion was done thr ough the eyes of science. Max Mller was the first Professor of Comparative Religi on at Oxford University, a chair created especially for him. In his Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873) he wrote that it is "the duty of those who ha ve devoted their life to the study of the principal religions of the world in th eir original documents, and who value and reverence it in whatever form it may p resent itself, to take possession of this new territory in the name of true scie nce." Partridge writes that "by the second half of the twentieth century the study of religion had emerged as a prominent and important field of academic enquiry." He cites the growing distrust of the empiricism of the nineteenth century and the growing interest in non-Christian religions and spirituality coupled with conver gence of the work of social scientists and that of scholars of religion as facto rs involved in the rise of Religious Studies. In the 1960s and 1970s, the term "religious studies" became common and interest in the field increased. New departments were founded and influential journals of religious studies were initiated (for example, Religious Studies and Religion). In the forward to Approaches to the Study of Religion, Ninian Smart wrote that "in the English-speaking world [religious studies] basically dates from the 1960 s, although before then there were such fields as 'the comparative study of reli gion', the 'history of religion', the 'sociology of religion' and so on..." In the 1980s, in both Britain and America, "the decrease in student applications and diminishing resources in the 1980s led to cut backs affecting religious stu dies departments." (Partridge) Later in the decade, religious studies began to p ick up as a result of integrating religious studies with other disciplines and f orming programs of study that mixed the discipline with more utilitarian study. Philosophy of religion uses philosophical tools to evaluate religious claims and doctrines. Western philosophy has traditionally been employed by English speaki ng scholars. (Some other cultures have their own philosophical traditions includ ing Indian, Muslim, and Jewish.) Common issues considered by the (Western) philo sophy of religion are the existence of God, belief and rationality, cosmology, a nd logical inferences of logical consistency from sacred texts. Although philosophy has long been used in evaluation of religious claims (e.g. A ugustine and Pelagius's debate concerning original sin), the rise of scholastici sm in the 11th century, which represented "the search for order in intellectual life" (Russell, 170), more fully integrated the Western philosophical tradition (with the introduction of translations of Aristotle) in religious study.

There is some amount of overlap between subcategories of religious studies and t he discipline itself. Religious studies seeks to study religious phenomena as a whole, rather than be limited to the approaches of its subcategories. [edit] Anthropology of religion The anthropology of religion is principally concerned with the common basic need s of man that religion fulfills. [edit] Cultural anthropology of religion The cultural anthropology of religion is principally concerned with the cultural aspects of religion. Of primary concern to the cultural anthropologist of relig ions are rituals, beliefs, religious art, and practices of piety. [edit] Economics of religion Gallup surveys have found that the world's poorest countries may be the most rel igious. Of those countries with average per-capita incomes under $2000, 95% repo rted that religion played an important role in their daily lives. This is contra sted by the average of 47% from the richest countries, with incomes over $25000 (with the United States breaking the trend by reporting at 65%).[3] Social scien tists have suggested that religion plays a functional role (helping people cope) in poorer nations.[3][4] The New York Times offers a graphic illustrating the c orrelation (not necessarily causation) between religion and poverty. [edit] Geography of religion The geography of religion is principally concerned with the spatial elements of religious practice and embodiment. In the 1960s and 1970s, geographers of religi on such as Wilbur Zelinsky and David Sopher were mostly associated with the "Ber keley school" of cultural geography and focused mostly on the cultural imprints of religion on the landscape. Since the turn in the new cultural geography of re ligion through the work of James Duncan on the City as Text, geographers of reli gion have focused on what Lily Kong has called the "politics and poetics" of rel igion, especially in relation to the political geographies of secular nation-sta tes. Recent interest in the geography of religion has focused on how religious p ractitioners enact sacred space through their embodied sacred practices as well as the relationship between religion and geopolitics. [edit] History of religion See also: History of religion The history of religions is not concerned with theological claims apart from the ir historical significance. Some topics of this discipline are the historicity o f religious figures, events, and the evolution of doctrinal matters.[5] [edit] Literary approaches There are many approaches to the study of sacred texts. One of these approaches is to interpret the text as a literary object. Metaphor, thematic elements, and the nature and motivations of the characters are of interest in this approach. A n example of this approach is God: A Biography, by Jack Miles. [edit] Neurological approaches Recently there has been an interesting meeting between neurology and religion, e specially Buddhism. Also of interest has been the temporal lobe, the "God center " of the brain. (Ramachandran, ch. 9) Although not a widely accepted discipline within religious studies, neurological findings in regard to religious experienc e may very well become of more widespread interest to scholars of religion. Scie ntific investigators have used a SPECTscanner to analyze the brain activity of b oth Christian contemplatives and Buddhist meditators, finding them to be quite s imilar.[6] [edit] Origin of religion Main articles: Evolutionary origin of religions, Evolutionary psychology of reli

gion, and Revelation The "origin of religion" refers to the emergence of religious behavior in prehis tory, before written records. [edit] Psychology of religion The psychology of religion is concerned with what psychological principles are o perative in religious communities and practitioners. William James was one of th e first academics to bridge the gap between the emerging science of psychology a nd the study of religion. A few issues of concern to the psychologist of religio ns are the psychological nature of religious conversion, the making of religious decisions, religion and happiness, and the psychological factors in evaluating religious claims. Sigmund Freud was another influential figure in the field of psychology and reli gion. He used his psychoanalytic theory to explain religious beliefs, practices, and rituals in order to justify the role of religion in the development of huma n culture. [edit] Sociology of religion Main article: Sociology of religion The sociology of religion concerns the dialectical relationship between religion and society; the practices, historical backgrounds, developments, universal the mes and roles of religion in society.[7] There is particular emphasis on the rec urring role of religion in all societies and throughout recorded history. The so ciology of religion is distinguished from the philosophy of religion in that it does not set out to assess the validity of religious beliefs, though the process of comparing multiple conflicting dogmas may require what Peter L. Berger has d escribed as inherent "methodological atheism".[8] Whereas the sociology of relig ion broadly differs from theology in assuming the invalidity of the supernatural , theorists tend to acknowledge socio-cultural reification of religious practise . It may be said that the modern formal discipline of sociology began with the ana lysis of religion in Durkheim's 1897 study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations. The works of Max Weber emphasised the relationship betw een religious belief and the economic foundations of society. Contemporary debat es have centred on issues such as secularization, civil religion, and the cohesi veness of religion in the context of globalization and multiculturalism. The sociology of religion also deals with how religion impacts society regarding the positive and negatives of what happens when religion is mixed with society. Theorist such as Marx states that religion is the opium of the people - the idea that religion has become a way for people to deal with their problems. At least one comprehensive study refutes this idea. Research has found that secular democ racies like France or Scandinavia outperform more theistic democracies on variou s measures of societal health. The authors explain that "Pressing questions incl ude the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the exceptionally wealth y U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a much higher degree of societa l distress than are less religious, less wealthy prosperous democracies. Convers ely, how do the latter achieve superior societal health while having little in t he way of the religious values or institutions?"[9] [edit] Methodologies A number of methodologies are used in Religious Studies. Methodologies are herme neutics, or interpretive models, that provide a structure for the analysis of re ligious phenomena. [edit] Phenomenology Main article: Phenomenology (philosophy)

Phenomenology is "arguably the most influential approach to the study of religio n in the twentieth century." (Partridge) The term is first found in the title of the work of the influential philosopher of German Idealism, Georg Wilhelm Fried rich Hegel, entitled The Phenomenology of Spirit. Phenomenology had been practic ed long before its being made explicit as a philosophical method by Edmund Husse rl, who is considered to be its founder. In the context of Phenomenology of reli gion however, the term was first used by Pierre Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye in his work "Lehrbuch der Religiongeschichte" (1887). Chantepie's phenomenology catalogued observable characteristics of religion much like a zoologist would ca tegorize animals or an entomologist would categorize insects. In part due to Husserl's influence, "phenomenology" came to "refer to a method w hich is more complex and claims rather more for itself than did Chantepies mere c ataloguing of facts." (Partridge) Husserl argued that the foundation of knowledg e is consciousness. He recognized "how easy it is for prior beliefs and interpre tations to unconsciously influence ones thinking, Husserls phenomenological method sought to shelve all these presuppositions and interpretations." (Partridge) Hu sserl introduced the term "eidetic vision" to describe the ability to observe wi thout "prior beliefs and interpretations" influencing understanding and percepti on. His other main conceptual contribution is the idea of the epoche: setting aside metaphysical questions and observing phenomena in and of themselves, without any bias or commitments on the part of the investigator. The epoche, also known as phenomenological reduction or bracketing, involves approaching a phenomenon or p henomena from a neutral standpoint, instead of with our own particular attitudes . In performing this reduction, whatever phenomenon or phenomena we approach are understood in themselves, rather than from our own perspectives. In the field o f religious studies, a contemporary advocate of the phenomenological method is N inian Smart. He suggests that we should perform the epoche as a means to engage in cross-cultural studies. In doing so, we can take the beliefs, symbols, ritual s etc. of the other from within their own perspective, rather than imposing ours on them. Another earlier scholar who employs the phenomenological method for st udying religion is Gerardus van der Leeuw. In his Religion in Essence and Manife station (1933), he outlines what a phenomenology of religion should look like: Firstly, argues van der Leeuw, the student of religion needs to classify the religious phenomena into distinct categories: e.g. sacrifice, sacrament, sa cred space, sacred time, sacred word, festivals, and myth. Secondly, scholars then need to interpolate the phenomena into the their own lives. That is to say, they need to empathetically (Einfhlung) try and under stand the religion from within....The life examined by the religious studies sch olar, insists van der Leeuw, needs to "acquire its place in the life of the stud ent himself who should understand it out of his inner self." Thirdly, van der Leeuw stresses perhaps the fundamental phenomenological principle, namely epoch, the suspension of value-judgements and the adoption of a neutral stance. Fourthly, scholars needs to clarify any apparent structural relationship s and make sense of the information. In so doing, they move towards a holistic u nderstanding of how the various aspects of a religion relate and function togeth er. Fifthly, this leads naturally to a stage at which "all these activities, undertaken together and simultaneously, constitute genuine understanding [Verst ehen]: the chaotic and obstinate 'reality' thus becomes a manifestation, a revel ation" (eidetic vision). Sixthly, having thus attained this general grasp, there is a continual n eed to make sure that it tallies with the up-to-date research of other disciplin es, such as archaeology, history, philology etc. For van der Leeuw, as for other phenomenologists, the continual checking of ones results is crucial to the maint enance of scholarly objectivity. In order to avoid degeneration into fantasy, ph

enomenology must always feed on facts. Finally, having gone through the above six stages, the phenomenologist s hould be as close as anyone can be to an understanding of the 'meaning' of the r eligious phenomena studied and be in a position to relate his understanding to o thers. Most phenomenologists are aware of the fact that understanding is asymptotic and there will never be complete and absolute understanding. By setting aside metap hysical issues (such as a Christian phenomenologist would do with monotheism/pol ytheism while studying Hinduism), phenomenologists keep religious studies separa te from theology and (hopefully) decrease their bias and come away with a more a ccurate picture. Seven generally agreed upon features of phenomenology are as follows: Phenomenologists tend to oppose the acceptance of unobservable matters a nd grand systems erected in speculative thinking; Phenomenologists tend to oppose naturalism (also called objectivism and positivism), which is the worldview growing from modern natural science and tech nology that has been spreading from Northern Europe since the Renaissance; Positively speaking, phenomenologists tend to justify cognition (and som e also evaluation and action) with reference to what Edmund Husserl called Evide nz, which is awareness of a matter itself as disclosed in the most clear, distin ct, and adequate way for something of its kind; Phenomenologists tend to believe that not only objects in the natural an d cultural worlds, but also ideal objects, such as numbers, and even conscious l ife itself can be made evident and thus known; Phenomenologists tend to hold that inquiry ought to focus upon what migh t be called "encountering" as it is directed at objects and, correlatively, upon "objects as they are encountered" (this terminology is not widely shared, but t he emphasis on a dual problematics and the reflective approach it requires is); Phenomenologists tend to recognize the role of description in universal, a priori, or "eidetic" terms as prior to explanation by means of causes, purpos es, or grounds; and Phenomenologists tend to debate whether or not what Husserl calls the tr anscendental phenomenological epoch and reduction is useful or even possible. source [edit] Functionalism Functionalism, in regard to religious studies, is the analysis of religions and their various communities of adherents using the functions of particular religio us phenomena to interpret the structure of religious communities and their belie fs. A major criticism of functionalism is that it lends itself to teleological e xplanations. An example of a functionalist approach is understanding the dietary restrictions contained in the Pentateuch as having the function of promoting he alth or providing social identity (i.e. a sense of belonging though common pract ice). -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarit ies and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's rel

igions. Religion can be defined as the human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine.[1] In the field of comparative religion, the main world religions are generally cla ssified as Abrahamic, Indian or Taoic. Areas of study also include creation myth s and Humanism.

In the study of comparative religion, the category of Abrahamic religions consis ts of the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, which c laim Abraham (Hebrew Avraham ; Arabic Ibrahim ) as a part of their sacred h ions (such as the Bah' Faith) that fit this description are sometimes included but are often omitted.[2]

The original belief in the One God of Abraham eventually became present-day Rabb inic Judaism. Christians believe that Christianity is the fulfillment and contin uation of the Jewish Old Testament. Christians believe that Jesus (Hebrew Yeshua )as the messiah (Christ) foretold in Old Testament prophecy, and believe in subsequ New Testament revelations based on the divine authority of Jesus in Christian b elief (as the Incarnation of God). The New Testament is believed by Christians t o be the final revelation (but not always complete: see Sacred Tradition, a conc ept in most of Christianity - Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy - that is analog ous to the oral Torah of Judaism). Islam believes the present Christian and Jewi sh scriptures have been corrupted over time and are no longer the original divin e revelations as given to Moses, Jesus, and other prophets, which Muslims believ e were all prophets of Islam, not of Judaism nor Christianity. For Muslims, the Qur'an is the final, complete revelation from God (Arabic Allah), who believe it to have been revealed to Muhammad, who is believed by Muslims to be the final proph et of Islam. [edit] Comparing Abrahamic religions Main articles: Christianity and Judaism, Islam and Judaism, and Christianity and Islam See also: Judeo-Christian, Supersessionism, People of the Book, Tahrif, Biblical narratives and the Qur'an, and Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800 - 1400) Christianity and Judaism are two closely related Abrahamic religions that in som e ways parallel each other and in other ways fundamentally diverge in theology a nd practice. The historical interaction of Islam and Judaism started in the 7th century CE wi th the origin and spread of Islam. There are many common aspects between Islam a nd Judaism, and as Islam developed, it gradually became the major religion close st to Judaism. As opposed to Christianity which originated from interaction betw een ancient Greek and Hebrew cultures, Judaism is very similar to Islam in its f undamental religious outlook, structure, jurisprudence and practice.[3] There ar e many traditions within Islam originating from traditions within the Hebrew Bib le or from postbiblical Jewish traditions. These practices are known collectivel y as the Isra'iliyat.[4] The historical interaction between Christianity and Islam connects fundamental i deas in Christianity with similar ones in Islam. Islam and Christianity share th eir origins in the Abrahamic tradition, although Christianity predates Islam by centuries. Islam accepts many aspects of Christianity as part of its faith - wit h some differences in interpretation - and rejects other aspects. Islam believes the Qur'an is the final revelation from God and a completion of all previous re velations, including the Bible. [edit] Indian and Indo-European religions Main articles: Indian religions, Vedic Brahmanism, Proto-Indo-Iranian religion, and Proto-Indo-European religion The term "Indian religions" refers to a number of religions that have originated

on the Indian subcontinent tracing their origins through Proto-Indo-Iranian rel igion ultimately to Proto-Indo-European religion. They encompass Hinduism, Buddh ism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Other largely extinct Indo-European religions closely allied to the Indian relig ions, sharing a common history, include Zoroastrianism, ancient Greek, Celtic, R oman, Hittite, Slavic and Norse mythology.[citation needed] [edit] Comparing "Dharmic" religions The Rig Veda is one of the oldest Vedic texts. Shown here is a Rig Veda manuscri pt in Devanagari, early nineteenth century. Main article: Buddhism and Hinduism Further information: Buddha as an Avatar of Vishnu, Gautama Buddha in world reli gions, and God in Buddhism Buddhism and modern Hinduism are both post-Vedic religions. Gautama Buddha is me ntioned as an Avatar of Vishnu in the Puranic texts of Hinduism. Some Hindus bel ieve the Buddha accepted and incorporated many tenets of Hinduism in his doctrin e, however, Buddhists disagree and state there was no such thing as Hinduism at the time of Buddha and in fact, "Indeed, it absorbed so many Buddhist traits tha t it is virtually impossible to distinguish the latter in medieval and later Hin duism."[5] Prominent Hindu reformers such as Gandhi[6] and Vivekananda[7] acknow ledge Buddhist influence. Gandhi, like Hindus, did not believe Buddha establishe d a non-Hindu tradition. He writes, "I do not regard Jainism or Buddhism as sepa rate from Hinduism."[8] [edit] Taoic religions Main article: East Asian religions Further information: Tao and De The Chinese character depicting Tao, the central concept in Taoism. A Taoic religion is a religion, or religious philosophy, that focuses on the Eas t Asian concept of Tao ("The Way"). This forms a large group of religions includ ing Taoism, Confucianism, Jeung San Do, Shinto, Yiguandao, Chondogyo, Chen Tao a nd Caodaism. In large parts of East Asia, Buddhism has taken on some taoic featu res. Tao can be roughly stated to be the flow of the universe, or the force behind th e natural order. It is believed to be the influence that keeps the universe bala nced and ordered and is associated with nature, due to a belief that nature demo nstrates the Tao. The flow of Ch'i, as the essential energy of action and existe nce, is compared to the universal order of Tao. Following the Tao is also associ ated with a "proper" attitude, morality and lifestyle. This is intimately tied t o the complex concept of De, or literally "virtue" or "power." De is the active expression of Tao. Taoism and Ch'an Buddhism for centuries had a mutual influence on each other in China, Korea and Vietnam. These influences were inherited by Zen Buddhism when C h'an Buddhism arrived in Japan and adapted as Zen Buddhism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------India is the birth place of four of the world's major religious traditions; name ly Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Throughout its history, religion has been an important part of the country's cul ture. Religious diversity and religious tolerance are both established in the co untry by law and custom. A vast majority of Indians associate themselves with a religion. According to the 2001 census,[1] Hinduism accounted for 80.5% of the population

of India. Islam (13.4), Christianity (2.3%), Sikhism (1.9%), Buddhism (0.8%) and Jainism (0.4%) are the other major religions followed by the people of India. T his diversity of religious belief systems existing in India today is a result of , besides existence and birth of native religions, assimilation and social integ ration of religions brought to the region by traders, travelers, immigrants, and even invaders and conquerors. Zoroastrianism and Judaism also have an ancient history in India and each has se veral thousand Indian adherents. India has the largest population of people adhe ring to Zoroastrianism and Bah' Faith anywhere in the world. [2] [3] Many other wo rld religions also have a relationship with Indian spirituality, like the Baha'i faith which recognizes Lord Buddha and Lord Krishna as manifestations of God Al mighty.[citation needed] Indian diaspora in the West have popularized many aspects of Hindu philosophy li ke yoga (meditation), Ayurvedic medicine, divination, vegetarianism, karma and r eincarnation to a great extent.[4] The influence of Indians abroad in spiritual matters has been significant as several organizations such as the Hare Krishna m ovement, the Brahma Kumaris, the Ananda Marga and others spread by Indian spirit ual figures. The Muslim population in India is the third largest in the world. The shrines of some of the most famous saints of Sufism like Moinuddin Chishti and Nizamuddin Auliya are in India and attract visitors from all over the world.[5] India is al so home to some of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture like the Ta j Mahal and the Qutb Minar. Civil matters related to the community are dealt wit h by the Muslim Personal Law, and constitutional amendments in 1985 established its primacy in family matters.[6] The Constitution of India declares the nation to be a secular republic that must uphold the right of citizens to freely worship and propagate any religion or fa ith (with activities subject to reasonable restrictions for the sake of morality , law and order, etc.).[7][8] The Constitution of India also declares the right to freedom of religion as a fundamental right. Citizens of India are generally tolerant of each other's religions and retain a secular outlook, although inter-religious marriage is not widely practiced. Inte r-community clashes have found little support in the social mainstream, and it i s generally perceived that the causes of religious conflicts are political rathe r than ideological in nature.[9] Bhakti Movement During the 14-17th centuries, when North India was under Muslim rule, The bhakti movement swept through Central and Northern India, initiated by a loosely assoc iated group of teachers or sants. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Vallabhacharya, Surdas, Meera Bai, Kabir, Tulsidas, Ravidas, Namdeo, Tukaram and other mystics spearhead ed the Bhakti movement in the North. They taught that people could cast aside th e heavy burdens of ritual and caste, and the subtle complexities of philosophy, and simply express their overwhelming love for God. This period was also charact erized by a spate of devotional literature in vernacular prose and poetry in the ethnic languages of the various Indian states or provinces. Bhakti movement spa wned into several different movements all across North and South India. During the Bhakti Movement, many Hindu groups, regarded as outside the tradition al Hindu caste system followed Bhakti traditions by worshipping/following saints belonging to their respective communities. For example, Guru Ravidas was a Cham ar of Uttar Pradesh, Guru Parsuram Ramnami was a Chura of Chhatisgarh, Maharishi Ram Naval was a Bhangi of Rajasthan. Several of these saints in their lifetime, even went to the extent of fighting conversion from foreign missionaries and on

ly encouraging Hinduism within their communities. For example, in Assam tribals were led by Gurudev Kalicharan Bramha of the Brahmo Samaj, in Nagaland by Kacha Naga, in Tamil Nadu by Ayya Vaikundar, in Central India by Birsa Munda, Hanuman Oaron, Jatra Bhagat and Budhu Bhagat. In North India, Bhakti movement is not differentiable from the Sufi movement of Shia Muslims of the Chisti fame. People of Muslim faith adopted it as a Sufism w hile Hindus as a stronger force within Vaishnava bhakti.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A monk (from Greek: , monachos, "single, solitary"[1]) is a person who practices relig ous asceticism, living either alone or with any number of other monks, while alw ays maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the sa me purpose. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many religions and in phil osophy. In the Greek language the term can apply to women; but in modern English it is i n use only for men, while nun is used for female monastics. Although the term monachos (monk) is of Christian origin, in the English language it tends to be used analogously or loosely also for both male and female ascetic s from other religious or philosophical backgrounds. The term monk is generic and in some religious or philosophical traditions it th erefore may be considered interchangeable with other terms such as ascetic. Howe ver, being generic, it is not interchangeable with terms that denote particular kinds of monk, such as cenobite, hermit, anchorite, hesychast, solitary. Buddhism Main article: Bhikkhu People of the Pali Canon Pali English Community of Buddhist Disciples Monastic Sangha Bhikkhu, Bhikkhun Sikkhamn Samaera, Samaer Monk, Nun Nun trainee Novice (m., f.) Laity Upsaka and Upsik Gahattha, Gahapati Anagrika, Anagriya Lay devotee (m., f.) Householder Layperson Related Religions Samaa

jvika Brhmaa Nigaha Wanderer Ascetic Brahmin Jainism This box: view talk edit The abbot of a Buddhist monastery instructing novices, Uttaradit, Thailand. Although the European term "monk" is often applied to Buddhism, the situation of Buddhist asceticism is different. There is often a trial period prior to ordina tion, to see if a candidate wishes to become a Buddhist monk, a period almost en tirely indistinctin theory, and likely in practicefrom the novitiate at Western mo nasteries. If he does, he remains in the monastery; otherwise, he is free to lea ve. In Theravada Buddhism, bhikkhu is the term for monk. Their disciplinary code is called the patimokkha, which is part of the larger Vinaya. They live lives of me ndicancy, and go on a morning almsround (Pali: pindapata) every day. The local p eople give food for the monks to eat, though the monks are not permitted to posi tively ask for anything. The monks live in monasteries, and have an important fu nction in traditional Asian society. Young boys can be ordained as samaneras. Bo th bhikkhus and samaneras eat only in the morning, and are not supposed to lead a luxurious life. Their rules forbid the use of money, although this rule is now adays not kept by all monks. The monks are part of the Sangha, the third of the Triple Gem of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha. In Mahayana Buddhism, the term 'Sangha' strictly speaking refers to those who ha ve achieved certain levels of understanding. They are therefore called 'communit y of the excellent ones' (Tibetan: mchog kyi tshogs); however, these in turn nee d not be monks (i.e., hold such vows). Several Mahayana orders accept female pra ctitioners as monks, instead of using the normal title of "nun", and they are co nsidered equal to male ascetics in all respects. The Bhikkhus are only allowed 4 items (other than their robes): a razor, a needl e, an alms bowl and a water strainer. In Vajrayana Buddhism, monkhood is part of the system of 'vows of individual lib eration'; these vows are taken in order to develop one's own personal ethical di scipline. The monks and nuns form the (ordinary) sangha. As for the Vajrayana vo ws of individual liberation, there are four steps: A lay person may take the 5 v ows called 'approaching virtue' (in Tibetan 'genyen' < dge snyan>). The next ste p is to enter the monastic way of life (Tib. rabjung) which includes wearing mon k's or nun's robes. After that, one can become a 'novice' (Pali samanera, Tib. g etshl); the last and final step is to take all vows of the 'fully ordained monk' (gelong). This term 'gelong' (Tib. < dge long>, in the female form gelongma) is the translation of Skt. bikshu (for women bikshuni) which is the equivalent of t he Pali term bhikkhuni; bhikkhu is the word used in Theravada Buddhism (Sri Lank a, Burma, Thailand). Buddhist monks performing ceremony in Hangzhou, China. Chinese Buddhist monks have been traditionally and stereotypically linked with t

he practice of the Chinese martial arts or Kung fu, and monks are frequently imp ortant characters in martial arts films. This association is focused around the Shaolin Monastery. The Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, traditionally credited as the founder of Zen Buddhism in China, is also claimed to have introduced Kalaripayat tu (which later evolved into Kung Fu) to the country. This latter claim has howe ver been a source of much controversy (see Bodhidharma, the martial arts, and th e disputed India connection) One more feature about the Chinese Buddhist monks i s that they practice the burning marks on their scalp, finger or part of the ski n on their anterior side of the forearm with incense as a sign of ordination. In Thailand and Burma, it is common for boys to spend some time living as a monk in a monastery. Most stay for only a few years and then leave, but a number con tinue on in the ascetic life for the rest of their lives. In Mongolia during the 1920s, there were about 110,000 monks, including children , who made up about one-third of the male population,[6] many of whom were kille d in the purges of Choibalsan. [edit] Jainism One of the most intense forms of Asceticism can be found in Jainism, one of the world's oldest religions. Jainism encourages fasting, yoga practices, meditation in difficult postures, and other austerities.[7] According to Jains, one's high est goal should be attaining Nirvana or Moksha (i.e., liberation from samsara, t he cycle of birth and rebirth). For this, a soul has to be without attachment or self indulgence. This can be achieved only by the monks and nuns who take five great vows: of non-violence, of truth, of non-stealing, of non-possession and of celibacy. Acharya Vidyasagar, a possessionless and detached Digambara Jain monk Most of the austerities and ascetic practices can be traced back to Vardhaman Ma havira, the twenty-fourth "fordmaker" or Tirthankara. The Acaranga Sutra, or Boo k of Good Conduct, is a sacred book within Jainism that discusses the ascetic co de of conduct. Other texts that provide insight into conduct of ascetics include Yogashastra by Acharya Hemachandra and Niyamasara by Acharya Kundakunda. Other illustrious Jain works on ascetic conduct are Oghanijjutti, Pindanijjutti, Cheda Sutta, and Nisiha Suttafee. Full Jain monk in either Svetambara or Digambara tradition[8] can belong to one of these ranks: Acharya: leader of the order Upadhyaya: a learned monk, who both teaches and studies himself Muni: an ordinary monk These three are mentioned is the three lines of the Namokar Mantra. In the Digam bara tradition, a junior monk can be a: Ailak: they use one piece of cloth Kshullak: they may use two pieces of cloth The Svetambar Terapanthi sect has a new rank of junior monks who are called sama na. The nuns are called Aryikas in Digambar tradition and Sadhvi in the Svetamba r tradition. [edit] Ascetic vows Five Mahavratas of Jain ascetics As per the Jain vows, the monks and nuns renounce all relations and possessions. Jain ascetics practice complete non-violence. Ahimsa is the first and foremost vow of a Jain ascetic. They do not hurt any living being, be it an insect or a h uman. They carry a special broom to sweep away any insects that may cross their

path. Some Jain monks wear a cloth over the mouth to prevent accidental harm to airborne germs and insects. They also do not use electricity as it involves viol ence. Furthermore, they do not use any devices or machines. As they are without possession and attachment, they travel from city to city, of ten crossing forests and deserts, and always barefoot. Jain ascetics do not stay in a single place for more than two months to prevent themselves from becoming attached to any location. However during four months of monsoon (rainy season) k nown as chaturmaas, they continue to stay in a single place to avoid killing the life forms that thrive during the rains. Jain monks and nuns practice complete celibacy. They do not touch or share a sitting platform with a person of opposit e sex. [edit] Dietary practices Jain ascetics follow a strict vegetarian diet without root vegetables. Shvetamba ra monks do not cook food but solicit alms from householders. Digambara monks ha ve only a single meal a day. Neither group will beg for food, but a Jain ascetic may accept a meal from a householder, provided that the latter is pure of mind and body and offers the food of his own volition and in the prescribed manner. D uring such an encounter, the monk remains standing and eats only a measured amou nt. Fasting (i.e., abstinence from food and sometimes water) is a routine featur e of Jain asceticism. Fasts last for a day or longer, up to a month. Some monks avoid (or limit) medicine and/or hospitalization out of disregard for the physic al body. [edit] Austerities and other daily practices White-clothed Acharya Kalaka Other austerities include meditation in seated or standing posture near river ba nks in the cold wind, or meditation atop hills and mountains, especially at noon when the sun is at its fiercest. Such austerities are undertaken according to t he physical and mental limits of the individual ascetic. Jain ascetics are (almo st) completely without possessions. Some Jains (Shvetambara monks and nuns) own only unstitched white robes (an upper and lower garment) and a bowl used for eat ing and collecting alms. Male Digambara monks do not wear any clothes and carry nothing with them except a soft broom made of shed peacock feathers (pinchi) and eat from their hands. They sleep on the floor without blankets and sit on speci al wooden platforms. Every day is spent either in study of scriptures or meditation or teaching to la y people. They stand aloof from worldly matters. Many Jain ascetics take a final vow of Santhara or Sallekhana (i.e., a peaceful and detached death where medici nes, food, and water are abandoned). This is done when death is imminent or when a monk feels that he is unable to adhere to his vows on account of advanced age or terminal disease. Quotes on ascetic practices from the Akaranga Sutra as Hermann Jacobi translated it:[9][10] A monk or a nun wandering from village to village should look forward for fo ur cubits, and seeing animals they should move on by walking on his toes or heel s or the sides of his feet. If there be some bypath, they should choose it, and not go straight on; then they may circumspectly wander from village to village. Third Lecture(6) I shall become a Sramana who owns no house, no property, no sons, no cattle, who eats what others give him; I shall commit no sinful action; Master, I renou nce to accept anything that has not been given.' Having taken such vows, (a mend icant) should not, on entering a village or scot-free town, &c., take himself, o r induce others to take, or allow others to take, what has not been given. Seventh Lecture (1)

[edit] Vaishnava Main article: International Society for Krishna Consciousness Madhvaacharya (Madhvacharya), the Dwaita philosopher, established ashta matha (E ight Monasteries). He appointed a monk (called swamiji or swamigalu in local par lance) for each matha or monastery who has the right to worship Madhvacharya's m urti of Lord Krishna by rotation. Each matha's swamiji gets a chance to worship after fourteen years. This ritual is called Paryaya and has been used also outsi de his sampradaya, e.g. in Gaudiya Vaisnava Radharamana temple in Vrindavan. Similar in appearance to Buddhist monks, brahmacari monks from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), or Hare Krishnas as they are popula rly known, are the best known Vaishnava monks outside India. They are a common s ight in many places around the world. Their appearancesimple saffron dhoti, shave d head with sikha, Tulasi neckbeads and tilaka markingsand social customs (sadhan a) date back many thousands of years to the Vedic era with its varnasrama societ y. This social scheme includes both monastic and lay stages meant for various pe rsons in various stages of life as per their characteristics (guna) and work (ka rma). ISKCON started as a predominantly monastic group but nowadays the majority of me mbers live as lay persons. Many of them, however, spent some time as monks. New persons joining ISKCON as full-time members (living in its centers) first underg o a three-month Bhakta training, which includes learning the basics of brahmacar i (monastic) life. After that they can decide if they prefer to continue as monk s or as married Grihasthas. Brahmacari older than fifty years (as per ISKCON rule) can become sannyasi. Sann yasa, a life of full dedication to spiritual pursuits, is the highest stage of l ife in the varnasrama society. It is permanent and one cannot give it up. A Sann yasi is given the title Swami. Older grihastha with grown-up children are tradit ionally expected to accept vanaprastha (celibate retired) life. The role of monastic orders in Indian and now also Western society has to some e xtent been adapted over the years in accordance with ever-changing social struct ures. In religious organizations, the laity comprises all people who are not in the cl ergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who has not ordained legitim ate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order (for example a nun or lay brother).[1] In the past in Christian cultures, the term lay priest was sometimes used to ref er to a secular priest, a diocesan priest who is not a member of a religious ord er. Terms such as lay priest, lay clergy and lay nun were once used in Buddhist cultures to indicate ordained persons who continued to live in the wider communi ty instead of retiring to a monastery. In recent centuries, the term is often us ed more generally, in the context of any specialized profession, to refer to tho se who are not members of that profession. The word lay derives from the Anglo-French lai (from Late Latin laicus, from the Greek , laikos, of the people, from , laos, the people at large). Christian laity [edit] Anglicanism In Anglicanism, the term "laity" refers to anyone who is not a bishop, priest, o r deacon, that is, the fourth order of ministers in the Church. In the Anglican tradition, all baptized persons are expected to minister in Christ's name. The o

rders of ministry are thus laymen, deacons, priests, and bishops. The ministry of the laity is "to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witnes s to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church".[2] Much of the ministry of the lai ty thus takes place outside official church structures in homes, workplaces, sch ools, and so forth. Laymen also play important roles in the structures of the ch urch. There are elected lay representatives on the various governing bodies of churche s in the Anglican communion. In the Church of England, these governing bodies ra nge from a local Parochial Church Council, through Deanery Synods and Diocesan S ynods. At the topmost level, the General Synod includes a house of Laity. Likewi se, in the Episcopal Church in the USA the General Convention includes four laym en from each diocese in the House of Deputies, and each diocesan convention incl udes lay delegates from the parishes. On the local parish level, laymen are elec ted to a church council called a vestry which manages church finances and elects the parish rector. Parish musicians, bookkeepers, administrative assistants, sextons, sacristans, e tc., are all roles normally filled by laymen. At higher levels, diocesan and nat ional offices rely on laymen in many important areas of responsibility. Often sp ecialized ministries as campus ministers, youth ministers, or hospital chaplains are performed by laymen. Laymen serve in worship services in a number of important positions, including v ergers, acolytes, lectors, intercessors, ushers, and so forth. Acolytes include torch bearers, crucifers, thurifers, and boat bearers. Lectors read the lessons from the Bible appointed for the day (except for the Gospel reading, which is re ad by a Deacon), and may also lead the Prayers of the People. Some specialized lay ministries require special licensing by the bishop. Which m inistries require a license varies from province to province. In the Episcopal C hurch, there are six specialized lay ministries requiring a license: Pastoral Le ader, Worship Leader, Preacher, Eucharistic Minister, Eucharistic Visitor, and C atechist.[3] [edit] Roman Catholicism Main article: Catholic Laity This Second Vatican Council [1962 1965] spent a great deal of time exploring the purpose and mission of the Laity in the Catholic Church. One of the main docume nts specifically relating to the Laity was Apostolicam Actuositatem.[4] Paragraph 31 of the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium defines the laity as fol lows: The term laity is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by th e Church. These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are consti tuted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the pri estly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the wor ld. The Second Vatican Council taught that the laity's specific character is secular ity, i.e. as Christians who live the life of Christ in the world, their role is to sanctify the created world by directing it to become more Christian in its st ructures and systems: "It belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by eng aging in the affairs of the world and directing them according to God's will," s

tated the Council in "Lumen Gentium." The laity are full members of the Church, who fully share in Church's purpose of sanctification, of "inner union of men wi th God," (CCC 775) acting with freedom and personal responsibility and not as me re agents of the hierarchy. Due to their baptism, they are members of God's fami ly, the Church, and they grow in intimate union with God, "in" and "by means" of the world. It is not a matter of departing from the world as the monks and the nuns do that they sanctify themselves; it is precisely through the material worl d sanctified by the coming of the God made flesh, i.e. made material, that they reach God. Doctors, mothers of a family, farmers, bank tellers, drivers, by doin g their jobs in the world with a Christian spirit are already extending the King dom of God. According to the repeated statements of Popes and lay Catholic leade rs, the laity should say "we are the Church," in the same way that the saints sa id that "Christ lives in me." Lay involvement has taken diverse forms including participation in the life of t he parish, unions of prayer, confraternities, communes, guilds, lay apostolates, Catholic Action, secular institutes, and lay ecclesial movements. The role of the laity in the Church includes lay ministers. Also, as a result of the priest shortage, members of the laity have had to take on some of the roles previously performed by priests. [edit] Methodist Lay Preacher Main article: Methodist local preacher A very early tradition of preaching in the Wesleyan / Methodist churches was for a Lay Preacher to be appointed to lead services of worship and preach in a grou p (called a 'circuit') of meeting places or churches. The lay preacher walked or rode on horseback in a prescribed circuit of the preaching places according to an agreed pattern and timing, and people came to the meetings. After the appoint ment of ministers and pastors, this lay preaching tradition continued with Local Preachers being appointed by individual churches, and in turn approved and invi ted by nearby churches, as an adjunct to the minister or during their planned ab sences. In addition to being appointed by members of their local churches, Local and Cer tified Lay Speakers of the United Methodist Church (more commonly in the United States) attend a series of training sessions. These training sessions prepare th e individual to become a leader within the church. All individuals who are full members of the church are laity, but some go on to become Lay Speakers. Some pre achers get their start as Lay Speakers. In the Uniting Church in Australia, that was constituted in part from the Method ist Church, persons can be appointed: by the congregation as a Lay Preacher; and/or by the regional Presbytery to conduct Communion. A well-known lay preacher was the late King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV of Tonga. The comparable term in the Anglican and Episcopal churches is Lay Reader. Layman, laity': In short: "laity" means "common people". The English word "laity" comes from the Greek laikos which meant "of the people", "common" (common, in t he meaning "unholy", "unclean" and similar). The related verb laiko meant "to mak e common", "to desecrate". Whoever calls people "laity" (or "layman" or "laymen" in within the religious context), is actually calling them "common", that is, u nholy or "unclean". However, most people are perhaps unaware (we pray) of the tr ue meaning, and it has become a custom to call non-clergy, lay. [edit] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Main article: Priesthood (LDS Church)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, practice the principle of havin g a lay ministry. Essentially all worthy male members above the age of 12 are or dained to an office of the priesthood and hold various positions in the church. With the exception of General Authorities, all leadership positions are temporar y. Permanent positions are only held by apostles and the First Quorum of the Sev enty. They are also unpaid positions, and they are often called to these positio ns after a long secular career. Patriarch (usually one per Stake) are also calle d for life. [edit] Buddhist lay persons Main article: Householder (Buddhism) In Buddhism, a layperson is known as an upasaka (masc.) or upasika (fem.). Buddh ist laypeople take refuge in the Triple Gem (the Buddha, his teaching, and his c ommunity of noble disciples) and accept the Five Precepts as rules for conduct.[ citation needed] Laymen and laywomen are two of the "four assemblies" that compr ise the Buddha's "Community of Disciples." In Chinese Buddhism, there are usually laypersons, who are depicted wearing a bl ack robe and sometimes a brown sash, denoting that they received the five precep ts. --------------------------------------------------------------------------Most religions have an ethical component, often derived ral revelation or guidance. "For many people, ethics is ligion, but is completely settled by it. Such people do ch about ethics, because there is an authoritative code ook of how to live."[1] from purported supernatu not only tied up with re not need to think too mu of instructions, a handb

Ethics, which is a major branch of philosophy, encompasses right conduct and goo d life. It is significantly broader than the common conception of analyzing righ t and wrong. A central aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worth livin g or life that is simply satisfying, which is held by many philosophers to be mo re important than traditional moral conduct.[2] Some assert that religion is necessary to live ethically. According to Simon Bla ckburn, there are those who "would say that we can only flourish under the umbre lla of a strong social order, cemented by common adherence to a particular relig ious tradition".[3] Buddhist ethics Main article: Buddhist ethics Ethics in Buddhism are traditionally based on the enlightened perspective of the Buddha, or other enlightened beings who followed him. Moral instructions are in cluded in Buddhist scriptures or handed down through tradition. Most scholars of Buddhist ethics thus rely on the examination of Buddhist scriptures, and the us e of anthropological evidence from traditional Buddhist societies, to justify cl aims about the nature of Buddhist ethics.[4] According to traditional Buddhism, the foundation of Buddhist ethics for laypeop le is the Pancasila: no killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, or intoxica nts. In becoming a Buddhist, or affirming one's commitment to Buddhism, a layper son is encouraged to vow to abstain from these negative actions. Buddhist monks and nuns take hundreds more such vows (see vinaya). The sole reliance on traditional formulae or practices, however, can be question ed by Western Buddhists whose main concern is the practical solution of complex moral problems in the modern world. To find a justifiable approach to such probl

ems it may be necessary not just to appeal to the precepts or the vinaya, but to use more basic Buddhist teachings (such as the Middle Way) to aid interpretatio n of the precepts and find more basic justifications for their usefulness releva nt to all human experience. This approach avoids basing Buddhist ethics solely o n faith in the Buddha's enlightenment or Buddhist tradition, and may allow more universal non-Buddhist access to the insights offered by Buddhist ethics.[5] The Buddha provided some basic guidelines for acceptable behavior that are part of the Noble Eightfold Path. The initial percept is non-injury or non-violence t o all living creatures from the lowest insect to humans. This precept defines an non-violent attitude toward every living thing. The Buddhist practice of this d oes not extend to the extremes exhibited by Jainism, but from both the Buddhist and Jain perspectives, non-violence suggests an intimate involvement with, and r elationship to, all living things.[6] Theravada monk Bhikkhu Bodhi has observed: "Buddhist ethics, as formulated in the five precepts, is sometimes charged w ith being entirely negative. ... [I]t has to be pointed out that the five precep ts, or even the longer codes of precepts promulgated by the Buddha, do not exhau st the full range of Buddhist ethics. The precepts are only the most rudimentary code of moral training, but the Buddha also proposes other ethical codes inculc ating definite positive virtues. The Mangala Sutta, for example, commends revere nce, humility, contentment, gratitude, patience, generosity, etc. Other discours es prescribe numerous family, social, and political duties establishing the well being of society. And behind all these duties lie the four attitudes called the "immeasurables" loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity."[ 7] [edit] Christian ethics Main article: Christian ethics See also: Sermon on the Mount, The New Commandment, and Ministry of Jesus Christian ethics in general has tended to stress the need for love, grace, mercy , and forgiveness because of sin. With divine assistance, the Christian is calle d to become increasingly virtuous in both thought and deed, see also the Evangel ical counsels. Conversely, the Christian is also called to abstain from vice. Christian ethical principles are based on the teachings within the Bible. They b egin with the notion of inherent sinfulness, which requires essential atonement. Sin is estrangement from God which is the result of not doing God's will. God's will can be summed up by the precept: "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind , and strength, and your neighbor as yourself", commonly called the Great Comman dment. Christian ethics are founded upon the concept of grace which transforms a person's life and enable's one to choose and act righteously. As sin is both in dividual and social, so is grace applied to both the individual and society. Chr istian ethics has a teleological aspect--all ethical behavior is oriented toward s a vision of the Kingdom of God--a righteous society where all live in peace an d harmony with God and nature, as envisioned in the Book of Isaiah. Specific eth ical behaviors originate in the Old Testaments Ten Commandments, and are enriched by teachings in the Psalms and morals contained in historical accounts, see als o Biblical law in Christianity. Christian ethics is not substantially different from Jewish ethics, except in th e exhortation to love one's enemy. Perhaps the greatest contribution of Christia n ethics is this command to love one's enemies. It has been argued (see Chet Mey er's Binding the Strong Man, and John Yoder's The Politics of Jesus) that Jesus was waging a non-violent campaign against the Roman oppressors and many of his s ayings relate to this campaign--turn the other cheek, go the second mile, etc. U nderstanding these commands as part of a larger campaign makes it impossible to

interpret Christian ethics as an individual ethic. It is both an individual and a social ethic concerned with life here on earth. Other tenets include maintaining personal integrity and the absence of hypocrisy , as well as honesty and loyalty, mercy and forgiveness, rejection of materialis m and the desire for wealth and power, and teaching others in your life through personal joy, happiness and Godly devotion. There are several different schema of vice and virtue. Aquinas adopted the four cardinal virtues of Aristotle, justice, courage, temperance and prudence, and ad ded to them the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity (from St.Paul, 1 Co rinthians 13). Other schema include the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven virtues. For more see Christian philosophy and Biblical law in Christianity. [edit] Confucian ethics Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism emphasize the maintenance and propriety of rel ationships as the most important consideration in ethics. To be ethical is to do what one's relationships require. Notably, though, what you owe to another pers on is inversely proportional to their distance from you. In other words, you owe your parents everything, but you are not in any way obligated towards strangers . This can be seen as a recognition of the fact that it is impossible to love th e entire world equally and simultaneously. This is called relational ethics, or situational ethics. The Confucian system differs very strongly from Kantian ethi cs in that there are rarely laws or principles which can be said to be true abso lutely or universally. This is not to say that there has never been any consideration given to universa list ethics. In fact, in Zhou dynasty China, the Confucians' main opponents, the followers of Mozi argued for universal love (Chinese: ; pinyin: jin i). The Confuci an view eventually held sway, however, and continues to dominate many aspects of Chinese thought. Many have argued, for example, that Mao Zedong was more Confuc ian than Communist. Confucianism, especially of the type argued for by Mencius ( Chinese: ; pinyin: mng z), argued that the ideal ruler is the one who (as Confucius put it) "acts like the North Star, staying in place while the other stars orbit around it". In other words, the ideal ruler does not go out and force the people to become good, but instead leads by example. The ideal ruler fosters harmony r ather than laws. Confucius stresses honesty above all. His concepts of l (Chinese: ), y (Chinese: ), and rn (Chinese: ) can be seen as deeper expressions of honesty (Chinese: ; pinyin: chng; literally "sincerity") and fidelity (Chinese: ; pinyin: xio) to the ones to whom one owes one's existence (parents) and survival (one's neighbours, colleagu es, inferiors in rank). He codifed traditional practice and actually changed the meaning of the prior concepts that those words had meant. His model of the Conf ucian family and Confucian ruler dominated Chinese life into the early 20th cent ury. This had ossified by then into an Imperial hierarchy of rigid property righ ts, hard to distinguish from any other dictatorship. Traditional ethics had been perverted by legalism. [edit] Buddhist influence Buddhism, and specifically Mahayana Buddhism, brought a cohesive metaphysic to C hinese thought and a strong emphasis on universalism. Neo-Confucianism was large ly a reaction to Buddhism's dominance in the Tang dynasty, and an attempt at dev eloping a native Confucian metaphysical/analytical system. [edit] Daoist ethics Laozi and other Daoist authors argued for an even greater passivity on the part of rulers than did the Confucians. For Laozi, the ideal ruler is one who does vi rtually nothing that can be directly identified as ruling. Clearly, both Daoism and Confucianism presume that human nature is basically good. The main branch of

Confucianism, however, argues that human nature must be nurtured through ritual (li ), culture (wen ) and other things, while the Daoists argued that the trappin gs of society were to be gotten rid of. [edit] Hindu ethics Hindu ethics are related to reincarnation, which is a way of expressing the need for reciprocity, as one may end up in someone else's shoes in their next incarn ation. Intention is seen as very important, and thus selfless action for the ben efit of others without thought for oneself is an important rule in Hinduism, kno wn as the doctrine of karma yoga. This aspect of service is combined with an und erstanding that someone else's unfortunate situation, while of their own doing, is one's own situation since the soul within is the soul shared by all. The gree ting namaskar is founded on the principle that one salutes the spark of the divi ne in the other. Kindness and hospitality are key Hindu values. More emphasis is placed on empathy than in other traditions, and women are somet imes upheld not only as great moral examples but also as great gurus. Beyond tha t, the Mother is a Divine Figure, the Devi, and the aspect of the creative femal e energy plays a major role in the Hindu ethos. Vande Mataram, the Indian nation al song (not anthem) is based on the Divine mother as embodied by 'Mother India' paralleled to 'Ma Durga'. An emphasis on domestic life and the joys of the hous ehold and village may make Hindu ethics a bit more conservative than others on m atters of sex and family. Of all religions, Hinduism is among the most compatible with the view of approac hing truth through various forms of art: its temples are often garishly decorate d, and the idea of a guru who is both entrancing entertainer and spiritual guide , or who simply practices some unique devotion (such as holding up his arm right for his whole life, or rolling on the ground for years on a pilgrimage), is sim ply accepted as a legitimate choice in life. Ethical traditions in Hinduism have been influenced by caste norms. In the mid-2 0th century Mohandas Gandhi, a Vaishnava, undertook to reform these and emphasiz e traditions shared in all the Indian faiths: vegetarianism and an ideology of harms reduction leading ultimately to nonvi olence active creation of truth through courage and his 'satyagraha' rejection of cowardice and concern with pain or indeed bodily harm After his profound achievement of forcing the British Empire from India, these v iews spread widely and influence much modern thinking on ethics today, especiall y in the peace movement, ecology movement, and those devoted to social activism. [edit] Islamic ethics Main article: Islamic ethics The foundational source in the gradual codification of Islamic ethics was the Mu slim understanding and interpretations of the mankind has been granted the facul ty to discern God's will and to abide by it. This faculty most crucially involve s reflecting over the meaning of existence, which, as John Kelsay in the Encyclo pedia of Ethics phrases, "ultimately points to the reality of God." Therefore, r egardless of their environment, humans are believed to have a moral responsibili ty to submit to God's will and to follow Islam (as demonstrated in the Qur'an an d the Sunnah, or the sayings of Muhammad) [Quran 7:172]).[8] This natural inclination is, according to the Qur'an, subverted by mankind's foc us on material success: such focus first presents itself as a need for basic sur vival or security, but then tends to manifest into a desire to become distinguis hed among one's peers. Ultimately, the focus on materialism, according to the Is lamic texts, hampers with the innate reflection as described above, resulting in

a state of jahiliyya or "ignorance."[8] Muslims believe that Muhammad, like other prophets in Islam, was sent by God to remind human beings of their moral responsibility, and challenge those ideas in society which opposed submission to God. According to Kelsay, this challenge was directed against five main characteristics of pre-Islamic Arabia:[8] The division of Arabs into varying tribes (based upon blood and kinship). Th is categorization was confronted by the ideal of a unified community based upon Islamic piety, an "ummah;" The acceptance of the worship of a multitude of deities besides Allah - a vi ew challenged by strict Islamic monotheism, which dictates that Allah has no par tner in worship nor any equal; The trait of muruwwa (manliness), which Islam discouraged, instead emphasizi ng on the traits of humility and piety; The focus on achieving fame or establishing a legacy, which was replaced by the concept that mankind would be called to account before God on the day of res urrection; The reverence of and compliance with ancestral traditions, a practice challe nged by Islam which instead assigned primacy to submitting to God and following revelation. These changes lay in the reorientation of society as regards to identity and lif e of the Muslim belief, world view, and the hierarchy of values. From the viewpo int of subsequent generations, this caused a great transformation in the society and moral order of life in the Arabian Peninsula. For Muhammad, although pre-Is lamic Arabia exemplified "heedlessness," it was not entirely without merit. Muha mmad approved and exhorted certain aspects of the Arab pre-Islamic tradition, su ch as the care for ones near kin, for widows, orphans, and others in need and for the establisent of justice. However, these values would be re-ordered in import ance and placed in the context of strict monotheism.[8] Furthermore, a Muslim should not only follow these five main characteristics, bu t also be more broad about his morals. Therefore, the more the Muslim is applyin g these rules, the better that person is morally. For example,Islamic ethics can be applied by important verses in there holy book (The Quran). The most fundame ntal characteristics of a Muslim are piety and humility. A Muslim must be humble with God and with other people: And turn not your face away from people (with pride), nor walk in insolence throu gh the earth. Verily, God likes not each arrogant boaster. And be moderate (or s how no insolence) in your walking, and lower your voice. Verily, the harshest of all voices is the voice (braying) of the ass. (Quran 31:18-19) Muslims must be in controls of their passions and desires. A Muslim should not be vain or attached to the ephemeral pleasures of this world . While most people allow the material world to fill their hearts, Muslims shoul d keep God in their hearts and the material world in their hand. Instead of bein g attached to the car and the job and the diploma and the bank account, all thes e things become tools to make us better people. Morality in Islam addresses ever y aspect of a Muslims life, from greetings to international relations. It is univ ersal in its scope and in its applicability. Morality reigns in selfish desires, vanity and bad habits. Muslims must not only be virtuous, but they must also en join virtue. They must not only refrain from evil and vice, but they must also f orbid them. In other words, they must not only be morally healthy, but they must also contribute to the moral health of society as a whole. You are the best of the nations raised up for (the benefit of) men; you enjoin wh at is right and forbid the wrong and believe in God; and if the followers of the

Book had believed it would have been better for them; of them (some) are believ ers and most of them are transgressors. (Quran: 3:110) The Prophet, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, summarized the cond uct of a Muslim when he said: My Sustainer has given me nine commands: to remain conscious of God, whether in p rivate or in public; to speak justly, whether angry or pleased; to show moderati on both when poor and when rich, to reunite friendship with those who have broke n off with me; to give to him who refuses me; that my silence should be occupied with thought; that my looking should be an admonition; and that I should comman d what is right. [edit] Jewish ethics Main article: Jewish ethics Jewish ethics may be said to originate with the Hebrew Bible, its broad legal in junctions, wisdom narratives and prophetic teachings. Most subsequent Jewish eth ical claims may be traced back to the texts, themes and teachings of the written Torah. In early rabbinic Judaism, the oral Torah both interprets the Hebrew Bible and d elves afresh into many other ethical topics. The best known rabbinic text associ ated with ethics is the non-legal Mishnah tractate of Avot, popularly translated as Ethics of the Fathers. Generally, ethics is a key aspect of non-legal rabbin ic literature, known as aggadah, and ethical teachings are found throughout the more legal (halakahic) portions of the Mishnah, Talmud and other rabbinic litera ture. This early Rabbinic ethics shows signs of cross-fertilization and polemica l exchange with both the Greek (Western philosophical) ethical tradition and ear ly Christian tradition. In the medieval period, direct Jewish responses to Greek ethics may be seen in m ajor rabbinic writings. Notably, Maimonides offers a Jewish interpretation of Ar istotle (e.g., Nicomachean Ethics), who enters into Jewish discourse through Isl amic writings. Maimonides, in turn, influences Thomas Aquinas, a dominant figure in Catholic ethics and the natural law tradition of moral theology. The relevan ce of natural law to medieval Jewish philosophy is a matter of dispute among sch olars. [edit] Hellenistic influence See also: Hellenistic Judaism Ethics in systematic form, and apart from religious belief, is as little found i n apocryphal or Judo-Hellenistic literature as in the Bible. However, Greek philo sophy greatly influenced Alexandrian writers such as the authors of IV Maccabees , the Book of Wisdom, and Philo. Much progress in theoretical ethics came as Jews came into closer contact with t he Hellenic world. Before that period the Wisdom literature shows a tendency to dwell solely on the moral obligations and problems of life as appealing to man a s an individual, leaving out of consideration the ceremonial and other laws whic h concern only the Jewish nation. From this point of view Ben Sira's collection of sayings and monitions was written, translated into Greek, and circulated as a practical guide. The book contains popular ethics in proverbial form as the res ult of everyday life experience, without higher philosophical or religious princ iples and ideals. More developed ethical works emanated from Hasidean circles in the Maccabean tim e, such as are contained in Tobit, especially in Chapter IV. Here the first ethi cal will or testament is found, giving a summary of moral teachings, with the Go lden Rule, "Do that to no man which thou hatest!" as the leading maxim. There ar e even more elaborate ethical teachings in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarc

hs, in which each of the twelve sons of Jacob, in his last words to his children and children's children, reviews his life and gives them moral lessons, either warning them against a certain vice he had been guilty of, so that they may avoi d divine punishment, or recommending them to cultivate a certain virtue he had p ractised during life, so that they may win God's favor. The chief virtues recomm ended are love for one's fellow man, industry, especially in agricultural pursui ts, simplicity, sobriety, benevolence toward the poor, compassion even for the b rute and avoidance of all passion, pride, and hatred. Similar ethical farewell m onitions are attributed to Enoch in the Ethiopic Enoch (xciv. et seq.) and the S lavonic Enoch (lviii. et seq.) and to the three patriarchs. The Hellenistic Jewish propaganda literature made the propagation of Jewish ethi cs taken from the Bible its main object for the sake of winning the pagan world to pure monotheism. It was owing to this endeavor that certain ethical principle s were laid down as guiding maxims for the Gentiles, first of all the three capi tal sins, idolatry, murder, and incest, were prohibited (see Sibyllines, iii. 38 , 761; iv. 30 et seq.). In later Jewish rabbinic literature these Noachide Laws were gradually developed into six, seven, and ten, or thirty laws of ethics bind ing upon every human being. [edit] LaVeyan Satanist ethics Main article: LaVeyan_Satanism#The_Nine_Satanic_Sins [edit] The Nine Satanic Sins Stupidity The top of the list for Satanic Sins. The Cardinal Sin of Satanism . Its too bad that stupidity isnt painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatev er they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable. Satanists must learn to see through the trick s and cannot afford to be stupid. Pretentiousness Empty posturing can be most irritating and isnt applying the cardinal rules of Lesser Magic. This is on equal footing with stupidity for what keeps the money in circulation these days. Everyones made to feel like a big sho t, whether they can come up with the goods or not. Solipsism Projecting your reactions, responses, and sensibilities onto someo ne who is probably far less attuned than you are can be very dangerous for Satan ists. It is the mistake of expecting people to give you the same consideration, courtesy and respect that you naturally give them. They wont. Instead, Satanists must strive to apply the dictum of Do unto others as they do unto you. Its work for most of us, and requires constant vigilance, lest you slip into a comfortable i llusion of everyone being like you. As it has been said, certain utopias would b e ideal in a nation of philosophers, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, from a Machiavellian standpoint) we are far from that point. Self-deceit Its in the Nine Satanic Statements, but deserves to be repeated her e. It is another cardinal sin. We must not pay homage to any of the sacred cows presented to us, including the roles we are expected to play ourselves. The only time self-deceit should be entered into is when its fun, and with awareness. But then, its not self-deceit! Herd Conformity Thats obvious from a Satanic stance. Its all right to conform to a persons wishes, if it ultimately benefits you. But only fools follow along w ith the herd, letting an impersonal entity dictate to you. The key is to choose a master wisely, instead of being enslaved by the whims of the many. Lack of perspective Again, this one can lead to a lot of pain for a Satanist . You must never lose sight of who and what you are, and what a threat you can b e, by your very existence. We are making history right now, every day. Always ke ep the wider historical and social picture in mind. That is an important key to both Lesser and Greater Magic. See the patterns and fit things together as you w ant the pieces to fall into place. Do not be swayed by herd constraints: Know th at you are working on another level entirely from the rest of the world. Forgetfulness of Past Orthodoxies Be aware that this is one of the keys to b rainwashing people into accepting something new and different, when in reality i

ts something that was once widely accepted but is now presented in a new package. We are expected to rave about the genius of the creator and forget the original . This makes for a disposable society. Counterproductive Pride That first word is important. Pride is great up to t he point you begin to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The rule of Satanis m is: If it works for you, great. When it stops working for you, when youve paint ed yourself into a corner and the only way out is to say, Im sorry, I made a mist ake, I wish we could compromise somehow, then do it. Lack of Aesthetics This is the physical application of the Balance Factor. A esthetics is important in Lesser Magic and should be cultivated. It is obvious t hat no one can collect any money off classical standards of beauty and form most of the time, so they are discouraged in a consumer society; but an eye for beau ty, for balance, is an essential Satanic tool and must be applied for greatest m agical effectiveness. Its not whats supposed to be pleasing: Its what is. Aesthetic s is a personal thing, reflective of ones own nature, but there are universally p leasing and harmonious configurations that should not be denied.[9] [edit] Neopagan ethics [edit] Germanic Neopagan ethics Germanic Neopagans, including followers of both Asatru and Theodism, try to emul ate the ethical values of the ancient Germanic peoples (Norse or Anglo-Saxon) th rough the form of the Nine Noble Virtues. [edit] Scientology ethics Main article: Ethics (Scientology) Scientology ethics is based upon the concepts of good and evil. Ethics may be de fined as the actions an individual takes on itself to ensure its continued survi val across the dynamics.[10] [edit] Secular ethics Main article: Morality without religion See also: Secular ethics Secular ethics is a moral philosophy in which ethics are based solely on human f aculties such as scientific reason, sociobiological composition, or ethical intu ition, and not derived from purported supernatural revelation or guidance. Secul ar ethics comprise a wide variety of moral and ethical systems including consequ entialism, freethinking, humanism, secular humanism, and utilitarianism, among o thers. The majority of secular moral concepts are based on the acceptance of natural ri ghts and social contracts, and on a more individual scale of either some form of attribution of intrinsic value to things, Kantianesque ethical intuitionism or of a logical deduction that establishes a preference for one thing over another, as with Occam's razor. Approaches such as ethical egoism, moral relativism, mor al skepticism, and moral nihilism are also considered. [edit] Shinto ethics Shinto, the native religion of Japan, is highly polytheistic and animistic and, as such, does not have many teachings on ethical issues. [edit] Wiccan ethics Main article: Wiccan morality The pentagram within a circle, a symbol of faith used by many Wiccans, sometimes called a pentacle. Wiccan morality is largely based on the Wiccan Rede: 'An it harm none, do what y e will'. While this could be interpreted to mean "do no harm at all", it is usua lly interpreted as a declaration of the freedom to act, along with the necessity of taking responsibility for what follows from one's actions.[11]

Another element of Wiccan Morality comes from the Law of Threefold Return, which is understood to mean that whatever one does to another person or thing (benevo lent or otherwise) returns with triple force.[12] Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate a set of eight virtues mentioned in Doreen V aliente's Charge of the Goddess,[13] these being mirth, reverence, honour, humil ity, strength, beauty, power and compassion. In Valiente's poem they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throug hout Wiccan philosophy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The relationship between religion and science has been a focus of the demarcatio n problem. Somewhat related is the claim that science and religion may pursue kn owledge using different methodologies. The scientific method relies on reason an d empiricism, religion acknowledges revelation, faith and sacredness. Some schol ars say science and religion are separate, as in John William Draper's conflict thesis and Stephen Jay Gould's non-overlapping magisteria, while others (John Le nnox, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Ken Wilber, et al.) propose an interconnection . Perspectives Medieval artistic illustration of the spherical Earth in a 13th century copy of L'Image du monde (ca. 1246). The kinds of interactions that might arise between science and religion have bee n classified using the following typology:[1] Conflict, stating the disciplines contradict and are incompatible with each other. For example, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White's conflict the sis Independence treating each as quite separate realms of enquiry. For example, Stephen Jay Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) Dialogue suggesting that each field has things to say to each other about ph enomena in which their interests overlap. For example, William G. Pollard's studies in Physicist and Christian: A dialogue between the communities Integration aiming to unify both fields into a single discourse. For example, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Omega Point and Ian Barbour's sympathy towards process philosophy/process theology[2] This typology is similar to ones found in Ian Barbour[3] and John Haught.[4] Mor e typologies that categorize this relationship can be found among the works of o ther science and religion scholars such as Arthur Peacocke.[5] [edit] Conflict A variety of historical, philosophical, and scientific arguments have been put f orth in favor of the idea that science and religion are in conflict. Historical examples of religious individuals or institutions promoting claims that contradi ct both contemporary and modern scientific consensus include creationism (see le vel of support for evolution), and more recently, Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 state ments claiming that the use of condoms to combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa was ineffective and counterproductive.[6] In the Galileo affair, the acceptance, fr om 1616 to 1757, of the Greek geocentric model[7] (Ptolemaic system) by the Roma n Catholic Church,[8] and its consequent opposition to heliocentrism, was first called into question by the Catholic cleric Copernicus, and subsequently disprov ed conclusively by Galileo, who was persecuted for his minority view.[9][10][11] Additionally, long held religious claims have been challenged by scientific stu

dies such as STEP,[12] which examined the efficacy of prayer. A number of scient ists including Jerry Coyne[13] have made an argument for a philosophical incompa tibility between religion and science. An argument for the conflict between reli gion and science that combines the historical and philosophical approaches has b een presented by Neil Degrasse Tyson[14]Tyson argues that religious scientists, s uch as Isaac Newton, could have achieved more had they not accepted religious an swers to unresolved scientific issues. [edit] Conflict thesis Main article: Conflict thesis The conflict thesis, which holds that religion and science have been in conflict continuously throughout history, was popularized in the 19th century by John Wi lliam Draper and Andrew Dickson White. Most contemporary historians of science n ow reject the conflict thesis in its original form, arguing instead that it has been superseded by subsequent historical research indicating a more nuanced unde rstanding:[15][16] Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed ho stility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Chri stianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonizatio n. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they we re the exceptions rather than the rule. Gary Ferngren, Science & Religion[17] Today, much of the scholarship in which the conflict thesis was originally based is considered to be inaccurate. For instance, the claim that people of the Midd le Ages widely believed that the Earth was flat was first propagated in the same period that originated the conflict thesis[18] and is still very common in popu lar culture. Modern scholars regard this claim as mistaken, as the contemporary historians of science David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [earth's ] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."[18][19] Other misconceptions such as: "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections d uring the Middle Ages," "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science," a nd "the medieval Christian church suppressed the growth of the natural sciences, " are all reported by Numbers as examples of widely popular myths that still pas s as historical truth, even though they are not supported by current historical research. They help maintain the popular image of "the warfare of science and re ligion."[20] While H. Floris Cohen states that most scholars reject crude articulations of th e conflict thesis, such as Andrew D. White's, he also states that milder version s of this thesis still hold some sway. This is because "it remains an incontrove rtible fact of history that, to say the least, the new science was accorded a le ss than enthusiastic acclaim by many religious authorities at the time." Cohen t herefore considers it paradoxical "that the rise of early modern science was due at least in part to developments in Christian thoughtin particular, to certain a spects of Protestantism" (a thesis first developed as what is now sometimes call ed the Merton thesis).[21] In recent years, Oxford historian Peter Harrison has further developed the idea that the Protestant Reformation had a significant and positive influence on the development of modern science.[22] A review of altern atives to the White/Draper conflict thesis has been composed by Ian G. Barbour.[ 23][24] [edit] Independence A modern view, described by Stephen Jay Gould as "non-overlapping magisteria" (N OMA), is that science and religion deal with fundamentally separate aspects of h

uman experience and so, when each stays within its own domain, they co-exist pea cefully.[25] While Gould spoke of independence from the perspective of science, W. T. Stace viewed independence from the perspective of the philosophy of religi on. Stace felt that science and religion, when each is viewed in its own domain, are both consistent and complete.[26] Both science and religion represent distinct ways of approaching experience and these differences are sources of debate.[27] Science is closely tied to mathemat icsa very abstract experience, while religion is more closely tied to the ordinar y experience of life.[27] As interpretations of experience, science is descripti ve and religion is prescriptive.[27] For science and mathematics to concentrate on what the world ought to be like in the way that religion does can be inapprop riate and may lead to improperly ascribing properties to the natural world as ha ppened among the followers of Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C.[27] In contra st, proponents of a normative moral science take issue with the idea that scienc e has no way of guiding "oughts". The reverse situation, where religion attempts to be descriptive, can also lead to inappropriately assigning properties to the natural world. A notable example is the now defunct belief in the Ptolemy planetary model that held sway until ch anges in scientific and religious thinking were brought about by Galileo and pro ponents of his views.[27] [edit] Parallels in method Thomas S. Kuhn asserted that science is made up of paradigms that arise from cul tural traditions, which is similar to the secular perspective on religion.[28] Michael Polanyi asserted that it is merely a commitment to universality that pro tects against subjectivity and has nothing at all to do with personal detachment as found in many conceptions of the scientific method. Polanyi further asserted that all knowledge is personal and therefore the scientist must be performing a very personal if not necessarily subjective role when doing science.[28] Polany i added that the scientist often merely follows intuitions of "intellectual beau ty, symmetry, and 'empirical agreement'".[28] Polanyi held that science requires moral commitments similar to those found in religion.[28] Two physicists, Charles A. Coulson and Harold K. Schilling, both claimed that "t he methods of science and religion have much in common."[28] Schilling asserted that both fieldsscience and religionhave "a threefold structureof experience, theor etical interpretation, and practical application."[28] Coulson asserted that sci ence, like religion, "advances by creative imagination" and not by "mere collect ing of facts," while stating that religion should and does "involve critical ref lection on experience not unlike that which goes on in science."[28] Religious l anguage and scientific language also show parallels (cf. Rhetoric of science). [edit] Dialogue Clerks studying astronomy and geometry. France, early 15th century. A degree of concord between science and religion can be seen in religious belief and empirical science. The belief that God created the world and therefore huma ns, can lead to the view that he arranged for humans to know the world. This is underwritten by the doctrine of imago dei. In the words of Thomas Aquinas, "Sinc e human beings are said to be in the image of God in virtue of their having a na ture that includes an intellect, such a nature is most in the image of God in vi rtue of being most able to imitate God".[29] Many well-known historical figures who influenced Western science considered the mselves Christian such as Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Boyle. The Pew Forum has published data on attitudes about religion and science.[30] [edit] Concerns over the nature of reality

Science in the Enlightenment and Colonial eras was conceived as ontological inve stigation which uncovered 'facts' about physical nature. This was often explicit ly opposed to Christian Theology and the latter's assertions of truth based on d octrine. This particular perspective on science faded in the early 20th century with the decline of logical empiricism and the rise of linguistic and sociologic al understandings of science. Modern scientists are less concerned with establis hing universal or ontological truth (which is seen, and dismissed, as the pursui t of philosophy), and more inclined towards the creation of pragmatic, functiona l models of physical systems. Christian Theologyexcluding those fundamentalist ch urches whose aim is to reassert doctrinal truthshas likewise softened many of its ontological claims, due to increased exposure to both scientific insights and t he contrasting theological claims of other faiths.[citation needed] Scientific and theological perspectives often coexist peacefully. Non-Christian faiths have historically integrated well with scientific ideas, as in the ancien t Egyptian technological mastery applied to monotheistic ends, the flourishing o f logic and mathematics under Hinduism and Buddhism, and the scientific advances made by Muslim scholars during the Ottoman empire. Even many 19th century Chris tian communities welcomed scientists who claimed that science was not at all con cerned with discovering the ultimate nature of reality.[27] [edit] Integration [edit] Bah' Main article: Bah' Faith and science A fundamental principle of the Bah' Faith is the harmony of religion and science. Bah' scripture asserts that true science and true religion can never be in conflic t. Abdu'l-Bah, the son of the founder of the religion, stated that religion with out science is superstition and that science without religion is materialism. He also admonished that true religion must conform to the conclusions of science.[ 31][32][33] [edit] Buddhism Main article: Buddhism and science Buddhism and science have increasingly been discussed as compatible.[34] Some ph ilosophic and psychological teachings within Buddhism share commonalities with m odern Western scientific and philosophic thought. For example, Buddhism encourag es the impartial investigation of nature (an activity referred to as Dhamma-Vica ya in the Pali Canon)the principal object of study being oneself. A reliance on c ausality and empiricism are common philosophical principles shared between Buddh ism and science. However, Buddhism doesn't focus on materialism.[35][36] Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, spends a lot of time with scientists. In his book, "The Universe in a Single Atom" he wrote, "My confidence in venturing int o science lies in my basic belief that as in science, so in Buddhism, understand ing the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation." and "I f scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhis m to be false," he says, "then we must accept the findings of science and abando n those claims."[37][38] [edit] Christianity Science and Religion are portrayed to be in harmony in the Tiffany window Educat ion (1890). Earlier attempts at reconciliation of Christianity with Newtonian mechanics appe ar quite different from later attempts at reconciliation with the newer scientif ic ideas of evolution or relativity.[27] Many early interpretations of evolution polarized themselves around a struggle for existence. These ideas were signific antly countered by later findings of universal patterns of biological cooperatio n. According to John Habgood, all man really knows here is that the universe see ms to be a mix of good and evil, beauty and pain, and that suffering may somehow

be part of the process of creation. Habgood holds that Christians should not be surprised that suffering may be used creatively by God, given their faith in th e symbol of the Cross. Habgood states that Christians have for two millennia bel ieved in the love of God because he revealed "Himself as Love in Jesus Christ," not because the physical universe does or does not point to the value of love.[2 7] Robert John Russell has examined consonance and dissonance between modern physic s, evolutionary biology, and Christian theology.[39][40] [edit] Reconciliation in Britain in the early 20th century In Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early-twentieth-century Brita in, historian of biology Peter J. Bowler argues that in contrast to the conflict s between science and religion in the U.S. in the 1920s (most famously the Scope s Trial), during this period Great Britain experienced a concerted effort at rec onciliation, championed by intellectually conservative scientists, supported by liberal theologians but opposed by younger scientists and secularists and conser vative Christians. These attempts at reconciliation fell apart in the 1930s due to increased social tensions, moves towards neo-orthodox theology and the accept ance of the modern evolutionary synthesis.[41] [edit] Confucianism and traditional Chinese religion The historical process of Confucianism has largely been antipathic towards scien tific discovery. However the religio-philosophical system itself is more neutral on the subject than such an analysis might suggest. In his writings On Heaven, Xunzi espoused a proto-scientific world view.[42] However during the Han Synthes is the more anti-empirical Mencius was favored and combined with Daoist skeptici sm regarding the nature of reality. Likewise, during the Medieval period, Zhu Xi argued against technical investigation and specialization proposed by Chen Lian g.[43] After contact with the West, scholars such as Wang Fuzhi would rely on Bu ddhist/Daoist skepticism to denounce all science as a subjective pursuit limited by humanity's fundamental ignorance of the true nature of the world.[44] After the May Fourth Movement, attempts to modernize Confucianism and reconcile it wit h scientific understanding were attempted by many scholars including Feng Youlan and Xiong Shili. Given the close relationship that Confucianism shares with Bud dhism, many of the same arguments used to reconcile Buddhism with science also r eadily translate to Confucianism. However, modern scholars have also attempted t o define the relationship between science and Confucianism on Confucianism's own terms and the results have usually led to the conclusion that Confucianism and science are fundamentally compatible.[45] [edit] Hinduism See also: Hindu views on evolution In Hinduism, the dividing line between objective sciences and spiritual knowledg e (adhyatma vidya) is a linguistic paradox.[46] Hindu scholastic activities and ancient Indian scientific advancements were so interconnected that many Hindu sc riptures are also ancient scientific manuals and vice-versa. Hindu sages maintai ned that logical argument and rational proof using Nyaya is the way to obtain co rrect knowledge.[46] From a Hindu perspective, modern science is a legitimate, b ut incomplete, step towards knowing and understanding reality. Hinduism views th at science only offers a limited view of reality, but all it offers is right and correct.[47] Hinduism offers methods to correct and transform itself in course of time. Hindu views on evolution include a range of viewpoints in regards to evolution, creationism, and the origin of life within the traditions of Hinduism. Samkhya, the oldest school of Hindu philosophy prescribes a particular method to analyze knowledge. According to Samkhya, all knowledge is possible through thre e pramanas (means of valid knowledge)[48][49]

Pratyaka or Dam direct sense perception, Anumna logical inference and abda or ptavacana verbal testimony. Nyaya, the Hindu school of logic, accepts all these 3 means and in addition acce pts one more - Upamna (comparison). The accounts of the emergence of life within the universe vary in description, b ut classically the deity called Brahma, from a Trimurti of three deities also in cluding Vishnu and Shiva, is described as performing the act of 'creation', or m ore specifically of 'propagating life within the universe' with the other two de ities being responsible for 'preservation' and 'destruction' (of the universe) r espectively.[50] In this respect some Hindu schools do not treat the scriptural creation myth literally and often the creation stories themselves do not go into specific detail, thus leaving open the possibility of incorporating at least so me theories in support of evolution. Some Hindus find support for, or foreshadow ing of evolutionary ideas in scriptures, namely the Vedas.[51] The incarnations of Vishnu (Dashavatara) is almost identical to the scientific e xplanation of the sequence of biological evolution of man and animals.[52][53][5 4][55] The sequence of avatars starts from an aquatic organism (Matsya), to an a mphibian (Kurma), to a land-animal (Varaha), to a humanoid (Narasimha), to a dwa rf human (Vamana), to 5 forms of well developed human beings (Parashurama, Rama, Balarama/Buddha, Krishna, Kalki) who showcase an increasing form of complexity (Axe-man, King, Plougher/Sage, wise Statesman, mighty Warrior).[52][55] In India , the home country of Hindus; educated Hindus widely accept the theory of biolog ical evolution. In a survey, 77% of respondents in India agreed that enough scie ntific evidence exists to support Charles Darwins Theory of Evolution, and 85 per cent of God-believing people said they believe in evolution as well.[56][57] An exception to this acceptance is the International Society for Krishna Conscious ness (ISKCON), which includes several members who actively oppose "Darwinism" an d the modern evolutionary synthesis (see Hindu Creationism). [edit] Islam Main article: Islam and science From an Islamic standpoint, science, the study of nature, is considered to be li nked to the concept of Tawhid (the Oneness of God), as are all other branches of knowledge.[58] In Islam, nature is not seen as a separate entity, but rather as an integral part of Islams holistic outlook on God, humanity, and the world. Unl ike the other Abrahamic monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity, the Is lamic view of science and nature is continuous with that of religion and God. Th is link implies a sacred aspect to the pursuit of scientific knowledge by Muslim s, as nature itself is viewed in the Qur'an as a compilation of signs pointing t o the Divine.[59] It was with this understanding that science was studied and un derstood in Islamic civilizations, specifically during the eighth to sixteenth c enturies, prior to the colonization of the Muslim world.[60] According to most historians, the modern scientific method was first developed b y Islamic scientists, pioneered by Ibn Al-Haytham, known to the west as "Alhazen ".[61] Robert Briffault, in The Making of Humanity, asserts that the very existe nce of science, as it is understood in the modern sense, is rooted in the scient ific thought and knowledge that emerged in Islamic civilizations during this tim e.[62] However, the colonizing powers of the western world and their destruction of the Islamic scientific tradition forced the discourse of Islam and Science in to a new period. Institutions that had existed for centuries in the Muslim world were destroyed and replaced by new scientific institutions implemented by the coloni zing powers and suiting their economic, political, and military agendas.[citatio

n needed] This drastically changed the practice of science in the Muslim world, as Islamic scientists had to interact with the western approach to scientific le arning, which was based on a philosophy of nature completely foreign to them.[58 ] From the time of this initial upheaval of the Islamic scientific tradition to the present day, Muslim scientists and scholars have developed a spectrum of vie wpoints on the place of scientific learning within the context of Islam, none of which are universally accepted or practiced.[63] However, most maintain the vie w that the acquisition of knowledge and scientific pursuit in general is not in disaccord with Islamic thought and religious belief.[58][63] [edit] Current scholarship The modern dialogue between religion and science is rooted in Ian Barbour's 1966 book Issues in Science and Religion.[64] Since that time it has grown in to a s erious academic field, with academic chairs in the subject area, and two dedicat ed academic journals, Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science and Theology and Scie nce.[64] Articles are also sometimes found in mainstream science journals such a s American Journal of Physics[65] and Science.[66][67] Recently philosopher Alvin Plantinga has argued that there is superficial confli ct but deep concord between science and religion, and that there is superficial concord but deep conflict between science and naturalism.[68] [edit] Influence of a biblical world view on early modern science H. Floris Cohen argued for a biblical[69] influence on the early development of modern science.[70] Cohen presented Dutch historian R. Hooykaas' argument that a biblical world-view holds all the necessary antidotes for the hubris of Greek r ationalism: a respect for manual labour, leading to experimentation and a greate r level of empiricism and a supreme God that left nature "de-deified" and open t o emulation and manipulation.[70] This argument gives support to the idea that t he rise of early modern science was due to a unique combination of Greek and bib lical thought.[71] Cohen summarised Hooykaas' conclusion as attributing the rise of modern science to the combination of the "Greek powers of abstract reasoning and of thinking up idealized constructions" in combination with "the biblical h umility toward accepting the facts of nature as they are, combined with a view o f man as fitted out by God with the power to take nature on".[72] Cohen also not ed that Richard S. Westfall "brought out the ultimate paradox" in stating: "Desp ite the natural piety of the virtuosi [English 17th-century scientists], the ske pticism of the Enlightenment was already present in embryo among them. To be sur e, their piety kept it in check, but they were unable to banish it. ... They wro te to refute atheism, but where were the atheists? The virtuosi nourished the at heists within their own minds." Oxford historian Peter Harrison is another who has argued that a biblical worldv iew was significant for the development of modern science. Harrison contends tha t Protestant approaches to the book of scripture had significant, if largely uni ntended, consequences for the interpretation of the book of nature.[73] Harrison has also suggested that literal readings of the Genesis narratives of the Creat ion and Fall motivated and legitimated scientific activity in seventeenth-centur y England. For many of its seventeenth-century practitioners, science was imagin ed to be a means of restoring a human dominion over nature that had been lost as a consequence of the Fall.[74] Historian and professor of religion Eugene M. Klaaren holds that "a belief in di vine creation" was central to an emergence of science in seventeenth-century Eng land. The philosopher Michael Foster has published analytical philosophy connect ing Christian doctrines of creation with empiricism. Historian William B. Ashwor th has argued against the historical notion of distinctive mind-sets and the ide a of Catholic and Protestant sciences.[75] Historians James R. Jacob and Margare t C. Jacob have argued for a linkage between seventeenth century Anglican intell ectual transformations and influential English scientists (e.g., Robert Boyle an

d Isaac Newton).[76] John Dillenberger and Christopher B. Kaiser have written th eological surveys, which also cover additional interactions occurring in the 18t h, 19th, and 20th centuries.[77][78] Oxford University historian and theologian John Hedley Brooke wrote that "when n atural philosophers referred to laws of nature, they were not glibly choosing th at metaphor. Laws were the result of legislation by an intelligent deity. Thus t he philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) insisted that he was discovering the " laws that God has put into nature." Later Newton would declare that the regulati on of the solar system presupposed the "counsel and dominion of an intelligent a nd powerful Being."[79] Historian Ronald L. Numbers stated that this thesis "rec eived a boost" from mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead's Scien ce and the Modern World (1925). Numbers has also argued, "Despite the manifest s hortcomings of the claim that Christianity gave birth to sciencemost glaringly, i t ignores or minimizes the contributions of ancient Greeks and medieval Muslimsit too, refuses to succumb to the death it deserves."[80] The sociologist Rodney S tark of Baylor University, a Southern Baptist institution, argued in contrast th at "Christian theology was essential for the rise of science."[81] [edit] Perspectives of religious communities [edit] Historical Judeo-Christian-Islamic view Science, and particularly geometry and astronomy, was linked directly to the div ine for most medieval scholars. The compass in this 13th century manuscript is a symbol of creation. Most sources of knowledge available to early Christians were connected to pagan world-views. There were various opinions on how Christianity should regard pagan learning, which included its ideas about nature. For instance, among early Chri stian teachers, Tertullian (c. 160220) held a generally negative opinion of Greek philosophy, while Origen (c. 185254) regarded it much more favorably and require d his students to read nearly every work available to them.[82] In the Middle Ages some leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity and Islam atte mpted synthesis between religion, philosophy, and natural sciences. For example, the Islamic philosopher Averroes,[83] the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and th e Christian philosopher Augustine of Hippo (354-430) held that if religious teac hings were found to contradict certain direct observations about the natural wor ld, then it would be obligatory to re-evaluate either the interpretation of the scientific facts or the understanding of the scriptures. The best knowledge of t he cosmos was seen as an important part of arriving at a better understanding of the Bible, but not yet equal with the authority of the Bible.[citation needed] The synthesizing approach has continued down to the present day; the Scot Henry Drummond, for example, wrote many articles, some of which drew on scientific kno wledge to tease out and illustrate Christian ideas.[citation needed] From the 11th century, however, scientific methods were being applied by both Mu slim scientists and Christian scientists to domains such as optics and planetary orbits, with results which threatened some of the Church's doctrines. Christian ity asserted religious certainty at the expense of scientific knowledge, by givi ng more explicit sanction to officially endorsed orthodox views of nature and sc ripture. Similar developments occurred in other religions. This approach, while it tended to temporarily stabilize doctrine, was also inclined toward making phi losophical and scientific orthodoxy less open to correction, as accepted philoso phy became the religiously sanctioned science. Observation and theory became sub ordinate to dogma. In Europe, scientists and scholars of the Enlightenment respo nded to such restrictions with increasing skepticism.[citation needed] [edit] Non-fundamentalist religious views In between these positions lie the views of non-fundamentalist religious believe rs. Large numbers of Christians and Jews still accept some or many traditional r

eligious beliefs taught in their respective faith communities, but they no longe r accept their tradition's teachings as unquestionable and infallible. Liberal r eligious believers do believe in God, and believe that in some way God revealed divine will to humanity. They differ from religious fundamentalists in that they accept that even if their religious texts were divinely inspired, they are also human documents which reflect the cultural and historic limitations and biases of their authors. Many support allegorical interpretations of Genesis. Such beli evers are often comfortable with the findings of archaeological and linguistic r esearch and historical-critical study. They will often make use of literary and historical analysis of religious texts to understand how they developed, and to see how they might apply in our own day. This approach developed among Protestan t scholars in the 18th and 19th centuries, and is now found among other Christia ns, Liberal Jewish communities and others.[citation needed] Some religious approaches acknowledge the historical relationship between modern science and ancient doctrines. For example, John Paul II, leader of the Roman C atholic Church, in 1981 spoke of the relationship this way: "The Bible itself sp eaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provid e us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declar e that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it express es itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer".[84] T his statement would reflect the views of many non-Catholic Christians as well. A n example of this kind of thinking is theistic evolution. This understanding of the role of scripture in relation to science is captured b y the phrase: "The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to go to heav en, not how the heavens go."[85] Thomas Jay Oord said: "The Bible tells us how t o find abundant life, not the details of how life became abundant." [edit] Scientific community's perspective [edit] History Further information: List of atheists (science and technology) and List of Chris tian thinkers in science In the 17th century, founders of the Royal Society largely held conventional and orthodox religious views, and a number of them were prominent Churchmen.[86] Wh ile theological issues that had the potential to be divisive were typically excl uded from formal discussions of the early Society, many of its fellows nonethele ss believed that their scientific activities provided support for traditional re ligious belief.[87] Clerical involvement in the Royal Society remained high unti l the mid-nineteenth century, when science became more professionalised.[88] Albert Einstein supported the compatibility of some interpretations of religion with science. In an article originally appearing in the New York Times Magazine in 1930, he wrote: Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the sam e necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one co nceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict b etween them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain ne cessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thoug ht and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between fa cts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situati on which has been described.[89]

Einstein thus expresses views of ethical non-naturalism (contrasted to ethical n aturalism). Prominent modern scientists who are atheists include evolutionary biologist Rich ard Dawkins and Nobel prize winning physicist Stephen Weinberg. Prominent scient ists advocating religious belief include Nobel prize winning physicist Charles T ownes, Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and past h ead of the Human Genome Project, and climatologist John T. Houghton.[66] [edit] Studies of scientists' belief in God Globe icon. The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwi de view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (March 2012) Many studies have been conducted in the United States and have generally found t hat scientists are less likely to believe in God than are the rest of the popula tion. Precise definitions and statistics vary, but generally about 1/3 are athei sts, 1/3 agnostic, and 1/3 have some belief in God (although some might be deist ic, for example).[66][90][91] This is in contrast to the more than roughly 3/4 o f the general population that believe in some God in the United States. Belief a lso varies by field: psychologists, physicists and engineers are less likely to believe in God than mathematicians, biologists and chemists.[92][93] Doctors in the United States are much more likely to believe in God (76%).[94] Some of the most recent research into scientists' self reported belief in God is discussed by Professor Elaine Howard Ecklund. Some of her most interesting find ings were that scientist-believers generally considered themselves "religious li berals" (not fundamentalists), and that their religion did not change the way th ey did science, but rather the way they reflected on its implications. Ecklund a lso discusses how there is a stigma against belief in God in the professional sc ience community, which may have contributed to underrepresentation of religious voices in the field.[95] [edit] List of studies Among contemporary scientistsphysicists and biologistsabout 40% held strong religi ous beliefs in 1997, which closely matched those of a similar 1916 poll.[66][90] According to a 1996 survey of United States scientists in the fields of biology, mathematics, and physics/astronomy, belief in a god that is "in intellectual an d affective communication with humankind" was most popular among mathematicians (about 45%) and least popular among physicists (about 22%). In total, about 60% of United States scientists in these fields expressed disbelief or agnosticism t oward a personal god who answers prayer and personal immortality.[92] This compa red with 58% in 1914 and 67% in 1933. Among members of the National Academy of Sciences, 7.0% expressed personal belie f, while 72.2% expressed disbelief and another 20.8% were agnostic concerning th e existence of a personal god who answers prayer.[96] A survey conducted between 2005 and 2007 by Elaine Howard Ecklund of University at Buffalo, The State University of New York and funded by the Templeton Foundat ion found that over 60% of natural and social science professors at 21 elite US research universities are atheists or agnostics. When asked whether they believe d in God, nearly 34% answered "I do not believe in God" and about 30% answering "I do not know if there is a God and there is no way to find out."[91] According to the same survey, "[m]any scientists see themselves as having a spirituality not attached to a particular religious tradition."[97] In further analysis, publ ished in 2007, Ecklund and Christopher Scheitle conclude that "the assumption th at becoming a scientist necessarily leads to loss of religion is untenable" and

that "[i]t appears that those from non-religious backgrounds disproportionately self-select into scientific professions. This may reflect the fact that there is tension between the religious tenets of some groups and the theories and method s of particular sciences and it contributes to the large number of non-religious scientists."[98] An explanation has been offered by Farr Curlin, a University of Chicago Instruct or in Medicine and a member of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, t hat science-minded religious people instead elect to study medicine. He helped a uthor a study that "found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 perce nt believe in some sort of afterlife." and "90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent o f all adults." He reasoned, "The responsibility to care for those who are suffer ing and the rewards of helping those in need resonate throughout most religious traditions."[94] Another study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that "just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 3 3% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spiri t or higher power."[99] 48% say they have a religious affiliation, equal to the number who say they are not affiliated with any religious tradition. The survey also found younger scientists to be "substantially more likely than their older counterparts to say they believe in God". Among the surveyed fields, chemists we re the most likely to say they believe in God.[93] Religious beliefs of US professors, many in scientific fields, were recently exa mined using a nationally representative sample of more than 1400, published in S ociology of Religion. They found that 60.8 percent of biology professors "are ei ther atheists or agnostics" (p. 115).[100] Ecklund and Sheitle's 2005-2007 survey also compared differences between natural and social scientists at the 21 elite US research universities that they survey ed. Analyses of the more than 1600 responses indicated that "differences in reli giosity between natural and social scientists are simply no longer a meaningful descriptor of the place of religion in the academy. For the most part, there is little difference between these larger fields [social versus natural science] or between the specific disciplines themselves. The differences that do exist are seen among chemists and political scientists who are more likely to be religious , according to traditional indicators, when compared to physicists"[101] (p. 299 ). [edit] Scientific study of religion See also: Religious studies, Psychology of religion, Handbook of Religion and He alth, and Faith and Health: Psychological Perspectives Scientific studies have been done on religiosity as a social or psychological ph enomenon. These include studies on the correlation between religiosity and intel ligence (often IQ, but also other factors). A recent study on serotonin receptor s and religiosity[102] suggests a correlation between low density of serotonin r eceptors and intense religious experiences. Also of popular interest are the stu dies regarding prayer and medicine, in particular whether there is any causal or correlative link between spiritual supplication and improvement of health. Surv eys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Centre and the Pew Organisation con clude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "ver y happy" than the least religiously committed people.[103] An analysis of over 2 00 social studies that "high religiousness predicts a rather lower risk of depre ssion and drug abuse and fewer suicide attempts, and more reports of satisfactio n with life and a sense of well-being."[104] A review of 498 studies published i n peer-reviewed journals concluded that a large majority of these studies showed a positive correlation between religious commitment and higher levels of percei

ved well-being and self-esteem, and lower levels of hypertension, depression and clinical delinquency.[105][106] Surveys suggest a strong link between faith and altruism.[107] Studies by Keith Ward show that overall religion is a positive c ontributor to mental health.[108] Michael Argyle and others claim that there is little or no evidence that religion ever causes mental disorders.[109] Other studies have shown that certain mental disorders, such as schizophrenia an d obsessive-compulsive disorder, are also associated with high levels of religio sity.[110] In addition, anti-psychotic medication, which is mainly aimed to bloc k dopamine receptors, typically reduces religious behaviour and religious delusi ons.[111] Some historians, philosophers and scientists hope that the theory of memetics, r eminiscent of the theory of genetics, will allow the modeling of the evolution o f human culture, including the evolutionary origin of religions. Daniel Dennett' s book Breaking the Spell (2006) attempts to begin such an analysis of modern re ligions. The idea that evolutionary processes are involved in the development of human culture and religion is not particularly controversial among natural scie ntists, although other approaches based on social sciences such as anthropology, psychology, sociology and economics are more prevalent in academic use. [edit] Perspectives of other groups in society A survey of a national sample of US college students examined whether these stud ents viewed the science / religion relationship as reflecting primarily conflict , collaboration, or independence.[112] The study reported that despite the seeming predominance of a conflict-oriented narrative, the major ity of undergraduates do not view the relationship between these two institution s as one of conflict. Undergraduate students are also more likely to move away f rom a conflict perspective than to adopt one during their college years.[112]:17 5 [edit] Religion and science community The religion and science community consists of those scholars who involve themse lves with what has been called the "religion-and-science dialogue" or the "relig ion-and-science field."[113][114] The community belongs to neither the scientifi c nor the religious community, but is said to be a third overlapping community o f interested and involved scientists, priests, clergymen, theologians, and engag ed non-professionals.[114][not in citation given] Institutions interested in the intersection between science and religion include the Center for Theology and t he Natural Sciences, the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, the Ian Ram sey Centre,[115] and the Faraday Institute. Journals addressing the relationship between science and religion include Theology and Science and Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The term interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive and positive in teraction between people of different religious traditions (i.e., "faiths") and/ or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional lev els. It is distinct from syncretism or alternative religion, in that dialogue of ten involves promoting understanding between different religions to increase acc eptance of others, rather than to synthesize new beliefs. Throughout the world there are local, regional, national and international inter faith initiatives; many are formally or informally linked and constitute larger networks or federations. The often quoted [1] "There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the reli

gions without dialogue among the religions" was formulated by Dr Hans Kng, a Prof essor of Ecumenical Theology and President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic. The United States Institute of Peace published works on interfaith dialogue and peacebuilding[2][3] including a Special Report on Evaluating Interfaith Dialogue [4] Interfaith dialog forms a major role in the study of religion and peacebuild ing. The term interreligious dialogue has the same meaning as interfaith dialogue. History The history of interfaith dialogue is as ancient as the religions since men and women when not at war with their neighbours have always made an effort to unders tand them (not least because understanding is a strategy for defence, but also b ecause for as long as there is dialogue wars are delayed). History records many examples of interfaith initiatives and dialogue throughout the ages. Interfaith dialogue and action have taken place for many centuries. The Empe ror Akbar the Great, for example, encouraged tolerance in Mughal India, a divers e nation with people of various faith backgrounds, including Islam, Hinduism, Si khism, and Christianity.[5] Religious pluralism can also be observed in other hi storical contexts, including Muslim Spain. The Ottoman Turks' administration of the Balkans from the 15th to 19th centu ries provides another historical example of generally peaceful coexistence betwe en peoples of different faiths, including Sufi and non-Sufi Muslims, Roman Catho lics, Orthodox Christians and Jews. The tolerant context of this period contrast s dramatically with the ethnic strife and atrocities in the region during the Yu goslav wars of the 1990s. There have been several meetings referred to as a Parliament of the Worlds Re ligions, most notably the World's Parliament of Religions of 1893, the first att empt to create a global dialogue of faiths. The event was celebrated by another conference on its centenary in 1993. This led to a new series of conferences und er the official title "Parliament of the World's Religions". Early 20th Century - dialogue started to take place between the Abrahamic fa iths - Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Bah'.[citation needed] The 1960s - The interfaith movement gathered interest.[citation needed] 1965 - The Roman Catholic Church issued the Vatican II document Nostra A etate, instituting major policy changes in the Catholic Church's policy towards non-Christian religions. In the late 1960s interfaith groups such as the Clergy And Laity Concern ed (CALC) joined around Civil Rights issues for African-Americans and later were often vocal in their opposition to the Vietnam War.[6] September 11, 2001 - After September 11, under the leadership of James P arks Morton, Dean Emeritus of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Interfai th Center of New York's mission became increasingly centered on providing assist ance to immigrant and disenfranchised communities whose religious leaders were o ften the only source of knowledge for new immigrants about coping with a new lif e in an urban environment like New York City. New programs were launched that re sponded to the needs of these constituents, combining practical information abou t establishing civic connections and information about other religions with insi ght about common social concerns. New programs included Religious Communities an d the Courts System (2003), Teacher Education in American Religious Diversity (2 003), Mediation for Religious Leaders (2005), and Religious Diversity Training f or Social Workers (2005). On October 13, 2007 Muslims expanded their message. In A Common Word Bet ween Us and You, 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals unanimously came together for the first time since the days of the Prophet[s] to declare the com mon ground between Christianity and Islam. In 2008, through the collaboration of The Hebrew Union College, Omar Fou

ndation, and the University of Southern California Center for Muslim-Jewish Enga gement was created. This inter-faith think tank began to hold religious text-stu dy programs throughout Los Angeles and has an extensive amount of resources on i ts website including scholarly articles about Creationism, Abraham and Human Rig hts. July 2008 - A historic interfaith dialogue conference was initiated by K ing Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to solve world problems through concord instead of conflict. The conference was attended by religious leaders of different faiths s uch as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism and was hosted by K ing Juan Carlos of Spain in Madrid.[7][8] January 2009, at Gujarats Mahuva, the Dalai Lama inaugurated an interfait h "World Religions-Dialogue and Symphony" conference convened by Hindu preacher Morari Bapu from January 6 to 11th 2009. This conference explored ways and means to deal with the discord among major religions, according to Morari Bapu. Parti cipants included Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche on Buddhism, Diwan Saiyad Zainul Abedin Ali Sahib (Ajmer Sharif) on Islam, Dr. Prabalkant Dutt on non-Catholic Christia nity, Swami Jayendra Saraswathi on Hinduism and Dastur Dr. Peshtan Hormazadiar M irza on Zoroastrianism.[9][10] July 2009, the Vancouver School of Theology opened the Iona Pacific: Int er-Religious Centre for Social Action, Research, and Contemplative Practice unde r the leadership of Principal and Dean, Dr. Wendy Fletcher, and Director, Rabbi Dr. Robert Daum. [edit] Policies of religions to interfaith dialogue [edit] Bah' Faith Main article: Bah' Faith and the unity of religion Interfaith and multi-faith interactivity is integral to the teachings of the Bah' Faith. Its founder Bah'u'llh enjoined his followers to "consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship."[11] Bah's are often at the forefront of local inter-faith activities and efforts. Through the Bah' In ternational Community agency, the Bah's also participate at a global level in inte r-religious dialogue both through and outside of the United Nations processes. In 2002 the Universal House of Justice, the global governing body of the Bah's, is sued a letter to the religious leadership of all faiths in which it identified r eligious prejudice as one of the last remaining "isms" to be overcome, enjoining such leaders to unite in an effort to root out extreme and divisive religious i ntolerance.[12] [edit] Buddhism Buddhism has historically been open to other religions.[13] As Ven. Dr. K. Sri D hammananda has stated: Buddhism is a religion which teaches people to 'live and let live'. In the h istory of the world, there is no evidence to show that Buddhists have interfered or done any damage to any other religion in any part of the world for the purpo se of introducing their religion. Buddhists do not regard the existence of other religions as a hindrance to worldly progress and peace.[14] The 14th century Zen master Gasan Joseki indicated that the Gospels were written by an enlightened being: "And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these...Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itse lf." Gasan said: "Whoever uttered those words I consider an enlightened man." [15

] The Dalai Lama has done a great deal of interfaith work throughout his life. He believes that the "common aim of all religions, an aim that everyone must try to find, is to foster tolerance, altruism and love".[16] He met with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1973. He met with Pope John Paul II in 1980 and also later in 1982, 1986, 1988, 1990, and 2003. During 1990, he met in Dharamsala with a deleg ation of Jewish teachers for an extensive interfaith dialogue.[17] He has since visited Israel three times and met during 2006 with the Chief Rabbi of Israel. I n 2006, he met privately with Pope Benedict XVI. He has also met the late Archbi shop of Canterbury Dr. Robert Runcie, and other leaders of the Anglican Church i n London, Gordon B. Hinckley, late President of the Church of Jesus Christ of La tter-day Saints (Mormons), as well as senior Eastern Orthodox Church, Muslim, Hi ndu, Jewish, and Sikh officials. In 2010, the Dalai Lama was joined by Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the United He brew Congregations of the Commonwealth, and Islamic scholar Professor Seyyed Hos sein Nasr of George Washington University when Emory University's Center for the Study of Law and Religion hosted a "Summit on Happiness".[18] [edit] Christianity Traditional Christian doctrine is Christocentric, meaning that Christ is held to be the sole full and true revelation of the will of God for humanity. In a Chri stocentric view, the elements of truth in other religions are understood in rela tion to the fullness of truth found in Christ. God is nevertheless understood to be free of human constructions. Therefore, God the Holy Spirit is understood as the power who guides non-Christians in their search for truth, which is held to be a search for the mind of Christ, even if "anonymously," in the phrase of Cat holic theologian Karl Rahner. For those who support this view, anonymous Christi ans belong to Christ now and forever and lead a life fit for Jesus' commandment to love, even though they never explicitly understand the meaning of their life in Christian terms. While the conciliar document Nostra Aetate has fostered widespread dialogue, the declaration Dominus Iesus nevertheless reaffirms the centrality of the person o f Jesus Christ in the spiritual and cultural identity of Christians, rejecting v arious forms of syncretism. Pope John Paul II was a major advocate of interfaith dialogue, promoting meeting s in Assisi in the 1980s. Pope Benedict XVI has taken a more moderate and cautio us approach, stressing the need for intercultural dialogue, but reasserting Chri stian theological identity in the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth in a book publ ished with Marcello Pera in 2004. For traditional Christian doctrine, the value of inter-religious dialogue is con fined to acts of love and understanding toward others either as anonymous Christ ians or as potential converts. In mainline liberal Protestant traditions, however, as well as in the emerging c hurch, these doctrinal constraints have largely been cast off. Many theologians, pastors, and lay people from these traditions do not hold to uniquely Christoce ntric understandings of how God was in Christ. They engage deeply in interfaith dialogue as learners, not converters, and desire to celebrate as fully as possib le the many paths to God. Much focus in Christian interfaith dialogue has been put on Christian-Jewish rec onciliation. One of the oldest successful dialogues between Jews and Christians has been taking place in Mobile, Alabama. It began in the wake of the call of th e Second Vatican Council (19621965) of the Roman Catholic Church for increased un

derstanding between Christians and Jews. The organization has recently moved its center of activity to Spring Hill College, a Catholic, Jesuit institution of hi gher learning located in Mobile. Reconciliation has been successful on many leve ls, but has been somewhat complicated by the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, where a significant minority of Arabs are Christian. [edit] Judaism Main article: Jewish views of religious pluralism Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism and Conservative Judaism encourage int erfaith dialogue. Interfaith dialogue is a controversial issue within the Orthod ox Jewish community. Some Orthodox Jews refuse to participate in interfaith dial ogues because they believe that Judaism's prohibition of proselytism, combined w ith other religions' "missionary zeal",[19] creates an unbalanced power dynamic such that the "dialogue" effectively becomes a monologue.[20] However, some Mode rn Orthodox Jews participate in interfaith dialogue. [edit] Islam This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help im prove this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material m ay be challenged and removed. (September 2010) Islam has long encouraged dialogue to reach truth (and not interfaith dialogue w hich seeks to find common between people and leave differences aside). Islam als o stressed that the supreme law of the land should be Islam and that Islam regul ates all life affairs and therefore regulates how non Muslim and Muslims live un der an Islamic state, with historical examples coming from Muslim Spain, Mughal India, and even starting as far back as Muhammad's time, where people of the Abr ahamic Faiths lived in harmony. Many traditional and religious texts and customs of the faith have encouraged th is, including specific verses in the Quran, such as: "O people! Behold, we have created you from a male and a female and have made you into nations and tribes s o that you might come to know one another. Verily, the noblest of you in the sig ht of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of Him. Behold, God is all-kno wing, all-aware." [Qur'an 49:13] In recent times, Muslim theologians have advocated inter-faith dialogue on a lar ge scale, something which is new in a political sense. The declaration A Common Word of 2007 was a public first in Christian-Islam relations, trying to work out a moral common ground on many social issues. Relations between Muslims and Jews remain quite difficult, notably due to the Is raeli-Palestinian conflict. There are inter-Muslim issues in between Sunnis and Shiites that are very much unresolved in the Middle East. Also, relations betwee n Muslims and Hindus in India and Pakistan could theoretically be much better if interfaith efforts were more successful. [edit] Ahmadiyya According to the Ahmadiyya understanding of Islam, interfaith dialogues are an i ntegral part of developing inter-religious peace and the establishment of peace. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has been organising interfaith events locally an d nationally in various parts of the world in order to develop a better atmosphe re of love and understanding between faiths. Various speakers are invited to del iver a talk on how peace can be established from their own or religious perspect ives.[21] [edit] Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism has long encouraged interfaith, all the way from Cyrus the Great' s speech in Babylon, which permitted the population to keep following their own religion and keep speaking their own language. Cyrus did not enforce the state r eligion unto the people. As well, Cyrus freed all the Jewish slaves from Babylon

, which earned him a place in the Jewish scriptures. Zoroastrians believe that a ll religions are equal, and that their religion is not superior to other religio ns. They believed that the Prophet Zoroaster implied the religion unto them, and did not convert each of them. Therefore, they do not even accept converts into their religion[citation needed]. All adherents must be born into the religion[ci tation needed]. [edit] Interfaith organisations Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA) was established in 2001 and works to buil d genuine coexistence and sustainable peace, through joint community building on the grassroots level, using interactive interfaith dialogue as its vehicle. The a-political and all-inclusive approach of the organization and its activities c ontinuously form the human infrastructure for peace in the Holy Land and the Mid dle East. In its ten years of existence, the IEA have held in its three regional focuses: in Israel, between Israelis and Palestinians and in the larger Middle East more than 1000 programs, with thousands of participants. A most significant fact is that the participants in IEA programs include people of all political a nd religious views, as well as all ages, genders, walks of life etc; and that th e vast majority of them have met 'the other' for the first time through IEA. The IEA have formed till now 41 on-going community-groups of interfaith encounter f rom the Upper Galilee to Eilat, including 10 groups that bring together on a reg ular basis Israelis and West Bank Palestinians. Among the latter we maintain the three only groups in the country that bring together Palestinians with Settlers . IEA maintains working relations with 7 Palestinian organizations, across the W est Bank and the Gaza Strip and is a founding partner of the Middle East Abraham ic Forum, with additional organizations from Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Moroc co, Tunisia and Turkey. Messiah Foundation International is an interfaith organisation which aims to pro mote mutual love, peace and understanding between members of all religions and f aiths through the spiritual sciences taught by Ra Gohar Shahi. MFI has centres a cross the globe, including in the United States of America, Canada, the United K ingdom of Great Britain, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Japan. While there are many essentially religious organisations geared towards working on interfaith issues (see Interreligious organisations) there is also a less com mon attempt by some governmental institutions to specifically address the divers ity of religions (see Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau for one example). In India, many organizations have been involved in interfaith activities because of the diversity of religion in the nation. United Religions Initiative (URI) was founded in 2000 to promote daily, lasting interfaith cooperation, end religiously motivated violence, and create cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings. With hundred s of thousands of members in 80+ countries representing over 200 religions and i ndigenous traditions, URI uses "cooperation circles" to promote dialogue and act ion. The Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center is a Jordanian non-governme ntal organization for promoting peaceful religious coexistence. It fosters grass roots interfaith dialogue and works on creating interreligious harmony. [edit] United Nations support On December 2, 2008, Anwarul Karim Chowdhury said: "Interfaith dialogue is absolutely essential, relevant, and necessary. ... I f 2009 is to truly be the Year of Interfaith Cooperation, the U.N. urgently need s to appoint an interfaith representative at a senior level in the Secretariat."

[22] The Republic of the Philippines will host a Special Non-Aligned Movement Min isterial Meeting on Interfaith Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace and Developmen t from March 16 to 18 in Manila. During the meeting, to be attended by ministers of foreign affairs of the NAM member countries, a declaration in support of int erfaith dialogue initiatives will be adopted. An accompanying event will involve civil society activities.[23] In 2010, HM King Abdullah II addressed the 65th UN General Assembly and prop osed the idea for a World Interfaith Harmony Week to further broaden his goals of faith-driven world harmony by extending his call beyond the Muslim and Christian community to include people of all beliefs, those with no set religious beliefs as well. A few weeks later, HRH Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad presented the proposa l to the UN General Assembly, where it was adopted unanimously as a UN Observanc e Event.[24] The first week of February , every year, has been declared a UN World Interfaith Harmony Week. The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre released a document wh ich summarises the key events leading up to the UN resolution as well as documen ting some Letters of Support and Events held in honour of the week.[25] [edit] Criticism of interfaith dialogue The group Hizb ut-Tahrir rejects the concept of interfaith dialogue, stating tha t it is a western tool to enforce non-Islamic policies in the Islamic world.[26] Conversely, organisations labelled as extremist have been accused of adopting in terfaith dialogue as a political front, as well as to raise funds. One commentat or has noted of Islamist groups, that, "Interfaith is the perfect do-good agenda w ith which to legitimise their reputation and obfuscate their genuine, more sinis ter, intentions."[27] British MP Paul Goodman has questioned the UK Government's decision to fund Camp usalam, a University interfaith group, that has received under half a million po unds of taxpayers' money[28], despite the group's open links to the Lokahi Found ation, widely considered to be an Islamist organisation.[29] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists i s matter or energy; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena ( including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words , matter is the only substance, and reality is identical with the actually occur ring states of energy and matter. To many philosophers, 'materialism' is synonymous with 'physicalism'. However, m aterialists have historically held that everything is made of matter, but physic s has shown that gravity, for example, is not made of matter in the traditional sense of "'an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist' So it is tempting to use 'physicalism' to distance oneself from what seems a historically important but no longer scientifically relevant t hesis of materialism, and related to this, to emphasize a connection to physics and the physical sciences."[1] Therefore much of the generally philosophical dis cussion below on materialism may be relevant to physicalism. Also related with materialism are the ideas of methodological naturalism (i.e. " let's at least do science as though physicalism is true") and metaphysical natur alism (i.e. "philosophy and science should operate according to the physical wor ld, and that's all that exists").

A variety of schools of thought call themselves "materialist", particularly thos e associated with Marxism, dialectical materialism and historical materialism. T he term can be used pejoratively, for example in the popular usage of the term " vulgar materialism" by Marxists and post-Marxists.[2] Contrasting philosophies i nclude idealism, other forms of monism, dualism and pluralism. Overview Materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology. As such, it is different fr om ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism, neutra l monism and spiritualism. Despite the large number of philosophical schools and subtle nuances between man y,[3][4][5] all philosophies are said to fall into one of two primary categories , which are defined in contrast to each other: Idealism, and materialism.[a] The basic proposition of these two categories pertains to the nature of reality, an d the primary distinction between them is the way they answer two fundamental qu estions: "what does reality consist of and how does it originate?" To idealists, spirit or mind is primary, and created matter secondary. To materialists, matte r is primary and mind or spirit is secondary, a product of matter acting upon ma tter.[5] The materialist view is perhaps best understood in its opposition to the doctrin es of immaterial substance applied to the mind historically, famously by Ren Desc artes. However, by itself materialism says nothing about how material substance should be characterized. In practice, it is frequently assimilated to one variet y of physicalism or another. Materialism is often associated with reductionism, according to which the object s or phenomena individuated at one level of description, if they are genuine, mu st be explicable in terms of the objects or phenomena at some other level of des cription typically, at a more reduced level. Non-reductive materialism explicitl y rejects this notion, however, taking the material constitution of all particul ars to be consistent with the existence of real objects, properties, or phenomen a not explicable in the terms canonically used for the basic material constituen ts. Jerry Fodor influentially argues this view, according to which empirical law s and explanations in "special sciences" like psychology or geology are invisibl e from the perspective of basic physics. A lot of vigorous literature has grown up around the relation between these views. Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the curvature of space. However philosophers such as Mary Midgley suggest that the concept of "matter" is elusiv e and poorly defined.[6] Materialism typically contrasts with dualism, phenomenalism, idealism, vitalism and dual-aspect monism. Its materiality can, in some ways, be linked to the conc ept of Determinism, as espoused by Enlightenment thinkers. It has been criticize d as a spiritually empty philosophy. During the 19th century, Karl Marx, influenced by Hegel and early positivists, e xtended the concept of materialism to elaborate a materialist conception of hist ory, which goes beyond metaphysics to apply to sociology and political economy, centered on the roughly empirical world of human activity (practice, including l abor) and the institutions created, reproduced, or destroyed by that activity (s ee materialist conception of history). In psychology, a similar view is called B ehaviorism[citation needed]. [edit] History of materialism

[edit] Axial Age Materialism developed, possibly independently, in several geographically separat ed regions of Eurasia during what Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age (approximate ly 800 to 200 BC). In Ancient Indian philosophy, materialism developed around 600 BC with the works of Ajita Kesakambali, Payasi, Kanada, and the proponents of the Crvka school of p hilosophy. Kanada became one of the early proponents of atomism. The NyayaVaisesi ka school (600 BC - 100 BC) developed one of the earliest forms of atomism, thou gh their proofs of God and their positing that the consciousness was not materia l precludes labelling them as materialists. The atomic tradition was carried for ward by Buddhist atomism and the Jaina school. Xun Zi (ca. 312230 BC) developed a Confucian doctrine oriented on realism and mat erialism in Ancient China. Other notable Chinese materialists of this time inclu de Yang Xiong and Wang Chong. Ancient Greek philosophers like Thales, Anaxagoras (ca. 500 BC 428 BC), Epicurus and Democritus prefigure later materialists. The Latin poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius (ca. 99 BC ca. 55 BC) recounts the mechanistic philosophy of Democritu s and Epicurus. According to this view, all that exists is matter and void, and all phenomena result from different motions and conglomerations of base material particles called "atoms" (literally: "indivisibles"). De Rerum Natura provides mechanistic explanations for phenomena such as erosion, evaporation, wind, and s ound. Famous principles like "nothing can come from nothing" and "nothing can to uch body but body" first appeared in the works of Lucretius. [edit] Common Era Later Indian materialist Jayaraashi Bhatta (6th century CE) in his work Tattvopa plavasimha ("The upsetting of all principles") refuted the Nyaya Sutra epistemol ogy. The materialistic Crvka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1 400 CE. When Madhavacharya compiled Sarva-darana-samgraha (a digest of all philos ophies) in the 14th century, he had no Crvka/Lokyata text to quote from, or even re fer to. [7]. In early 12th-century al-Andalus, the Arabian philosopher, Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) , wrote discussions on materialism in his philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus), while vaguely foreshadowing the idea of a historical materialism.[8] [edit] Modern Era Later on, Pierre Gassendi represented the materialist tradition, in opposition t o Ren Descartes' attempts to provide the natural sciences with dualist foundation s. There followed the materialist and atheist Jean Meslier, Julien Offroy de La Mettrie, Paul-Henri Thiry Baron d'Holbach, Denis Diderot and other French Enligh tenment thinkers; as well as in England, the pedestrian traveller John "Walking" Stewart, whose insistence that all matter is endowed with a moral dimension had a major impact on the philosophical poetry of William Wordsworth. Schopenhauer wrote that "...materialism is the philosophy of the subject who for gets to take account of himself".[9] He claimed that an observing subject can on ly know material objects through the mediation of the brain and its particular o rganization. The way that the brain knows determines the way that material objec ts are experienced. "Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everythin g material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this (especially if it should ultimately result in thrust an d counter-thrust) can leave nothing to be desired. But all this is something tha t is given only very indirectly and conditionally, and is therefore only relativ ely present, for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brai

n, and hence has entered the forms of time, space, and causality, by virtue of w hich it is first of all presented as extended in space and operating in time."[1 0] The materialist and atheist Ludwig Feuerbach would a signal a new turn in materi alism through his book, The Essence of Christianity, which provided a humanist a ccount of religion as the outward projection of man's inward nature. Feuerbach's materialism would later heavily influence Karl Marx. [edit] Materialist conception of history and Marx In 1870s Europe, there emerged a new philosophical and political theory called M arxism. Its founder, Karl Marx, interpreted the world and its laws by highlighti ng the materialistic aspects of life as vehicles of world history, and that is w hy his theory is called materialism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, turning Hegel's idealist dialectics upside down, came up with two distinct concepts: dialectical materialism and a materialist a ccount of the course of history known as the materialist conception of history, later labeled historical materialism.[11] Marx regarded the base material of the world as productive forces and their corresponding social relations (mainly cla ss relations, e.g. between serfs and their lord, or between employees and their employer). As an expression of these basic social relations, all other ideologie s form, including those of science, economics, law, morality, etc. Historical ma terialism has been expanded upon in the 20th century. Marx and Engels used the term "materialism" to refer to a theoretical perspectiv e that holds the satisfaction of everyday economic needs to be the primary reali ty in every epoch of history. Opposed to German idealist philosophy, materialism takes the position that society and reality originate from a set of simple econ omic acts which human beings carry out in order to provide the material necessit ies of food, shelter, and clothing. Materialism takes as its starting point that before anything else, human beings must produce their everyday economic needs t hrough their physical labor and practical productive activity. This single econo mic act, Marx believed, gives rise to a system of social relations which include political, legal and religious models usually intended to facilitate this proce ss or justify the current social system in existence. Scientific socialism holds that social mores, values, cultural traits and econom ic practices are not the property of some immutable natural law, but are product s of the social environment and are thus relative to the specific form of social organization in existence. These social relations are determined by material fo rces in society, such as the productive forces, natural environment and the leve l of technology. [edit] Scientific materialists See also: Physicalism Many current and recent philosopherse.g., Daniel Dennett, Willard Van Orman Quine , Donald Davidson, John Rogers Searle, and Jerry Fodoroperate within a broadly ph ysicalist or materialist framework, producing rival accounts of how best to acco mmodate mindfunctionalism, anomalous monism, identity theory and so on.[12] Scientific 'Materialism' is often synonymous with, and has so far been described , as being a reductive materialism. In recent years, Paul and Patricia Churchlan d have advocated a radically contrasting position (at least, in regards to certa in hypotheses); eliminativist materialism holds that some mental phenomena simpl y do not exist at all, and that talk of those mental phenomena reflects a totall y spurious "folk psychology" and Introspection illusion. That is, an eliminative materialist might suggest that a concept like 'belief' simply has no basis in f act - the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses. Reductive materiali sm being at one end of a continuum (our theories will reduce to facts) and elimi

native materialism on the other (certain theories will need to be eliminated in light of new facts), Revisionary materialism is somewhere in the middle.[12] Some scientific materialists have been criticized, for example by Noam Chomsky, for failing to provide clear definitions for what constitutes matter, leaving th e term 'materialism' without any definite meaning. The problem of providing such a definition seems particularly challenging given the fact that contemporary ph ysics does not have a single notion of matter; rather physics has two different and contradictory theories of matter, general relativity and quantum theory[cita tion needed]. Chomsky also points out that the concept of matter has been expand ed in the past to accommodate new scientific discoveries, and it's possible it w ill happen again, so scientific materialists are being dogmatic in assuming the opposite.[13] [edit] Defining matter The nature and definition of matter - like other key concepts in science and phi losophy - have occasioned much debate.[14] Is there a single kind of matter (hyl e) which everything is made of, or multiple kinds? Is matter a continuous substa nce capable of expressing multiple forms (hylomorphism),[15] or a number of disc rete, unchanging constituents (atomism)?[16] Does it have intrinsic properties ( substance theory),[17][18] or is it lacking them (prima materia)? One challenge to the traditional concept of matter as tangible "stuff" came with the rise of field physics in the 19th century. Relativity shows that matter and energy (including the spatially distributed energy of fields) are interchangeab le. This enables the ontological view that energy is prima materia and matter is one of its forms. On the other hand, the Standard Model of Particle physics use s quantum field theory to describe all interactions. On this view it could be sa id that fields are prima materia and the energy is a property of the field. According to the dominant cosmological model, the Lambda-CDM model, less than 5% of the universes energy density is made up of the "matter" described by the Sta ndard Model of Particle Physics, and the majority of the universe is composed of Dark Matter and Dark Energy - with no agreement amongst scientists about what t hese are made of.[19] This obviously refutes historical materialism which held t hat the only things that exist are things composed of the kind of matter with wh ich we are broadly familiar ("traditional matter") - which was anyway under grea t strain as noted above from relativity and quantum field theory. With the advent of quantum physics, some scientists believed the concept of matt er had merely changed, while others believed the conventional position could no longer be maintained. For instance Werner Heisenberg said The ontology of materia lism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct actuality of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolati on, however, is impossible . .. atoms are not things.. Likewise, some philosopher s[which?] feel that these dichotomies necessitate a switch from materialism to p hysicalism. Others use the terms "materialism" and "physicalism" interchangeably .[20] The concept of matter has changed in response to new scientific discoveries. Thu s materialism has no definite content independent of the particular theory of ma tter on which it is based. According to Noam Chomsky, any property can be consid ered material, if one defines matter such that it has that property.[21] [edit] Materialism and physicalism George Stack distinguishes between materialism and physicalism: In the twentieth century, physicalism has emerged out of positivism. Physica lism restricts meaningful statements to physical bodies or processes that are ve rifiable or in principle verifiable. It is an empirical hypothesis that is subje

ct to revision and, hence, lacks the dogmatic stance of classical materialism. H erbert Feigl defended physicalism in the USA and consistently held that mental s tates are brain states and that mental terms have the same referent as physical terms. The twentieth century has witnessed many materialist theories of the ment al, and much debate surrounding them.[22] George J. Stack, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy [edit] Criticism and alternatives The professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame Alvin Plantinga crit icises it, and the Emiritus Regius Professor of Divinity Keith Ward suggests tha t materialism is rare amongst contemporary UK philosophers: "Looking around my p hilosopher colleagues in Britain, virtually all of whom I know at least from the ir published work, I would say that very few of them are materialists."[23] [edit] Rejection of materialism by some scientists Michael Polanyi was a notable critic of materialism. In Life's irreducible struc ture (1968),[24] he argued that the information contained in the DNA molecule is irreducible to physics and chemistry. Although a DNA molecule cannot exist with out physical properties, these properties are constrained by higher level orderi ng principles. In Transcendence and Self-transcendence (1970),[25] Polanyi criti cised the materialistic world view that modern science has inherited from Galile o. Some modern day physicists and science writers such as Paul Davies and John Grib bin have openly expressed how scientific finds in physics such as quantum mechan ics and chaos theory have disproven materialism. In their 1991 book The Matter M yth in the first chapter titled The death of materialism they wrote: Then came our Quantum theory, which totally transformed our image of matter. The old assumption that the microscopic world of atoms was simply a scaled-down version of the everyday world had to be abandoned. Newton's deterministic machi ne was replaced by a shadowy and paradoxical conjunction of waves and particles, governed by the laws of chance, rather than the rigid rules of causality. An ex tension of the quantum theory goes beyond even this; it paints a picture in whic h solid matter dissolves away, to be replaced by weird excitations and vibration s of invisible field energy. Quantum physics undermines materialism because it r eveals that matter has far less 'substance' than we might believe. But another d evelopment goes even further by demolishing Newton's image of matter as inert lu mps. This development is the theory of chaos, which has recently gained widespre ad attention. Paul Davies and John Gribbin, 'The Matter Myth', Chapter 1 [edit] Religious and spiritual objections According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, materialism denies the existence of both deities and "souls."[26] It is therefore incompatible with most world religions including Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In most of Hinduism and Transcendent alism, all matter is believed to be an illusion called Maya, blinding us from kn owing the truth. Maya is the limited, purely physical and mental reality in whic h our everyday consciousness has become entangled. Maya gets destroyed for a per son when they perceive Brahman with transcendental knowledge. Kant argued against all three forms of materialism, subjective idealism (which h e contrasts with his "transcendental idealism"[27]) and dualism.[28] However, Ka nt also argues that change and time require an enduring substrate,[29] and does so in connection with his Refutation of Idealism[30] Postmodern/poststructuralis t thinkers also express a skepticism about any all-encompassing metaphysical sch eme. Philosopher Mary Midgley,[31] among others,[32][33][34][35] argues that mat

erialism is a self-refuting idea, at least in its eliminative form. [edit] Idealisms An argument for idealism, such as those of Hegel and Berkeley is ipso facto an a rgument against materialism. Matter can be argued to be redundant, as in bundle theory, and mind-independent properties can in turn be reduced to subjective per cepts. If matter and energy are seen as necessary to explain the physical world, but in capable of explaining mind, dualism results. Emergence, holism and process philo sophy seek to ameliorate the perceived shortcomings of traditional (especially m echanistic) materialism without abandoning materialism entirely. [edit] Materialism as methodology Some critics object to materialism as part of an overly skeptical, narrow or red uctivist approach to theorizing, rather than to the ontological claim that matte r is the only substance. Particle physicist and Anglican theologian John Polking horne objects to what he calls promissory materialism claims that materialistic science will eventually succeed in explaining phenomena it has not so far been a ble to explain.[36] Polkinghorne prefers "dual-aspect monism" to faith in materi alism.[37]. The psychologist Imants Barus suggests that "materialists tend to indiscriminatel y apply a 'pebbles in a box' schema to explanations of reality even though such a schema is known to be incorrect in general for physical phenomena. Thus, mater ialism cannot explain matter, let alone anomalous phenomena or subjective experi ence,[38] but remains entrenched in academia largely for political reasons."[39] -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to r eason as a source of knowledge or justification" (Lacey 286). In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not se nsory but intellectual and deductive" (Bourke 263). Different degrees of emphasi s on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position "that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowl edge" to the more extreme position that reason is "the unique path to knowledge" (Audi 771). Given a pre-modern understanding of reason, "rationalism" is identi cal to philosophy, the Socratic life of inquiry, or the zetetic (skeptical) clea r interpretation of authority (open to the underlying or essential cause of thin gs as they appear to our sense of certainty). In recent decades, Leo Strauss sou ght to revive Classical Political Rationalism as a discipline that understands t he task of reasoning, not as foundational, but as maieutic. Rationalism should n ot be confused with rationality, nor with rationalization. In politics, rationalism is a development of the Enlightenment that emphasizes a "politics of reason" centred upon support of the concepts of rational choice an d utilitarianism; this has especially been promoted by liberalism.[1] Background Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy, as in Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza (Bourke 263). This is commonly called continental rationalism, because it was pr edominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britain empiricism do minated. Rationalism is often contrasted with empiricism. Taken very broadly these views are not mutually exclusive, since a philosopher can be both rationalist and empi

ricist (Lacey 286287). Taken to extremes the empiricist view holds that all ideas come to us through experience, either through the external senses or through su ch inner sensations as pain and gratification, and thus that knowledge is essent ially based on or derived from experience. At issue is the fundamental source of human knowledge, and the proper techniques for verifying what we think we know (see Epistemology). Proponents of some varieties of rationalism argue that, starting with foundation al basic principles, like the axioms of geometry, one could deductively derive t he rest of all possible knowledge. The philosophers who held this view most clea rly were Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, whose attempts to grapple with th e epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a develop ment of the fundamental approach of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz assert ed that, in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be g ained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was n ot possible in practice for human beings except in specific areas such as mathem atics. On the other hand, Leibniz admitted that "we are all mere Empirics in thr ee fourths of our actions" (Monadology 28, cited in Audi 772). Rationalism is pr edicting and explaining behavior based on logic. [edit] Philosophical usage The distinction between rationalists and empiricists was drawn at a later period , and would not have been recognized by the philosophers involved. Also, the dis tinction was not as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested; for example, the three main rationalists were all committed to the importance of empirical science, and in many respects the empiricists were closer to Descartes in their methods and metaphysical theories than were Spinoza and Leibniz. [edit] History [edit] Ren Descartes (15961650) Main article: Ren Descartes Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths including the truths of mathematics, and the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the science s could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge, the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. He also argued that although dreams appear as real as sense experience, these dreams cannot pr ovide persons with knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief abo ut reality. He elaborated these beliefs in such works as Discourse on Method, Me ditations on First Philosophy, and Principles of Philosophy. Descartes developed a method to attain truths according to which nothing that cannot be recognised by the intellect (or reason) can be classified as knowledge. These truths are ga ined "without any sensory experience", according to Descartes. Truths that are a ttained by reason are broken down into elements that intuition can grasp, which, through a purely deductive process, will result in clear truths about reality. Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determi ned knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses. For inst ance, his famous dictum, cogito ergo sum, is a conclusion reached a priori ie. n ot through an inference from experience. This was, for Descartes, an irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge. Descartes posited a metaphysical dualism, distinguishing between the substances of the human body ("res extensa") and the mind or soul ("res cogitans"). This crucial distinction would be left unresolved and lead to what is known as the mind-body problem, sin ce the two substances in the Cartesian system are independent of each other and irreducible. [edit] Baruch Spinoza (16321677) Main article: Philosophy of Spinoza

The philosophy of Baruch Spinoza is a systematic, logical, rational philosophy d eveloped in seventeenth-century Europe.[2][3][4] Spinoza's philosophy is a syste m of ideas constructed upon basic building blocks with an internal consistency w ith which Spinoza tried to answer life's major questions and in which he propose d that "God exists only philosophically."[4][5] He was heavily influenced by thi nkers such as Descartes,[6] Euclid[5] and Thomas Hobbes,[6] as well as theologia ns in the Jewish philosophical tradition such as Maimonides.[6] But his work was in many respects a departure from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Many of Spinoz a's ideas continue to vex thinkers today and many of his principles, particularl y regarding the emotions, have implications for modern approaches to psychology. Even top thinkers have found Spinoza's "geometrical method"[4] difficult to com prehend: Goethe admitted that he "could not really understand what Spinoza was o n about most of the time."[4] His magnum opus, Ethics, contains unresolved obscu rities and has a forbidding mathematical structure modeled on Euclid's geometry. [5] Spinoza's philosophy attracted believers such as Albert Einstein[7] and much intellectual attention.[8][9][10][11][12] [edit] Gottfried Leibniz (16461716) Main article: Gottfried Leibniz Leibniz was the last of the great Rationalists who contributed heavily to other fields such as mathematics. He did not develop his system, however, independentl y of these advances. Leibniz rejected Cartesian dualism and denied the existence of a material world. In Leibniz's view there are infinitely many simple substan ces, which he called "monads" (possibly taking the term from the work of Anne Co nway). Leibniz developed his theory of monads in response to both Descartes and Spinoza . In rejecting this response he was forced to arrive at his own solution. Monads are the fundamental unit of reality, according to Leibniz, constituting both in animate and animate things. These units of reality represent the universe, thoug h they are not subject to the laws of causality or space (which he called "wellfounded phenomena"). Leibniz, therefore, introduced his principle of pre-establi shed harmony to account for apparent causality in the world. [edit] Immanuel Kant (17241804) Main article: Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant started as a traditional rationalist, having studied the rationali sts Leibniz and Wolff, but after studying David Hume's works, which "awoke [him] from [his] dogmatic slumbers", he developed a distinctive and very influential rationalism of his own, which attempted to synthesise the traditional rationalis t and empiricist traditions. Kant named his branch of epistemology Transcendental Idealism, and he first laid out these views in his famous work The Critique of Pure Reason. In it he argued that there were fundamental problems with both rationalist and empiricist dogma . To the rationalists he argued, broadly, that pure reason is flawed when it goe s beyond its limits and claims to know those things that are necessarily beyond the realm of all possible experience: the existence of God, free will, and the i mmortality of the human soul. Kant referred to these objects as "The Thing in It self" and goes on to argue that their status as objects beyond all possible expe rience by definition means we cannot know them. To the empiricist he argued that while it is correct that experience is fundamentally necessary for human knowle dge, reason is necessary for processing that experience into coherent thought. H e therefore concludes that both reason and experience are necessary for human kn owledge. [edit] Political rationalism Main article: Rationalism (politics) In political contexts, the term rationalism is used to define the political beli ef that is mid-way between realism and internationalism.[13] It is used to descr

ibe the political belief that the world political order is not as chaotic as sug gested by realists, but maintains a certain degree of order where nation-states do not violate others' sovereignty unless absolutely necessary. Whereas internat ionalism advocates a purely global and orderly approach to international affairs , and realism a purely individual and chaotic approach, rationalism appears to c ombine these two philosophies.[citation needed] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claimsespecially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claimsare unknown or unknowable.[1][2] Agnosticism can be defined in various ways, and is sometimes used to indicate doubt or a skeptical approach t o questions. In some senses, agnosticism is a stance about the difference betwee n belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief. In the p opular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and di sbelieve, respectively. In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view th at human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist. Within agnosticism there are agnostic atheists (who do not believe any deity exists, but do not deny it as a possibility) and agnostic theists (who believe a deity exists but do not claim it as personal knowledge). Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, coined the word agnostic in 1869.[3] However, earlier thinkers and written works have promoted agnostic points of vie w. They include Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher,[4] and the Nasa diya Sukta creation myth in the Rig Veda, an ancient Sanskrit text.[5] Since Hux ley coined the term, many other thinkers have written extensively about agnostic ism. Defining agnosticism Demographic research services normally do not differentiate between various type s of non-religious respondents, so agnostics end up in the same category as athe ists and/or other non-religious people.[6] Some sources use agnostic in the sens e of noncommittal.[7] Agnosticism often overlaps with other belief systems. Agno stic theists identify themselves both as agnostics and as followers of particula r religions, viewing agnosticism as a framework for thinking about the nature of belief and their relation to revealed truths. Some nonreligious people, such as author Philip Pullman, identify as both agnostic and atheist.[8] Thomas Henry Huxley defined the term: Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vi gorous application of a single principle... Positively the principle may be expr essed as in matters of intellect, do not pretend conclusions are certain that ar e not demonstrated or demonstrable. [edit] Etymology

Agnostic (from Ancient Greek - (a-), meaning "without", and (gnsis), meaning "knowle ") was used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a speech at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1869[9] to describe his philosophy which rejects all claims of spirit ual or mystical knowledge. Early Christian church leaders used the Greek word gn osis (knowledge) to describe "spiritual knowledge." Agnosticism is not to be con fused with religious views opposing the ancient religious movement of Gnosticism in particular; Huxley used the term in a broader, more abstract sense.[10] Huxl ey identified agnosticism not as a creed but rather as a method of skeptical, ev

idence-based inquiry.[11] In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean "not knowable".[12] In technical and marketing literat ure, "agnostic" often has a meaning close to "independent"for example, "platform agnostic" or "hardware agnostic." [edit] Qualifying agnosticism Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume contended that meaningful statemen ts about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt.[13] He asser ted that the fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition (i.e. tautologies such as "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three c orners"). All rational statements that assert a factual claim about the universe that begin "I believe that ...." are simply shorthand for, "Based on my knowled ge, understanding, and interpretation of the prevailing evidence, I tentatively believe that...." For instance, when one says, "I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy," one is not asserting an absolute truth but a tentative b elief based on interpretation of the assembled evidence. Even though one may set an alarm clock prior to the following day, believing that waking up will be pos sible, that belief is tentative, tempered by a small but finite degree of doubt (the alarm might break, or one might die before the alarm goes off). The Catholic Church sees merit in examining what it calls Partial Agnosticism, s pecifically those systems that "do not aim at constructing a complete philosophy of the Unknowable, but at excluding special kinds of truth, notably religious, from the domain of knowledge."[14] However, the Church is historically opposed t o a full denial of the ability of human reason to know God. The Council of the V atican, relying on biblical scripture, declares that "God, the beginning and end of all, can, by the natural light of human reason, be known with certainty from the works of creation" (Const. De Fide, II, De Rev.)[15] [edit] Types of agnosticism This Euler diagram represents the relationship between some common theological p ositions, including some types of agnosticism, as sets and regions. Agnosticism can be subdivided into several categories, some of which may be disp uted. Variations include: Agnostic atheism Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not have belief in the exist ence of any deity, and agnostic because they do not claim to know that a deity d oes not exist.[16] Agnostic theism The view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, bu t still believe in such an existence.[16] Apathetic or pragmatic agnosticism The view that there is no proof of either the existence or nonexistence of a ny deity, but since any deity that may exist appears unconcerned for the univers e or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic.[17] Ignosticism The view that a coherent definition of a deity must be put forward before th e question of the existence of a deity can be meaningfully discussed. If the cho sen definition is not coherent, the ignostic holds the noncognitivist view that the existence of a deity is meaningless or empirically untestable.[18] A.J. Ayer , Theodore Drange, and other philosophers see both atheism and agnosticism as in compatible with ignosticism on the grounds that atheism and agnosticism accept " a deity exists" as a meaningful proposition which can be argued for or against. Strong agnosticism (also called "hard," "closed," "strict," or "permanent agnost icism") The view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or de

ities, and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experie nce. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you." Weak agnosticism (also called "soft," "open," "empirical," or "temporal agnostic ism") The view that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is currently unkn own but is not necessarily unknowable; therefore, one will withhold judgment unt il/if any evidence is available. A weak agnostic would say, "I don't know whethe r any deities exist or not, but maybe one day, when there is evidence, we can fi nd something out." Spiritual Agnostic Agnostics who follow a devoted practice to traditionally spiritual practices in the absence of the knowledge of God while being irreligious.[citation needed ] [edit] History Since Huxley first used the term, several writers have defended agnosticism as a philosophical viewpoint. A number of earlier thinkers and writings have also ex plored agnostic thought. [edit] In Hindu philosophy The Rig Veda takes an agnostic view on the fundamental question of how the unive rse and the gods were created. Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) in the tenth chapt er of the Rig Veda says: Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen? Throughout the history of Hinduism there has been a strong tradition of philosop hic speculation and skepticism.[19][20] [edit] In Greek philosophy Agnostic thought, in the form of skepticism, emerged as a formal philosophical p osition in ancient Greece. Its proponents included Protagoras, Pyrrho, and Carne ades.[21] Such thinkers rejected the idea that certainty was possible. [edit] Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard Many philosophers (following the examples of Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas, and Des cartes) presented arguments attempting to rationally prove the existence of God. The skeptical empiricism of David Hume, the antinomies of Immanuel Kant, and th e existential philosophy of Sren Kierkegaard convinced many later philosophers to abandon these attempts, regarding it impossible to construct any unassailable p roof for the existence or non-existence of God.[22] In his 1844 book, Philosophi cal Fragments, Kierkegaard writes: Let us call this unknown something: God. It is nothing more than a name we a ssign to it. The idea of demonstrating that this unknown something (God) exists, could scarcely suggest itself to Reason. For if God does not exist it would of course be impossible to prove it; and if he does exist it would be folly to atte mpt it. For at the very outset, in beginning my proof, I would have presupposed it, not as doubtful but as certain (a presupposition is never doubtful, for the very reason that it is a presupposition), since otherwise I would not begin, rea dily understanding that the whole would be impossible if he did not exist. But i f when I speak of proving God's existence I mean that I propose to prove that th e Unknown, which exists, is God, then I express myself unfortunately. For in tha

t case I do not prove anything, least of all an existence, but merely develop th e content of a conception.[23] [edit] Thomas Henry Huxley Main article: Thomas Henry Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley Agnostic views are as old as philosophical skepticism, but the terms agnostic an d agnosticism were created by Huxley to sum up his thoughts on contemporary deve lopments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" (Hamilton) and the "unknowable " (Herbert Spencer). It is important, therefore, to discover Huxley's own views on the matter. Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869, his opini ons had taken shape some time before that date. In a letter of September 23, 186 0, to Charles Kingsley, Huxley discussed his views extensively: I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believ ing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a pr iori objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with na ture can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such evidence as w ould justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why shou ld I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force or the indest ructibility of matter... It is no use to talk to me of analogies and probabilities. I know what I mea n when I say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions... That my personality is the surest thing I know may be true. But the attempt to conceive what it is leads me into mere verbal subtleties. I have champed up a ll that chaff about the ego and the non-ego, noumena and phenomena, and all the rest of it, too often not to know that in attempting even to think of these ques tions, the human intellect flounders at once out of its depth. And again, to the same correspondent, May 6, 1863: I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthod oxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of my self, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justif ied in calling, atheist and infidel. I cannot see one shadow or tittle of eviden ce that the great unknown underlying the phenomenon of the universe stands to us in the relation of a Father [who] loves us and cares for us as Christianity ass erts. So with regard to the other great Christian dogmas, immortality of soul an d future state of rewards and punishments, what possible objection can Iwho am co mpelled perforce to believe in the immortality of what we call Matter and Force, and in a very unmistakable present state of rewards and punishments for our dee dshave to these doctrines? Give me a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jum p at them. Of the origin of the name agnostic to describe this attitude, Huxley gave the fo llowing account:[24] When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was a n atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which m ost of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis,"had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not , and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. So I took t

hought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic." It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church hist ory, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant . To my great satisfaction the term took. Huxley's agnosticism is believed to be a natural consequence of the intellectual and philosophical conditions of the 1860s, when clerical intolerance was trying to suppress scientific discoveries which appeared to clash with a literal readi ng of the Book of Genesis and other established Jewish and Christian doctrines. Agnosticism should not, however, be confused with natural theology, deism, panth eism, or other forms of theism. By way of clarification, Huxley states, "In matters of the intellect, follow you r reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable" (Huxley, Agnosticism, 1889) . Although A. W. Momerie has noted that this is nothing but a definition of hone sty, Huxley's usual definition goes beyond mere honesty to insist that these met aphysical issues are fundamentally unknowable. [edit] Robert G. Ingersoll Main article: Robert G. Ingersoll Robert G. Ingersoll Robert G. Ingersoll, an Illinois lawyer and politician who evolved into a well-k nown and sought-after orator in 19th century America, has been referred to as th e "Great Agnostic."[25] In an 1896 lecture titled Why I Am An Agnostic, Ingersoll related why he was an agnostic: Is there a supernatural poweran arbitrary mindan enthroned Goda supreme will th at sways the tides and currents of the worldto which all causes bow? I do not den y. I do not knowbut I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supremethat fr om the infinite chain no link can be lost or brokenthat there is no supernatural power that can answer prayerno power that worship can persuade or changeno power t hat cares for man. I believe that with infinite arms Nature embraces the allthat there is no int erferenceno chancethat behind every event are the necessary and countless causes, and that beyond every event will be and must be the necessary and countless effe cts. Is there a God? I do not know. Is man immortal? I do not know. One thing I d o know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be. In the conclusion of the speech he simply sums up the agnostic position as: We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. [edit] Bertrand Russell Main article: Bertrand Russell Bertrand Russell Bertrand Russell's pamphlet, Why I Am Not a Christian, based on a speech deliver ed in 1927 and later included in a book of the same title, is considered a class ic statement of agnosticism. The essay briefly lays out Russell objections to so me of the arguments for the existence of God before discussing his moral objecti ons to Christian teachings. He then calls upon his readers to "stand on their ow n two feet and look fair and square at the world," with a "fearless attitude and

a free intelligence." In 1939, Russell gave a lecture on The existence and nature of God, in which he characterized himself as an atheist. He said: The existence and nature of God is a subject of which I can discuss only hal f. If one arrives at a negative conclusion concerning the first part of the ques tion, the second part of the question does not arise; and my position, as you ma y have gathered, is a negative one on this matter.[26] However, later in the same lecture, discussing modern non-anthropomorphic concep ts of God, Russell states: That sort of God is, I think, not one that can actually be disproved, as I t hink the omnipotent and benevolent creator can.[27] In Russell's 1947 pamphlet, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? (subtitled A Plea Fo r Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas), he ruminates on the problem of what to c all himself: As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I shou ld say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think th at there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God . On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say th at I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods. In his 1953 essay, What Is An Agnostic? Russell states: An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God an d the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time. However, later in the essay, Russell says: I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going t o happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would ha ve seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then produced to happen, I might perhaps be convinced at least of the existence of some superhuman intellig ence. [edit] Leslie Weatherhead Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Christian Agnos tic In 1965 Christian theologian Leslie Weatherhead published The Christian Agnostic , in which he argues: ...many professing agnostics are nearer belief in the true God than are many conventional church-goers who believe in a body that does not exist whom they m iscall God. Although radical and unpalatable to conventional theologians, Weatherhead's agno sticism falls far short of Huxley's, and short even of weak agnosticism: Of course, the human soul will always have the power to reject God, for choi ce is essential to its nature, but I cannot believe that anyone will finally do this.

[edit] Demographics In the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center, 55 % of agnostic respondents expressed "a belief in God or a universal spirit."[28] 41%, however, stated that they thought that they felt a tension "being non-reli gious in a society where most people are religious."[29] [edit] Criticism Agnosticism is criticized from a variety of standpoints. Some religious thinkers see agnosticism as a limitation of the mind's capacity to know reality other th an materialism. Some atheists criticize the use of the term agnosticism as funct ionally indistinguishable from atheism. [edit] Religious Many theistic thinkers repudiate the validity of agnosticism, or certain forms o f agnosticism. Religious scholars in the three Abrahamic religions affirm the po ssibility of knowledge, even of metaphysical realities such as God and the soul, [30] because human intelligence, they assert, has a non-material, spiritual elem ent. They affirm that not being able to see or hold some specific thing does not necessarily negate its existence, as in the case of gravity, entropy, or reason a nd thought. Religious scholars, such as Brown, Tacelli, and Kreeft, argue that agnosticism d oes not take into account the numerous evidence of his existence that God has pl aced in his creation.[31] And for this, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli cite 20 arguments for God existence.[32] They assert that agnosticism's demand for scien tific evidence through laboratory testing is in effect asking God, the supreme b eing, to become man servant.[33] They argue that the question of God should be t reated differently from other knowable objects in that "this question regards no t that which is below us, but that which is above us."[34] Christian Philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that, even if there were truly no evidence for God, agnost ics should consider what is now known as Pascal Wager: the infinite expected val ue of acknowledging God is always greater than the finite expected value of not acknowledging his existence, and thus it is a safer bet to choose God.[35] According to Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, agnosticism, more specif ically strong agnosticism, is reasoning that limits and contradicts itself in cl aiming the power of reason to know scientific truth, but not religious or philos ophical truths.[34][36] He blames the exclusion of reasoning from religion and e thics for the dangerous pathologies of religion and science such as human and ec ological disasters.[34][36][37] Agnosticism, said Ratzinger, is always the fruit of a refusal of that knowledge which is in fact offered to man [...] The knowledge of God has always existed.[36] He asserted that agnosticism is a choice of comfo rt, pride, dominion, and utility over truth, and is opposed by the following att itudes: the keenest self-criticism, humble listening to the whole of existence, the persistent patience and self-correction of the scientific method, a readines s to be purified by the truth.[34] According to some theistic scholars, agnosticism is impossible in actual practic e, since a person can live only either as if God did not exist (etsi Deus non da retur), or as if God did exist (etsi Deus daretur).[38][39][40] These scholars b elieve that each day in a person life is an unavoidable step towards death, and thus not to decide for or against God, whom they view as the all-encompassing fo undation, purpose, and meaning of life, is to decide in favor of atheism.[35][38 ] [edit] Atheist According to Richard Dawkins, a distinction between agnosticism and atheism is u nwieldy and depends on how close to zero we are willing to rate the probability of existence for any given god-like entity. Since in practice it is not worth co

ntrasting a zero probability with one that is nearly indistinguishable from zero , he prefers to categorize himself as a "de facto atheist". He specifies his pos ition by means of a scale of 1 to 7. On this scale, 1 indicates "100 per cent pr obability of God." A person ranking at 7 on the scale would be a person who says "I know there is no God..." Dawkins places himself at 6 on the scale, which he characterizes as "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there", but leaning toward 7 . About himself, Dawkins continues that "I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden."[41] Dawkins also identi fies two categories of agnostics; Temporary Agnostics in Practice (TAPs), and Pe rmanent Agnostics in Principle (PAPs). Dawkins considers temporary agnosticism a n entirely reasonable position, but views permanent agnosticism as "fence-sittin g, intellectual cowardice."[42] -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deitie s.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are n o deities.[2][3] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3][4] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[5][6] which in its m ost general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[6][7] The term atheism originated from the Greek (atheos), meaning "without god", used as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequen t increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves using the word "atheist" lived in t he 18th century.[8] Atheists tend to be skeptical of supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence for deities.[9] Rationales for not believing in any deity include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument fr om nonbelief. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the so cial to the historical. Although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies ,[10][11] there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adh ere.[12] Many atheists hold that atheism is a more parsimonious worldview than t heism, and therefore the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove the existence of God, but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism.[13] Although in Western culture atheists are often irreligious, some consider themse lves spiritual.[14][15] Atheism also figures in religious and spiritual belief s ystems, including Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Neopagan movements[16] such as Wi cca,[17] and nontheistic religions. Jainism and some forms of Buddhism do not ad vocate belief in gods,[18] whereas Hinduism holds atheism to be valid, but diffi cult to follow spiritually.[19] Since conceptions of atheism vary, determining how many atheists exist in the wo rld today is difficult.[20] According to one estimate, about 2.3% of the world's population are atheists, while a further 11.9% are nonreligious.[21] According to another, rates of self-reported atheism are among the highest in Western nati ons, again to varying degrees: United States (4%), Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Grea t Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%).[22]

In early ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (, from the privative - + "god") mean ess". It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning "ungodly" or "impio us". In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and acti ve godlessness in the sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying th e gods". The term (asebs) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied r disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern trans

lations of classical texts sometimes render atheos as "atheistic". As an abstrac t noun, there was also (atheots), "atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word in the Latin atheos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christ ians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.[24] The term atheist (from Fr. athe), in the sense of "one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God",[25] predates atheism in English, being first found as ear ly as 1566,[26] and again in 1571.[27] Atheist as a label of practical godlessne ss was used at least as early as 1577.[28] The term atheism was derived from the French athisme, and appears in English about 1587.[29] An earlier work, from abo ut 1534, used the term atheonism.[30][31] Related words emerged later: deist in 1621,[32] theist in 1662,[33] deism in 1675,[34] and theism in 1678.[35] At that time "deist" and "deism" already carried their modern meaning. The term theism came to be contrasted with deism. Karen Armstrong writes that "During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic ... The term 'atheist ' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist."[8] In the middle of the seventeenth century it was still assumed that it was impossib le not to believe in God;[36] atheist meant not accepting the current conception of the divine.[37] Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Eur ope, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.[38] In t he 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to des cribe atheism as simply "disbelief in God".[39] Some atheists have doubted the very need for the term "atheism". In his book Let ter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris wrote: In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs t o identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have wo rds for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more th an the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious be liefs.[40] Definitions and distinctions A diagram showing the relationship between the definitions of weak/strong and im plicit/explicit atheism. Explicit strong/positive/hard atheists (in purple on th e right) assert that "at least one deity exists" is a false statement. Explicit weak/negative/soft atheists (in blue on the right) reject or eschew belief that any deities exist without actually asserting that "at least one deity exists" is a false statement. Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left) would include people (such as young children and some agnostics) who do not believe in a deity, but have not explicitly rejected such belief. (Sizes in the diagram ar e not meant to indicate relative sizes within a population.) Writers disagree how best to define and classify atheism,[41] contesting what su pernatural entities it applies to, whether it is an assertion in its own right o r merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejec tion. However, it is generally contrasted with agnosticism.[42] A variety of cat egories have been proposed to try to distinguish the different forms of atheism. Range Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from d ifficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity and go d. The plurality of wildly different conceptions of god and deities leads to dif

fering ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Chris tians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. Gradually, this vi ew fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity.[39] With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anyth ing from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual, supernatur al, or transcendental concepts, such as those of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Taoism.[43] Implicit vs. explicit Main article: Implicit and explicit atheism Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must pu t to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has sometimes been de fined to include the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children ar e born Atheists; they have no idea of God."[44] Similarly, George H. Smith (1979 ) suggested that: "The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with t he conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist."[45] Smith coined the term implicit atheism to refer to "the absenc e of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism t o refer to the more common definition of conscious disbelief. Ernest Nagel contr adicts Smith's definition of atheism as merely "absence of theism", acknowledgin g only explicit atheism as true "atheism".[46] Positive vs. negative Main article: Negative and positive atheism Philosophers such as Antony Flew,[47] and Michael Martin,[39] have contrasted po sitive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes a ll other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is no t a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist. The terms weak and strong are relatively recent, while the terms negative and positive atheism are of old er origin, having been used (in slightly different ways) in the philosophical li terature[47] and in Catholic apologetics.[48] Under this demarcation of atheism, most agnostics qualify as negative atheists. While Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism,[39 ] most agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism, which they may conside r no more justified than theism or requiring an equal conviction.[49] The assert ion of unattainability of knowledge for or against the existence of gods is some times seen as indication that atheism requires a leap of faith.[50] Common athei st responses to this argument include that unproven religious propositions deser ve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions,[51] and that the unprov ability of a god's existence does not imply equal probability of either possibil ity.[52] Scottish philosopher J. J. C. Smart even argues that "sometimes a perso n who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnost ic because of unreasonable generalised philosophical skepticism which would prec lude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic."[53] Consequently, some atheist authors such as R ichard Dawkins prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic and atheist positions alon g a spectrum of theistic probabilitythe likelihood that each assigns to the state ment "God exists".[54] Definition as impossible or impermanent Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so universally accepted in the western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is

called theistic innatismthe notion that all people believe in God from birth; wi thin this view was the connotation that atheists are simply in denial.[55] There is also a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in t imes of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions, or that "there are no a theists in foxholes."[56] There have however been examples to the contrary, amon g them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes."[57] Philosophical concepts Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, an 18th century advocate of atheism. The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice that warps his mind, tha t prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error. d'Holbach, The System of Nature[58] The broadest demarcation of atheistic rationale is between practical and theoret ical atheism. Practical atheism Main article: Apatheism In practical or pragmatic atheism, also known as apatheism, individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divi ne. The existence of gods is not rejected, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, acco rding to this view.[59] A form of practical atheism with implications for the sc ientific community is methodological naturalismthe "tacit adoption or assumption of philosophical naturalism within scientific method with or without fully accep ting or believing it."[60] Practical atheism can take various forms: Absence of religious motivationbelief in gods does not motivate moral action, religious action, or any other form of action; Active exclusion of the problem of gods and religion from intellectual pursu it and practical action; Indifferencethe absence of any interest in the problems of gods and religion; or Unawareness of the concept of a deity.[61] Theoretical atheism Ontological arguments Further information: Agnostic atheism and Theological noncognitivism Theoretical (or theoric) atheism explicitly posits arguments against the existen ce of gods, responding to common theistic arguments such as the argument from de sign or Pascal's Wager. Theoretical atheism is mainly an ontology, precisely a p hysical ontology. Epistemological arguments Further information: Agnostic atheism and Theological noncognitivism Epistemological atheism argues that people cannot know a God or determine the ex istence of a God. The foundation of epistemological atheism is agnosticism, whic h takes a variety of forms. In the philosophy of immanence, divinity is insepara ble from the world itself, including a person's mind, and each person's consciou sness is locked in the subject. According to this form of agnosticism, this limi tation in perspective prevents any objective inference from belief in a god to a ssertions of its existence. The rationalistic agnosticism of Kant and the Enligh tenment only accepts knowledge deduced with human rationality; this form of athe

ism holds that gods are not discernible as a matter of principle, and therefore cannot be known to exist. Skepticism, based on the ideas of Hume, asserts that c ertainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know the existence of a God. The allocation of agnosticism to atheism is disputed; it can also be regard ed as an independent, basic worldview.[59] Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontolog ical, including logical positivism and ignosticism, assert the meaninglessness o r unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. I t has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified int o some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. D range reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as a p roposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category.[62][63] Metaphysical arguments Further information: Monism and Physicalism One author writes: "Metaphysical atheism... includes all doctrines that hold to metaphysical mo nism (the homogeneity of reality). Metaphysical atheism may be either: a) absolu te an explicit denial of God's existence associated with materialistic monism (a ll materialistic trends, both in ancient and modern times); b) relative the impl icit denial of God in all philosophies that, while they accept the existence of an absolute, conceive of the absolute as not possessing any of the attributes pr oper to God: transcendence, a personal character or unity. Relative atheism is a ssociated with idealistic monism (pantheism, panentheism, deism)."[64] Epicurus is credited with first expounding the problem of evil. David Hume in hi s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) cited Epicurus in stating the arg ument as a series of questions:[65] "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not abl e? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is h e both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing ? Then why call him God?" Logical arguments Further information: Deductive arguments against the existence of God, Problem o f evil, Divine hiddenness Logical atheism holds that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheis ts present deductive arguments against the existence of God, which assert the in compatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status, immuta bility, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, transcendence, personhood (a personal being), nonphysicality, justice, and mercy.[9] Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be recon ciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God is not compatible w ith a world where there is evil and suffering, and where divine love is hidden f rom many people.[66] A similar argument is attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.[67] Reductionary accounts of religion Further information: Evolutionary origin of religions, Evolutionary psychology o f religion, and Psychology of religion Philosophers such as Ludwig Feuerbach[68] and Sigmund Freud argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychol ogical and emotional wants or needs. This is also a view of many Buddhists.[69] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, influenced by the work of Feuerbach, argued that

belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppr ess the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin, "the idea of God implies th e abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of hu man liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory and p ractice." He reversed Voltaire's famous aphorism that if God did not exist, it w ould be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."[70] Alternatives Further information: Philosophical anthropology and Humanism Axiological, or constructive, atheism rejects the existence of gods in favor of a "higher absolute", such as humanity. This form of atheism favors humanity as t he absolute source of ethics and values, and permits individuals to resolve mora l problems without resorting to God. Marx and Freud used this argument to convey messages of liberation, full-development, and unfettered happiness.[59] One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrarythat denying the existence of a god leads to moral relativism, leaving one with no moral or ethical foundation,[71] or renders life meaningless and miserable.[72] Blaise Pa scal argued this view in his Penses.[73] Atheist existentialism French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre identified himself as a representative of an "atheist existentialism"[74] concerned less with denying the existence of God t han with establishing that "man needs ... to find himself again and to understan d that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existenc e of God."[75] Sartre said a corollary of his atheism was that "if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being w ho exists before he can be defined by any concept, and ... this being is man."[7 4] The practical consequence of this atheism was described by Sartre as meaning that there are no a priori rules or absolute values that can be invoked to gover n human conduct, and that humans are "condemned" to invent these for themselves, making "man" absolutely "responsible for everything he does".[76] Academic Rhiannon Goldthorpe suggested that some of Sartre's writing was "pervad ed by a 'Christian atheism' in which ancient beliefs still feed the imagination and the sensibility of the most hardened skeptic".[77] Academic Stephen Priest d escribed Sartre's perspective as "an atheistic metaphysics".[78] Sartre translat or Hazel Barnes wrote of Sartre: "The God he rejects is not some vague power, an unknown X which would account for the origin of the universe, nor is it an idea l or a mythus to symbolize man's quest for the Good. It is specifically the God of the Scholastics or at least any idea of God as a specific, all powerful, abso lute, existing Creator."[79] History Main article: History of atheism Although the term atheism originated in 16th-century France,[29] ideas that woul d be recognized today as atheistic are documented from the Vedic period and the classical antiquity. Early Indic religion Main article: Atheism in Hinduism Atheistic schools are found in early Indian thought and have existed from the ti mes of the historical Vedic religion.[80] Among the six orthodox schools of Hind u philosophy, Samkhya, the oldest philosophical school of thought, does not acce pt God, and the early Mimamsa also rejected the notion of God.[81] The early Mim amsa not only did not accept God but asserted that human action itself was enoug h to create the necessary circumstances for the enjoyment of its fruits.[82] The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical Crvka (also called Nasti ka or Lokaiata) school that originated in India around the 6th century BCE is pr

obably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India, similar to t he Greek Cyrenaic school. This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as hete rodox due to its rejection of the authority of Vedas and hence is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Hinduism, but it is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement within Hinduism.[83] Chatterjee and Datta explain th at our understanding of Crvka philosophy is fragmentary, based largely on criticis m of the ideas by other schools, and that it is not a living tradition: "Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systemati c work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philos ophical schools possess. But almost every work of the other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chie fly based on these."[84] Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samk hya and Purva Mimamsa. The rejection of a personal creator God is also seen in J ainism and Buddhism in India.[85] Classical antiquity In Plato's Apology, Socrates (pictured) was accused by Meletus of not believing in the gods. Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, but did not emer ge as a distinct world-view until the late Enlightenment.[86] The 5th-century BC E Greek philosopher Diagoras is known as the "first atheist",[87] and is cited a s such by Cicero in his De Natura Deorum.[88] Critias viewed religion as a human invention used to frighten people into following moral order.[89] Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way, wit hout reference to the spiritual or mystical. Other pre-Socratic philosophers who probably had atheistic views included Prodicus and Protagoras. In the 3rd-centu ry BCE the Greek philosophers Theodorus Cyrenaicus[88][90] and Strato of Lampsac us[91] also did not believe gods exist. Socrates (c. 471399 BCE), was accused of impiety (see Euthyphro dilemma) on the b asis that he inspired questioning of the state gods.[92] Although he disputed th e accusation that he was a "complete atheist",[93] saying that he could not be a n atheist as he believed in spirits,[94] he was ultimately sentenced to death. S ocrates also prays to various gods in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus[95] and says "By Zeus" in the dialogue The Republic.[96] Euhemerus (c. 330260 BCE) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers, conquerors and founders of the past, and that their cults and religions were in essence the continuation of vanished kingdoms and earlier political stru ctures.[97] Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus was later criticized for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods" .[98] Atomic materialist Epicurus (c. 341270 BCE) disputed many religious doctrines, in cluding the existence of an afterlife or a personal deity; he considered the sou l purely material and mortal. While Epicureanism did not rule out the existence of gods, he believed that if they did exist, they were unconcerned with humanity .[99] The Roman poet Lucretius (c. 9955 BCE) agreed that, if there were gods, they were unconcerned with humanity and unable to affect the natural world. For this reas on, he believed humanity should have no fear of the supernatural. He expounds hi s Epicurean views of the cosmos, atoms, the soul, mortality, and religion in De rerum natura ("On the nature of things"),[100] which popularized Epicurus' philo sophy in Rome.[101]

The Roman philosopher Sextus Empiricus held that one should suspend judgment abo ut virtually all beliefsa form of skepticism known as Pyrrhonismthat nothing was i nherently evil, and that ataraxia ("peace of mind") is attainable by withholding one's judgment. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting in fluence on later philosophers.[102] The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity. The ear ly Christians were labeled atheists by non-Christians because of their disbelief in pagan gods.[103] During the Roman Empire, Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and Emperor-worship in particular. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became a punishable offense.[104] Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance The espousal of atheistic views was rare in Europe during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages (see Medieval Inquisition); metaphysics, religion and theology w ere the dominant interests.[105] There were, however, movements within this peri od that forwarded heterodox conceptions of the Christian God, including differin g views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. Individuals and gr oups such as Johannes Scotus Eriugena, David of Dinant, Amalric of Bena, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit maintained Christian viewpoints with pantheistic te ndencies. Nicholas of Cusa held to a form of fideism he called docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance"), asserting that God is beyond human categorization, and ou r knowledge of God is limited to conjecture. William of Ockham inspired anti-met aphysical tendencies with his nominalistic limitation of human knowledge to sing ular objects, and asserted that the divine essence could not be intuitively or r ationally apprehended by human intellect. Followers of Ockham, such as John of M irecourt and Nicholas of Autrecourt furthered this view. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later theologians such as John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Martin Luther.[105] The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of freethought and skeptical inquir y. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as a means of ex planation, and opposed arguments from religious authority. Other critics of reli gion and the Church during this time included Niccol Machiavelli, Bonaventure des Priers, and Franois Rabelais.[102] Early modern period The Renaissance and Reformation eras witnessed a resurgence in religious fervor, as evidenced by the proliferation of new religious orders, confraternities, and popular devotions in the Catholic world, and the appearance of increasingly aus tere Protestant sects such as the Calvinists. This era of interconfessional riva lry permitted an even wider scope of theological and philosophical speculation, much of which would later be used to advance a religiously skeptical world-view. Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th cent uries, especially in France and England, where there appears to have been a reli gious malaise, according to contemporary sources. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes, espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward super natural occurrences, while the Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza rejected divine providence in favour of a panentheistic naturalism. By the late 17th cent ury, deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals such as John Toland who c oined the term "pantheist". Despite their ridicule of Christianity, many deists held atheism in scorn.[citation needed] The first known explicit atheist was the German critic of religion Matthias Knutzen in his three writings of 1674.[106] He was followed a half century later by another explicit atheist writer, the Fre nch priest Jean Meslier.[107] Knutzen and Meslier were in turn followed by other openly atheistic thinkers, su

ch as Baron d'Holbach and Jacques-Andr Naigeon.[108] The philosopher David Hume d eveloped a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism, undermining the metaph ysical basis of natural theology. Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1841) would greatly influence ph ilosophers such as Engels, Marx, David Strauss, Nietzsche, and Max Stirner. He c onsidered God to be a human invention and religious activities to be wish-fulfil lment. For this he is considered the founding father of modern anthropology of r eligion. The French Revolution took atheism and anti-clerical deism outside the salons an d into the public sphere. A major goal of the French revolution was a restructur ing and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and the expulsion of many clergy from France. The chaotic political events in r evolutionary Paris eventually enabled the more radical Jacobins to seize power i n 1793, ushering in the Reign of Terror. The Jacobins were deists and introduced the Cult of the Supreme Being as a new French state religion. Some atheists sur rounding Jacques Hbert instead sought to establish a Cult of Reason, a form of at heistic pseudo-religion with a goddess personifying reason. Both movements in pa rt contributed to attempts to forcibly de-Christianize France. The Cult of Reaso n ended after three years when its leadership, including Jacques Hbert was guillo tined by the Jacobins. The anti-clerical persecutions ended with the Thermidoria n Reaction. The Napoleonic era institutionalized the secularization of French society, and e xported the revolution to northern Italy, in the hopes of creating pliable repub lics. In the 19th century, atheists contributed to political and social revoluti on, facilitating the upheavals of 1848, the Risorgimento in Italy, and the growt h of an international socialist movement. In the latter half of the 19th century, atheism rose to prominence under the inf luence of rationalistic and freethinking philosophers. Many prominent German phi losophers of this era denied the existence of deities and were critical of relig ion, including Ludwig Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Stirner, Karl Marx, an d Friedrich Nietzsche.[109] Since 1900 See also: State atheism Atheism in the 20th century, particularly in the form of practical atheism, adva nced in many societies. Atheistic thought found recognition in a wide variety of other, broader philosophies, such as existentialism, objectivism, secular human ism, nihilism, anarchism, logical positivism, Marxism, feminism,[110] and the ge neral scientific and rationalist movement. Logical positivism and scientism paved the way for neopositivism, analytical phi losophy, structuralism, and naturalism. Neopositivism and analytical philosophy discarded classical rationalism and metaphysics in favor of strict empiricism an d epistemological nominalism. Proponents such as Bertrand Russell emphatically r ejected belief in God. In his early work, Ludwig Wittgenstein attempted to separ ate metaphysical and supernatural language from rational discourse. A. J. Ayer a sserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements, citing his adherence to the empirical sciences. Relatedly the applied structuralism of Lvi-Strauss sourced religious language to the human subconscious in denying its t ranscendental meaning. J. N. Findlay and J. J. C. Smart argued that the existenc e of God is not logically necessary. Naturalists and materialistic monists such as John Dewey considered the natural world to be the basis of everything, denyin g the existence of God or immortality.[53][111] The 20th century also saw the political advancement of atheism, spurred on by in terpretation of the works of Marx and Engels. After the Russian Revolution of 19

17, religious instruction was banned by the State. While the Soviet Constitution of 1936 guaranteed freedom to hold religious services, the Soviet state under S talin's policy of state atheism did not consider education a private matter; it outlawed religious instruction and waged campaigns to persuade people, at times violently, to abandon religion.[112][113][114][115][116] Several other communist states also opposed religion and mandated state atheism,[117] including the for mer governments of Albania,[118][119][120] and currently, China,[121][122] North Korea,[122][123] and Cuba.[122][124] Other leaders like E. V. Ramasami Naicker (Periyar), a prominent atheist leader of India, fought against Hinduism and Brahmins for discriminating and dividing p eople in the name of caste and religion.[125] This was highlighted in 1956 when he arranged for the erection of a statue depicting a Hindu god in a humble repre sentation and made antitheistic statements.[126] In 1966, Time magazine asked "Is God Dead?"[127] in response to the Death of God theological movement, citing the estimation that nearly half of all people in t he world lived under an anti-religious power, and millions more in Africa, Asia, and South America seemed to lack knowledge of the one God.[128] In 1967, the Albanian government under Enver Hoxha announced the closure of all religious institutions in the country, declaring Albania the world's first offic ially atheist state,[129] although religious practice in Albania was restored in 1991. These regimes enhanced the negative associations of atheism, especially w here anti-communist sentiment was strong in the United States, despite the fact that prominent atheists were anti-communist.[130] Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of actively anti-religious regimes has reduced considerably. In 2006, Timothy Shah of the Pew Forum noted "a world wide trend across all major religious groups, in which God-based and faith-based movements in general are experiencing increasing confidence and influence vis--v is secular movements and ideologies."[131] However, Gregory S. Paul and Phil Zuc kerman consider this a myth and suggest that the actual situation is much more c omplex and nuanced.[132] The religiously motivated terrorist events of 9/11 and the partially successful attempts of the Discovery institute to change the American science curriculum to include creationist ideas, together with support for those ideas from George W. Bush in 2005, all triggered the noted atheist authors Sam Harris, Daniel C. Den nett, Richard Dawkins, Victor J. Stenger and Christopher Hitchens to publish boo ks that were best sellers in America and worldwide.[133] A 2010 survey found that those identifying themselves as atheists or agnostics a re on average more knowledgeable about religion than followers of major faiths. Nonbelievers scored better on questions about tenets central to Protestant and C atholic faiths. Only Mormon and Jewish faithful scored as well as atheists and a gnostics.[134] New Atheism Main article: New Atheism New Atheism is the name given to a movement among some early-21st-century atheis t writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolera ted but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherev er its influence arises."[135] New atheists argue that recent scientific advance ments demand a less accommodating attitude toward religion, superstition, and re ligious fanaticism than had traditionally been extended by many secularists.[cit ation needed] The movement is commonly associated with Richard Dawkins, Daniel C . Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Victor J. Stenger.[136][137] Se veral best-selling books by these authors, published between 2004 and 2007, form the basis for much of the discussion of New Atheism.[138]

Demographics Main article: Demographics of atheism Percentage of people in various European countries who said: "I don't believe th ere is any sort of spirit, God or life force." (2005)[139] It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in the world. Respondents to religious-belief polls may define "atheism" differently or draw different distin ctions between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and sp iritual beliefs.[140] A Hindu atheist would declare oneself as a Hindu, although also being an atheist at the same time.[141] A 2005 survey published in Encyclo pdia Britannica found that the non-religious made up about 11.9% of the world's p opulation, and atheists about 2.3%. This figure did not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhists.[21] A NovemberDecember 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the United States and five European countries. The lowest rates of atheism were in the United States at only 4%, while the rates of atheism in the European countri es surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17 %), Germany (20%), and France (32%).[22][142] The European figures are similar t o those of an official European Union survey, which reported that 18% of the EU population do not believe in a god.[143] Other studies have placed the estimated percentage of atheists, agnostics, and other nonbelievers in a personal god as low as single digits in Poland, Romania, Cyprus, and some other European countri es,[144] and up to 85% in Sweden, 80% in Denmark, 72% in Norway, and 60% in Finl and.[20] According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 19% of Australians ha ve "no religion", a category that includes atheists.[142] Between 64% and 65% of Japanese are atheists, agnostics, or do not believe in a god.[20] Proportion of atheists and agnostics around the world. An international study has reported positive correlations between levels of educ ation and not believing in a deity,[145] and the EU survey finds a positive corr elation between leaving school early and believing in a God.[143] A letter publi shed in Nature in 1998 reported a survey suggesting that belief in a personal go d or afterlife was at an all-time low among the members of the U.S. National Aca demy of Science, 7.0% of whom believed in a personal god as compared with more t han 85% of the general U.S. population,[146] although this study has been critic ized for its stringent definition of belief in God.[147][148] An article publish ed by The University of Chicago Chronicle that discussed the above study, stated that 76% of physicians believe in God, more than the 7% of scientists above, bu t still less than the 85% of the general population.[149] Another study assessin g religiosity among scientists who are members of the American Association for t he Advancement of Science found that "just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power."[150] Frank Sulloway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Shermer of California State University conducted a study which found in their polling sa mple of "credentialed" U.S. adults (12% had Ph.Ds and 62% were college graduates ) 64% believed in God, and there was a correlation indicating that religious con viction diminished with education level.[151] An inverse correlation between rel igiosity and intelligence has been found by 39 studies carried out between 1927 and 2002, according to an article in Mensa Magazine.[152] These findings broadly agree with a 1958 statistical meta-analysis by Professor Michael Argyle of the University of Oxford. He analyzed seven research studies that had investigated c orrelation between attitude to religion and measured intelligence among school a nd college students from the U.S. Although a clear negative correlation was foun d, the analysis did not identify causality but noted that factors such as author itarian family background and social class may also have played a part.[153] Atheism, religion, and morality See also: Atheism and religion, Criticism of atheism, and Secular ethics Association with world views and social behaviors

Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on seculari ty and non-belief, and concluded that societal well-being is positively correlat ed with irreligion. His findings relating specifically to atheism include:[145][ 154] Compared to religious people, "atheists and secular people" are less nationa listic, prejudiced, antisemitic, racist, dogmatic, ethnocentric, close-minded, a nd authoritarian. In the US, in states with the highest percentages of atheists, the murder ra te is lower than average. In the most religious US states, the murder rate is hi gher than average. Atheism and irreligion Because of its absence of a creator god, Buddhism is commonly described as nonth eistic. People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious, but so me sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deit y.[155] In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated a numb er of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism[156][1 57] and Christian atheists.[158][159][160] The strictest sense of positive atheism does not entail any specific beliefs out side of disbelief in any deity; as such, atheists can hold any number of spiritu al beliefs. For the same reason, atheists can hold a wide variety of ethical bel iefs, ranging from the moral universalism of humanism, which holds that a moral code should be applied consistently to all humans, to moral nihilism, which hold s that morality is meaningless.[161] Philosophers such as Georges Bataille, Slavoj iek,[162] Alain de Botton,[163] and Alexander Bard and Jan Sderqvist,[164] have all argued that atheists should recla im religion as an act of defiance against theism, precisely not to leave religio n as an unwarranted monopoly to theists. Divine command vs. ethics Although it is a philosophical truism, encapsulated in Plato's Euthyphro dilemma , that the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessar y or arbitrary, the argument that morality must be derived from God and cannot e xist without a wise creator has been a persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate.[165][166][167] Moral precepts such as "murder is wro ng" are seen as divine laws, requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, man y atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy, and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do.[1 68] Other atheists, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, have disagreed with this view a nd have stated that morality "has truth only if God is truthit stands or falls wi th faith in God."[169][170][171] There exist normative ethical systems that do not require principles and rules t o be given by a deity. Some include virtue ethics, social contract, Kantian ethi cs, utilitarianism, and Objectivism. Sam Harris has proposed that moral prescrip tion (ethical rule making) is not just an issue to be explored by philosophy, bu t that we can meaningfully practice a science of morality. Any such scientific s ystem must, nevertheless, respond to the criticism embodied in the naturalistic fallacy.[172] Philosophers Susan Neiman[173] and Julian Baggini[174] (among others) assert tha t behaving ethically only because of divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necess

ary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselvesto be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs itand that atheists, therefore, have the advantage of being more inclined to mak e such evaluations.[175] The contemporary British political philosopher Martin C ohen has offered the more historically telling example of Biblical injunctions i n favour of torture and slavery as evidence of how religious injunctions follow political and social customs, rather than vice versa, but also noted that the sa me tendency seems to be true of supposedly dispassionate and objective philosoph ers.[176] Cohen extends this argument in more detail in Political Philosophy fro m Plato to Mao, where he argues that the Qur'an played a role in perpetuating so cial codes from the early 7th century despite changes in secular society.[177] Dangers of religions See also: Criticism of religion Some prominent atheistssuch as Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Den nett, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkinshave criticized religions, citing harmful as pects of religious practices and doctrines.[178] Atheists have often engaged in debate with religious advocates, and the debates sometimes address the issue of whether religions provide a net benefit to individuals and society. One argument that religions can be harmful, made by atheists such as Sam Harris, is that Western religions' reliance on divine authority lends itself to authori tarianism and dogmatism.[179] Atheists have also cited data showing that there i s a correlation between religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when re ligion is held because it serves ulterior interests)[180] and authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice.[181] These argumentscombined with historical events tha t are argued to demonstrate the dangers of religion, such as the Crusades, inqui sitions, witch trials, and terrorist attackshave been used in response to claims of beneficial effects of belief in religion.[182] Believers counter-argue that s ome regimes that espouse atheism, such as in Soviet Russia, have also been guilt y of mass murder.[183][184] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The anthropology of religion involves the study of religious institutions in rel ation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures.[citation needed] Modern anthropology assumes that the re is complete continuity between magical thinking and religion,[1] and that eve ry religion is a cultural product, created by the human community that worships it.[2] History In the early 11th century, Ab Rayhn Brn (973-1048), wrote detailed comparative studie s on the anthropology of religions and cultures across the Middle East, Mediterr anean and the Indian subcontinent.[3] He discussed the peoples, customs, and rel igions of the Indian subcontinent. Modern anthropology assumes that religion is in complete continuity with magical thinking,[1] that it is a cultural product,[4] and that is a phenomenon of psyc hological projection. The complete continuity between magic and religion has bee n a postulate of modern anthropology at least since early 1930s.[1][5] The persp ective of modern anthropology towards religion is the projection idea, a methodo logical approach which assumes that every religion is created by the human commu nity that worships it, that "creative activity ascribed to God is projected from man."[2][6][7] In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach, was the first to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion.[8][9][10][11] A prominent pr ecursor in the formulation of this projection principle was Giambattista Vico,[8 ][12] and an early formulation of it is found in ancient Greek writer Xenophanes

, which observed that "the gods of Ethiopians were inevitably black with flat no ses while those of the Thracians were blond with blue eyes."[8] In 1912 mile Durkheim, building on Feuerbach, considered religion "a projection o f the social values of society," "a means of making symbolic statements about so ciety," "a symbolic language that makes statements about the social order";[13][ 14] in short, "religion is society worshiping itself".[11][15] In the 19th century, cultural anthropology was dominated by an interest in cultu ral evolution; most anthropologists assumed that there was a simple distinction between primitive and modern religion and tried to provide accounts of how the forme r evolved into the latter. In the 20th century most anthropologists rejected thi s approach. Today the anthropology of religion reflects the influence of, or an engagement with, such theorists as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, mile Durkheim, and M ax Weber. They are especially concerned with how religious beliefs and practices may reflect political or economic forces; or the social functions of religious beliefs and practices. [edit] Definition of religion One major problem in the anthropology of religion is the definition of religion itself. At one time anthropologists believed that certain religious practices an d beliefs were more or less universal to all cultures at some point in their dev elopment, such as a belief in spirits or ghosts, the use of magic as a means of controlling the supernatural, the use of divination as a means of discovering oc cult knowledge, and the performance of rituals such as prayer and sacrifice as a means of influencing the outcome of various events through a supernatural agenc y, sometimes taking the form of shamanism or ancestor worship. According to Geer tz, religion is "(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, p ervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conce ptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with s uch an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely reali stic" (Geertz 1966).[16] Today, anthropologists debate, and many reject, the cro ss-cultural validity of these categories (often viewing them as examples of Euro pean primitivism). Anthropologists have considered various criteria for defining religion such as a belief in the supernatural or the reliance on ritual but few claim that these criteria are universally valid. In Western culture, religion has become more or less synonymous with monotheism and the various moral codes that monotheism prescribes. Moral codes have also ev olved in conjunction with Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, independent of monotheism. However, prescriptive moral codes or even normative ethical codes are not a nec essary component of religious beliefs or practices any more than they are a nece ssary component of science and the scientific method. Anthony F.C. Wallace proposes four categories of religion, each subsequent categ ory subsuming the previous. These are, however, synthetic categories and do not necessarily encompass all religions.[17] Individualistic: most basic; simplest. Example: vision quest. Shamanistic: part-time religious practitioner, uses religion to heal, to div ine, usually on the behalf of a client. The Tillamook have four categories of sh aman. Examples of shamans: spiritualists, faith healers, palm readers. Religious authority acquired through one's own means. Communal: elaborate set of beliefs and practices; group of people arranged i n clans by lineage, age group, or some religious societies; people take on roles based on knowledge, and ancestral worship. Ecclesiastical: dominant in agricultural societies and states; are centrally organized and hierarchical in structure, paralleling the organization of states . Typically deprecates competing individualistic and shamanistic cults.

Specific religious practices and beliefs Ancestor worship Apotheosis Apotropaic magic Animism Astrology Authority Charm Contagious magic Cult Demon Divination Esoterica Exorcism Evil Fertility Worship Fetish Food Genius God Goddess Worship Ghost

Heresy Icon Intercession Immortality Kachina Magic and religion Mana Manna Masks Miracle Medicine Monotheism Myth Mystery Necromancy Neopaganism New Age Occultism Omen Pain

Polytheism Prayer Prophecy Rebirth Religious ecstasy Ritual Sacrifice Shamanism Supernatural Sign Spell

Supplication Sympathetic magic Talisman Tarot reading Theism Totemism Western mystery tradition ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology. Th is objective investigation may include the use of both quantitative methods (sur veys, polls, demographic and census analysis) and qualitative approaches such as participant observation, interviewing, and analysis of archival, historical and documentary materials.[1] Modern academic sociology began with the analysis of religion in mile Durkheim's 1897 study of suicide rates among Catholic and Protestant populations, a foundat ional work of social research which served to distinguish sociology from other d isciplines, such as psychology. The works of Karl Marx and Max Weber emphasized the relationship between religion and the economic or social structure of societ y. Contemporary debates have centred on issues such as secularization, civil rel igion, and the cohesiveness of religion in the context of globalization and mult iculturalism. The contemporary sociology of religion may also encompass the soci ology of irreligion (for instance, in the analysis of Secular humanist belief sy stems). Sociology of religion is distinguished from the philosophy of religion in that i t does not set out to assess the validity of religious beliefs. The process of c omparing multiple conflicting dogmas may require what Peter L. Berger has descri bed as inherent "methodological atheism".[2] Whereas the sociology of religion b roadly differs from theology in assuming indifference to the supernatural, theor ists tend to acknowledge socio-cultural reification of religious practice. History and relevance Classical, seminal sociological theorists of the late 19th and early 20th centur y such as Durkheim, Weber, and Marx were greatly interested in religion and its effects on society. Like those of Plato and Aristotle from ancient Greece, and E nlightenment philosophers from the 17th through 19th centuries, the ideas posite d by these sociologists continue to be examined today. More recent prominent soc iologists of religion include Peter L. Berger, Robert N. Bellah, Thomas Luckmann , Rodney Stark, Robert Wuthnow, Christian Smith, and Bryan R. Wilson. [edit] The view of religion in classical sociology This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. (Consider using more specific cleanup instructions.) Please help improve this se ction if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions. (October 2008) Durkheim, Marx, and Weber had very complex and developed theories about the natu re and effects of religion. Of these, Durkheim and Weber are often more difficul t to understand, especially in light of the lack of context and examples in thei r primary texts. Religion was considered to be an extremely important social var iable in the work of all three. [edit] Karl Marx Despite his later influence, Karl Marx did not view his work as an ethical or id eological response to nineteenth-century capitalism (as most later commentators have). His efforts were, in his mind, based solely on what can be called applied

science. Marx saw himself as doing morally neutral sociology and economic theor y for the sake of human development. As Christiano states, "Marx did not believe in science for science sakehe believed that he was also advancing a theory that wouldbe a useful tool[in] effecting a revolutionary upheaval of the capitalist sys tem in favor of socialism." (124) As such, the crux of his arguments was that hu mans are best guided by reason. Religion, Marx held, was a significant hindrance to reason, inherently masking the truth and misguiding followers.[3] As we will later see, Marx viewed social alienation as the heart of social inequality. The antithesis to this alienation is freedom. Thus, to propagate freedom means to p resent individuals with the truth and give them a choice to accept or deny it. I n this, "Marx never suggested that religion ought to be prohibited." (Christiano 126) Central to Marx's theories was the oppressive economic situation in which he dwe lt. With the rise of European industrialism, Marx and his colleague Friedrich En gels witnessed and responded to the growth of what he called "surplus value." Ma rx view of capitalism saw rich capitalists getting richer and their workers gett ing poorer (the gap, the exploitation, was the "surplus value"). Not only were w orkers getting exploited, but in the process they were being further detached fr om the products they helped create. By simply selling their work for wages, "wor kers simultaneously lose connection with the object of labor and become objects themselves. Workers are devalued to the level of a commodity a thing" (Ibid 125) From this objectification comes alienation. The common worker is told he or she is a replaceable tool, alienated to the point of extreme discontent. Here, in Ma rx eyes, religion enters. Capitalism utilizes our tendency towards religion as a tool or ideological state apparatus to justify this alienation. Christianity te aches that those who gather up riches and power in this life will almost certain ly not be rewarded in the next ("it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdo m of Heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle...") whil e those who suffer oppression and poverty in this life, while cultivating their spiritual wealth, will be rewarded in the Kingdom of God. Thus Marx's famous lin e - "religion is the opium of the people", as it soothes them and dulls their se nses to the pain of oppression. [edit] mile Durkheim mile Durkheim placed himself in the positivist tradition, meaning that he thought of his study of society as dispassionate and scientific. He was deeply interest ed in the problem of what held complex modern societies together. Religion, he a rgued, was an expression of social cohesion. In the fieldwork that led to his famous Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durk heim, a secular Frenchman, looked at anthropological data of Indigenous Australi ans. His underlying interest was to understand the basic forms of religious life for all societies. In Elementary Forms, Durkheim argues that the totems the Abo rigines venerate are actually expressions of their own conceptions of society it self. This is true not only for the Aborigines, he argues, but for all societies . Religion, for Durkheim, is not "imaginary," although he does deprive it of what many believers find essential. Religion is very real; it is an expression of soc iety itself, and indeed, there is no society that does not have religion. We per ceive as individuals a force greater than ourselves, which is our social life, a nd give that perception a supernatural face. We then express ourselves religious ly in groups, which for Durkheim makes the symbolic power greater. Religion is a n expression of our collective consciousness, which is the fusion of all of our individual consciousnesses, which then creates a reality of its own. It follows, then, that less complex societies, such as the Australian Aborigines , have less complex religious systems, involving totems associated with particul ar clans. The more complex a particular society, the more complex the religious

system is. As societies come in contact with other societies, there is a tendenc y for religious systems to emphasize universalism to a greater and greater exten t. However, as the division of labor makes the individual seem more important (a subject that Durkheim treats extensively in his famous Division of Labor in Soc iety), religious systems increasingly focus on individual salvation and conscien ce. Durkheim's definition of religion, from Elementary Forms, is as follows: "A reli gion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, tha t is to say, things set apart and forbidden beliefs and practices which unite in to one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them." (M arx, introduction) This is a functional definition of religion, meaning that it explains what religion does in social life: essentially, it unites societies. Du rkheim defined religion as a clear distinction between the sacred and the profan e, in effect this can be paralleled with the distinction between God and humans. This definition also does not stipulate what exactly may be considered sacred. T hus later sociologists of religion (notably Robert Bellah) have extended Durkhei mian insights to talk about notions of civil religion, or the religion of a stat e. American civil religion, for example, might be said to have its own set of sa cred "things": the Flag of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther Kin g Jr., etc. Other sociologists have taken Durkheim's concept of what religion is in the direction of the religion of professional sports, the military, or of ro ck music. [edit] Max Weber Max Weber published four major texts on religion in a context of economic sociol ogy and his rationalization thesis: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capit alism (1905), The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (1915), The Religio n of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism (1915), and Ancient Judaism ( 1920). In his sociology, Weber uses the German term "Verstehen" to describe his method of interpretation of the intention and context of human action. Weber is not a p ositivist in the sense that he does not believe we can find out "facts" in socio logy that can be causally linked. Although he believes some generalized statemen ts about social life can be made, he is not interested in hard positivist claims , but instead in linkages and sequences, in historical narratives and particular cases. Weber argues for making sense of religious action on its own terms. A religious group or individual is influenced by all kinds of things, he says, but if they c laim to be acting in the name of religion, we should attempt to understand their perspective on religious grounds first. Weber gives religion credit for shaping a person's image of the world, and this image of the world can affect their vie w of their interests, and ultimately how they decide to take action. For Weber, religion is best understood as it responds to the human need for theo dicy and soteriology. Human beings are troubled, he says, with the question of t heodicy the question of how the extraordinary power of a divine god may be recon ciled with the imperfection of the world that he has created and rules over. Peo ple need to know, for example, why there is undeserved good fortune and sufferin g in the world. Religion offers people soteriological answers, or answers that p rovide opportunities for salvation relief from suffering, and reassuring meaning . The pursuit of salvation, like the pursuit of wealth, becomes a part of human motivation. Because religion helps to define motivation, Weber believed that religion (and s pecifically Calvinism) actually helped to give rise to modern capitalism, as he asserted in his most famous and controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the

Spirit of Capitalism. In The Protestant Ethic, Weber argues that capitalism arose in Europe in part be cause of how the belief in predestination was interpreted by everyday English Pu ritans. Puritan theology was based on the Calvinist notion that not everyone wou ld be saved; there was only a specific number of the elect who would avoid damna tion, and this was based sheerly on God's predetermined will and not on any acti on you could perform in this life. Official doctrine held that one could not eve r really know whether one was among the elect. Practically, Weber noted, this was difficult psychologically: people were (under standably) anxious to know whether they would be eternally damned or not. Thus P uritan leaders began assuring members that if they began doing well financially in their businesses, this would be one unofficial sign they had God's approval a nd were among the saved but only if they used the fruits of their labor well. Th is along with the rationalism implied by monotheism led to the development of ra tional bookkeeping and the calculated pursuit of financial success beyond what o ne needed simply to live and this is the "spirit of capitalism."[4] Over time, t he habits associated with the spirit of capitalism lost their religious signific ance, and rational pursuit of profit became its own aim. The Protestant Ethic thesis has been much critiqued, refined, and disputed, but is still a lively source of theoretical debate in sociology of religion. Weber a lso did considerable work in world religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. In his magnum opus Economy and Society Weber distinguished three ideal types of religious attitudes[5]: 1. world-flying mysticism 2. world-rejecting asceticism 3. inner-worldly asceticism He also separated magic as pre-religious activity. [edit] Typology of religious groups Main article: Sociological classifications of religious movements One common typology among sociologists, religious groups are classified as eccle sias, denominations, sects, or cults (now more commonly referred to in scholarsh ip as New Religious Movements). Note that sociologists give these words precise definitions which differ from how they are commonly used. In particular, sociolo gists use the words 'cult' and 'sect' without negative connotations, even though the popular use of these words is often pejorative. [edit] Research In prosperous democracies, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator co rrelate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD i nfection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion.[6] As the authors [citation needed ] put it "The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the mos t dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so...The v iew of the U.S. as a shining city on the hill to the rest of the world is falsifie d when it comes to basic measures of societal health."[7] The study [citation needed] also notes that it is the more secular, pro-evolutio n societies that come close to "cultures of life" (although these countries are far from perfect, they have low rates of lethal crime, for example). The authors conclude that the reasonable success of non-religious democracies like Japan, F rance and Scandinavia has refuted the idea that Godless societies suffer disaste

r. They add "Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive l ink between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly l arge body of data - a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends."[7] BBC news [citation needed] reported on a study that attempted to use mathematica l modelling ('nonlinear dynamics') to predict future religious orientations of p opulations. The study suggests that religion is headed towards 'extinction' in v arious nations where it has been on the decline: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. The model considers, not only the changing number of people with certain belief s, but also attempts to assign utility values of a belief as per each nation.[8] [9] [edit] Secularization and civil religion Main articles: Secularization and Civil religion In relation to the processes of rationalization associated with the development of modernity, it was predicted in the works of many classical sociologists that religion would decline.[10] Despite the claims of many classical theorists and s ociologists immediately after World War II, many contemporary theorists have cri tiqued secularisation thesis, arguing that religion has continued to play a vita l role in the lives of individuals worldwide. In the United States, in particula r, church attendance has remained relatively stable in the past 40 years. In Afr ica, the emergence of Christianity has occurred at a high rate. While Africa cou ld claim roughly 10 million Christians in 1900, recent estimates put that number closer to 200 million.[11] The rise of Islam as a major world religion, especia lly its new-found influence in the West, is another significant development. Fur thermore, arguments may be presented regarding the concept of civil religion and new world belief systems. In short, presupposed secularization as a decline in religiosity might seem to be a myth, depending on its definition and the definit ion of its scope. For instance, some sociologists have argued that steady church attendance and personal religious belief may coexist with a decline in the infl uence of religious authorities on social or political issues. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regard ing religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of reli gious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science.[1] It is an ancient discipline, being found in the ear liest known manuscripts concerning philosophy, and relates to many other branche s of philosophy and general thought, including metaphysics, logic, and history.[ 2] Philosophy of religion is frequently discussed outside of academia through po pular books and debates, mostly regarding the existence of God and problem of ev il. The philosophy of religion differs from religious philosophy in that it seeks to discuss questions regarding the nature of religion as a whole, rather than exam ining the problems brought forth by a particular belief system. It is designed s uch that it can be carried out dispassionately by those who identify as believer s or non-believers.[3] As a part of metaphysics Aristotle Philosophy of religion has classically been regarded as a part of metaphysics. I n Aristotle's Metaphysics, he described first causes as one of the subjects of h is investigation. For Aristotle, the first cause was the unmoved mover, a being which set the universe into motion without itself being in motion,[4] which has been read as God, particularly when Aristotle's work became prevalent again in t

he Medieval West. This Prime Mover, first cause, argument later came to be calle d natural theology by rationalist philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Today, philosophers have adopted the term philosophy of religion for the subject, and typically it is regarded as a separate field of specialization , although it is also still treated by some, particularly Catholic philosophers, as a part of metaphysics. In the historical relationship between metaphysics and philosophy of religion, t he traditional objects of religious discussion have been very special sorts of e ntities (such as gods, angels, supernatural forces, and the like) and events, ab ilities, or processes (the creation of the universe, the ability to do or know a nything, interaction between humans and gods, and so forth). Metaphysicians (and ontologists in particular) are focused on understanding what it is for somethin g to exist what it is for something to be an entity, event, ability, or process. Because many members of religious traditions believe in things that exist in pr ofoundly different ways from more everyday things, objects of religious belief b oth create particular philosophical problems and define central metaphysical con cepts. [edit] Questions asked Question book-new.svg This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure v erifiability. Kierkegaard Theologians, distinct from philosophers of religion, often consider the existenc e of God as axiomatic or self-evident and explain, justify or support religious claims by rationalization or intuitive metaphors. In contrast, philosophers of r eligion examine and critique the epistemological, logical, aesthetic and ethical foundations inherent in the claims of a religion. Whereas a theologian elaborat es rationally or experientially on the nature of God, a philosopher of religion is more interested in asking what may be knowable and opinable regarding religio n's claims. Other questions studied in the philosophy of religion include what, if anything, would give us good reason to believe that a miracle has occurred, what is the r elationship between faith and reason, what is the relationship between morality and religion, what is the status of religious language, and does petitionary pra yer (sometimes still called impetratory prayer) make sense? Going beyond metaphysics, the philosophy of religion also addresses questions in areas such as epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and mo ral philosophy. See also world view. [edit] What is God? Religious symbols, from left to right: row 1: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism row 2: Islam, Buddhism, Shinto row 3: Sikhism, Bahai, Jainism The question "What is God?" is sometimes also phrased as "What is the meaning of the word God?" Most philosophers expect a definition as an answer to this quest ion, but rather than describing the way the word is used: they want to know the essence of what it means to be God. Western philosophers typically concern thems elves with the God of monotheistic religions (see the nature of God in Western t heology), but discussions also concern themselves with other conceptions of the divine.[citation needed] The Western, monotheistic conception of God (discussed below) has been the prima ry source of investigation in philosophy of religion.[citation needed] Among tho se who believe in supernatural beings, some believe there is just one God (monot heism), while others, such as Hindus, believe in many different deities (polythe ism while maintaining that all are manifestations of one God. Hindus also have a

widely followed monistic philosophy that can be said to be neither monotheistic nor polytheistic (see Advaita Vedanta). Within these two broad categories (monotheism and polytheism) there is a wide va riety of possible beliefs, although there are relatively few popular ways of bel ieving. For example, among the monotheists deists believe that the one God is li ke a watchmaker who wound up the universe and now does not intervene in the univ erse at all and some theists believe that God continues to be active in the univ erse. Buddhism deals less with metaphysics and more with ontological questions and gen erally is not concerned with the existence of a creator God but focuses on a sta te called Nirvana (See also Mu). [edit] Rationality of belief Main article: Existence of God Aquinas [edit] Positions The second question, "Do we have any good reason to think that God does or does not exist?", is equally important in the philosophy of religion. There are sever al main positions with regard to the existence of God that one might take: Theism - the belief in the existence of one or more divinities or deities. Pantheism - the belief that God exists as all things of the cosmos, that God is one and all is God; God is immanent. Panentheism - the belief that God encompasses all things of the cosmos b ut that God is greater than the cosmos; God is both immanent and transcendent. Deism - the belief that God does exist but does not interfere with human life and the laws of the universe; God is transcendent. Monotheism - the belief that a single deity exists which rules the unive rse as a separate and individual entity. Polytheism - the belief that multiple deities exist which rule the unive rse as separate and individual entities. Henotheism - the belief that multiple deities may or may not exist, thou gh there is a single supreme deity. Henology - believing that multiple avatars of a deity exist, which repre sent unique aspects of the ultimate deity. Agnosticism - the belief that the existence or non-existence of deities is c urrently unknown or unknowable, or that the existence of a God or of gods cannot be proven. Atheism - the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[5][6] Strong atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[7 ][8] Weak atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[8][ 9][10] There are not mutually exclusive positions. For example, agnostic theists choose to believe God exists while asserting that knowledge of God's existence is inhe rently unknowable. Similarly, agnostic atheists reject belief in the existence o f all deities, while asserting that whether any such entities exist or not is in herently unknowable. [edit] Natural theology The attempt to provide proofs or arguments for the existence of God is one aspec t of what is known as natural theology or the natural theistic project. This str and of natural theology attempts to justify belief in God by independent grounds . There is plenty of philosophical literature on faith (especially fideism) and other subjects generally considered to be outside the realm of natural theology. Perhaps most of philosophy of religion is predicated on natural theology's assu mption that the existence of God can be justified or warranted on rational groun

ds. There has been considerable philosophical and theological debate about the k inds of proofs, justifications and arguments that are appropriate for this disco urse.[11] The philosopher Alvin Plantinga has shifted his focus to justifying belief in Go d (that is, those who believe in God, for whatever reasons, are rational in doin g so) through Reformed epistemology, in the context of a theory of warrant and p roper cognitive function. Other reactions to natural theology are those of Wittgensteinian philosophers of religion, most notably D. Z. Phillips. Phillips rejects "natural theology" and its evidentialist approach as confused, in favor of a grammatical approach which investigates the meaning of belief in God. For Phillips, belief in God is not a proposition with a particular truth value, but a form of life. Consequently, th e question of whether God exists confuses the logical categories which govern th eistic language with those that govern other forms of discourse (most notably, s cientific discourse). According to Phillips, the question of whether or not God exists cannot be "objectively" answered by philosophy because the categories of truth and falsity, which are necessary for asking the question, have no applicat ion in the religious contexts wherein religious belief has its sense and meaning . In other words, the question cannot be answered because it cannot be asked wit hout entering into confusion. As Phillips sees things, the job of the philosophe r is not to investigate the "rationality" of belief in God but to elucidate its meaning. [edit] Analytic philosophy of religion As with the study of ethics, early analytic philosophy tended to avoid the study of philosophy of religion, largely dismissing (as per the logical positivists v iew) the subject as part of metaphysics and therefore meaningless.[12] The colla pse of logical positivism renewed interest in philosophy of religion, prompting philosophers like William Alston, John Mackie, Alvin Plantinga, Robert Merrihew Adams, Richard Swinburne, and Antony Flew not only to introduce new problems, bu t to re-open classical topics such as the nature of miracles, theistic arguments , the problem of evil, (see existence of God) the rationality of belief in God, concepts of the nature of God, and many more.[13] Plantinga, Mackie and Flew debated the logical validity of the free will defense as a way to solve the problem of evil.[14] Alston, grappling with the consequen ces of analytic philosophy of language, worked on the nature of religious langua ge. Adams worked on the relationship of faith and morality.[15] Analytic epistem ology and metaphysics has formed the basis for a number of philosophically-sophi sticated theistic arguments, like those of the reformed epistemologists like Pla ntinga. Analytic philosophy of religion has also been preoccupied with Ludwig Wittgenste in, as well as his interpretation of Sren Kierkegaard's philosophy of religion.[1 6] Using first-hand remarks (which would later be published in Philosophical Inv estigations, Culture and Value, and other works), philosophers such as Peter Win ch and Norman Malcolm developed what has come to be known as contemplative philo sophy, a Wittgensteinian school of thought rooted in the "Swansea tradition" and which includes Wittgensteinians such as Rush Rhees, Peter Winch and D. Z. Phill ips, among others. The name "contemplative philosophy" was first coined by D. Z. Phillips in Philosophy's Cool Place, which rests on an interpretation of a pass age from Wittgenstein's "Culture and Value."[17] This interpretation was first l abeled, "Wittgensteinian Fideism," by Kai Nielsen but those who consider themsel ves Wittgensteinians in the Swansea tradition have relentlessly and repeatedly r ejected this construal as caricature of Wittgenstein's considered position; this is especially true of D. Z. Phillips.[18] Responding to this interpretation, Ka i Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips became two of the most prominent philosophers on Wit tgenstein's philosophy of religion.[19]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The phenomenology of religion concerns the experiential aspect of religion, desc ribing religious phenomena in terms consistent with the orientation of the worsh ippers. It views religion as being made up of different components, and studies these components across religious traditions so that an understanding of them ca n be gained. The phenomenological approach to the study of religion owes its con ceptualization and development to Pierre Danil Chantepie de la Saussaye, William Brede Kristensen and Gerardus van der Leeuw. Chantepie de la Saussaye The first explicit use of the phrase "phenomenology of religion" occurs in the L ehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte (Handbook of the History of Religions), written by Pierre Danil Chantepie de la Saussaye in 1887, wherein he articulates the task of the science of religion and gives an "Outline of the phenomenology of religi on".[1] Employing the terminology of Hegel, Chantepie divides his science of rel igion into two areas of investigation, essence, and manifestations, which are ap proached through investigations in philosophy and history, respectively. However , Chantepie phenomenology "belongs neither to the history nor the philosophy of religion as Hegel envisioned them".[2] For Chantepie, it is the task of phenomen ology to prepare historical data for philosophical analysis through "a collectio n, a grouping, an arrangement, and a classifying of the principal groups of reli gious conceptions".[3] This sense of phenomenology as a grouping of manifestatio ns is similar to the conception of phenomenology articulated by Robison and the British; however, insofar as Chantepie conceives of phenomenology as a preparati on for the philosophical elucidation of essences, his phenomenology is not compl etely opposed to that of Hegel. [edit] Kristensen Chantepie Lehrbuch was highly influential, and many researchers began similar ef forts after its publication and its subsequent translation into English and Fren ch.[4] One such researcher was William Brede Kristensen. In 1901, Kristensen was appointed the first professorship relating to the phenomenology of religion at the University of Leiden.[5] Some of the material from Kristensen lectures on th e phenomenology of religion was edited posthumously, and the English translation was published in 1960 as The Meaning of Religion.[6] James notes that Kristense n phenomenology "adopts many of the features of Chantepie grouping of religious phenomena," and penetrates further into the intricacies of Chantepie phenomenolo gical approach.[7] For Chantepie, phenomenology is affected by the philosophy and history of religi on, but for Kristensen, it is also the medium whereby the philosophy and history of religion interact with and affect one another.[8] In this sense, Kristensen account of the relationship between historical manifestations and philosophy is more similar to that of Hegel than it is to Chantepie. In defining the religious essence of which he explores historical manifestations, Kristensen appropriates Rudolf Otto conception of das Heilige ("the holy" or "the sacred"). Otto descri bes das Heilige with the expression "mysterium tremendum"a numinous power reveale d in a moment of "awe" that admits of both the horrible shuddering of "religious dread" (tremendum) and fascinating wonder (fascinans) with the overpowering maj esty (majestas) of the ineffable, "wholly other" mystery (mysterium).[9] Like Chantepie, Kristensen argues that phenomenology seeks the meaning of religiou s phenomena. Kristensen clarifies this supposition by defining the meaning that his phenomenology is seeking as the meaning that the religious phenomena have for the believers themselves.[10] Furthermore, Kristensen argues that phenomenology is not complete in grouping or classifying the phenomena according to their mean

ing, but in the act of understanding. Phenomenology has as its objects to come as far as possible into contact with and to understand the extremely varied and di vergent religious data.[11] Being a phenomenologist, Kristensen was less interested in philosophical presupp ositions than in his concrete depth-research in the incidental religious phenome na. These subjects concerned mythological material (such as Creation, the Flood etc.) as well as human action (such as baptism, Olympic Games etc.), and objects of nature and handicrafts. In all of this he only made use of the authentic sou rces: writings and images by the believers themselves. This procedure compelled him to reduce the field of his research - he had to profoundly master all relati ng languages and writings in order to be able to understand his sources in a way as they would have wanted to be understood themselves. Consequently he reduced his field of research to the phenomena in religions living around the origin of Christianity: during the millennia before and the centuries after Christ, in Ira n (Avesta), Babylonia and Assyria, Israel, Egypt, Greece and Rome. The required knowledge of speeches, also, is one of the causes that only few (Van der Leeuw, Bleeker) of his pupils did carry on in his line, although many scholars showed i nterests in the results of his research. Apart from his synopsis The Meaning of Religion, and a just simple Introduction in History of Religion, his publication s are mostly restricted to the results of his incidental partial researches, pub lished in the shape of a Communication of the Royal Academy of the Netherlands. [edit] van der Leeuw The phenomenological approach to religion developed in Gerardus van der Leeuw Phn omenologie der Religion (1933) follows Kristensen in many respects, while also a ppropriating the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger and the hermeneutics of Wilhe lm Dilthey. For van der Leeuw, understanding is the subjective aspect of phenomena, which is inherently intertwined with the objectivity of that which is manifest. Van der Leeuw articulates the relation of understanding to understood phenomena accordin g to the schema outlined in Dilthey definition of the human sciences (Geisteswis senschaften) as sciences that are based on the relations between experience, expr ession and understanding (Verhltnis von Erlebnis, Ausdruck, und Verstehen).[12] Van der Leeuw correlates subjective experience, expression, and understanding with t hree objective levels of appearingrelative concealment (Verborgenheit), relative transparency (Durchsichtigkeit), and gradually becoming manifest or revealed (Of fenbarwerden), wherein the understanding of what is becoming revealed is the pri mordial level of appearing from which the experienced concealment and expressed transparency of appearing are derived.[13] Because van der Leeuw, like Kristensen, appropriates Otto concept of das Heilige in defining the essential category of religion, the transcendence becoming reve aled in all human understanding can be further described as sacred an overpoweri ng wholly other, which becomes revealed in astonishing moments of dreadful awe (Sc heu) and wonderful fascination.[14] Van der Leeuw argues that this concept of re ligious dread is also present in Kierkegaard work on Angst and in Heidegger stat ement that what arouses dread is being in the world itself.[15] Moreover, van der Le euw recognizes that, although dreadful, Being-in-the-world is fundamentally char acterized as care (Sorge), the existential structure whereby Dasein is concerned with meaningful relationships in the world alongside other beings.[16] Because all experiences disclose concealed (wholly other) transcendence to the u nderstanding, all experiences of Being-in-the-world are ultimately religious exp eriences of the sacred, whether explicitly recognized as such or not. Human bein g as such is homo religiosus, the opposite of homo negligens.[17] It is the task of the phenomenology of religion to interpret the various ways in which the sacred appears to human beings in the world, the ways in which humans

understand and care for that which is revealed to them, for that which is ultim ately wholly other mystery. Among other great phenomenologists who worked and in fluenced phenomenology of religion are Kristensen, Henry Corbin, Mahmoud Khatami , Ninian Smart, de la saussaye, Mircea Eliade. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Manaism is a form of tribal religion that refers to the belief in a supernatural force, "mana", that travels swiftly like an electric current around the world. This force suddenly enters other people and objects giving them powers which the y previously lacked. Visions, premonitions, sudden strength in people, faith hea ling all are explained by this belief. This supernatural force is known by sever al names: "Wakan" in Africa "Mana" in America and Australia "Qi" (or Chi) in China; Gi in Korea; Ki in Japan "Sing-Bonga" among Mundas and Hos of Madhya Pradesh, India. The term "manaism" was coined by Anthropologist Marriat. Manaism is also called "Bongaism" (belief in Bonga, i.e. a form of Mana). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Totemism is a system of belief in which humans are said to have a connection or a kinship with a spirit-being, such as an animal or plant. The totem is thought to interact with a given kin group or an individual and to serve as their emblem or symbol. The term totem is derived from the Ojibwa word ototeman, meaning "one's brothersister kin." The grammatical root, ote, signifies a blood relationship between b rothers and sisters who have the same mother and who may not marry each other. I n English, the word 'totem' was introduced in 1791 by a British merchant and tra nslator who gave it a false meaning in the belief that it designated the guardia n spirit of an individual, who appeared in the form of an animalan idea that the Ojibwa clans did indeed portray by their wearing of animal skins. It was reporte d at the end of the 18th century that the Ojibwa named their clans after those a nimals that live in the area in which they live and appear to be either friendly or fearful. The first accurate report about totemism in North America was writt en by a Methodist missionary, Peter Jones, himself an Ojibwa, who died in 1856 a nd whose report was published posthumously. According to Jones, the Great Spirit had given toodaims ("totems") to the Ojibwa clans, and because of this act, it should never be forgotten that members of the group are related to one another a nd on this account may not marry among themselves. The nature of totemism Totemism is a complex of varied ideas and ways of behaviour based on a worldview drawn from nature. There are ideological, mystical, emotional, reverential, and genealogical relationships of social groups or specific persons with animals or natural objects, the so-called totems. It is necessary to differentiate between group and individual totemism. These fo rms share some basic characteristics, but they occur with different emphases and in different specific forms. For instance, people generally view the totem as a companion, relative, protector, progenitor, or helper, ascribe to it superhuman powers and abilities, and offer it some combination of respect, veneration, awe , and fear. Most cultures use special names and emblems to refer to the totem, a

nd those it sponsors engage in partial identification with the totem or symbolic assimilation to it. There is usually a prohibition or taboo against killing, ea ting, or touching the totem. Although totems are often the focus of ritual behaviour, it is generally agreed that totemism is not a religion. Totemism can certainly include religious elemen ts in varying degrees, just as it can appear conjoined with magic. Totemism is f requently mixed with different kinds of other beliefs, such as ancestor worship, ideas of the soul, or animism. Such mixtures have historically made the underst anding of particular totemistic forms difficult. [edit] Group totemism Social or collective totemism is the most widely disseminated form of this belie f system. It typically includes one or more of several features, such as the mys tic association of animal and plant species, natural phenomena, or created objec ts with unilineally related groups (lineages, clans, tribes, moieties, phratries ) or with local groups and families; the hereditary transmission of the totems ( patrilineal or matrilineal); group and personal names that are based either dire ctly or indirectly on the totem; the use of totemistic emblems and symbols; tabo os and prohibitions that may apply to the species itself or can be limited to pa rts of animals and plants (partial taboos instead of partial totems); and a conn ection with a large number of animals and natural objects (multiplex totems) wit hin which a distinction can be made between principal totems and subsidiary ones (linked totems). Group totems are generally associated or coordinated on the basis of analogies o r on the basis of myth or ritual. Just why particular animals or natural thingswh ich sometimes possess no economic value for the communities concernedwere origina lly selected as totems is often based on eventful and decisive moments in a peop le's past. Folk traditions regarding the nature of totems and the origin of the societies in question are informative, especially with regard to the group's cul tural presuppositions. For example, a group that holds that it is derived direct ly or indirectly from a given totem may have a tradition in which its progenitor was an animal or plant that could also appear as a human being. In such belief systems, groups of people and species of animals and plants can thus have progen itors in common. In other cases, there are traditions that the human progenitor of a kin group had certain favourable or unfavourable experiences with an animal or natural object and then ordered that his descendants respect the whole speci es of that animal. Group totemism was traditionally common among peoples in Africa, India, Oceania (especially in Melanesia), North America, and parts of South America. These peop les include, among others, the Australian Aborigines, the African Pygmies, and v arious Native American peoplesmost notably the Northwest Coast Indians (predomina ntly fishermen), California Indians, and Northeast Indians. Moreover, group tote mism is represented in a distinctive form among the Ugrians and west Siberians ( hunters and fishermen who also breed reindeer) as well as among tribes of herdsm en in north and Central Asia. [edit] Individual totemism Individual totemism is expressed in an intimate relationship of friendship and p rotection between a person and a particular animal or a natural object (sometime s between a person and a species of animal); the natural object can grant specia l power to its owner. Frequently connected with individual totemism are definite ideas about the human soul (or souls) and conceptions derived from them, such a s the idea of an alter ego and nagualismfrom the Spanish form of the Aztec word n aualli, "something hidden or veiled"which means that a kind of simultaneous exist ence is assumed between an animal or a natural object and a person; i.e., a mutu al, close bond of life and fate exists in such a way that in case of the injury, sickness, or death of one partner, the same fate would befall the other member

of the relationship. Consequently, such totems became most strongly tabooed; abo ve all, they were connected with family or group leaders, chiefs, medicine men, shamans, and other socially significant persons. Studies of shamanism indicate that individual totemism may have predated group t otemism, as a group's protective spirits were sometimes derived from the totems of specific individuals. To some extent, there also exists a tendency to pass on an individual totem as hereditary or to make taboo the entire species of animal to which the individual totem belongs. Individual totemism is widely disseminated. It is found not only among tribes of hunters and harvesters but also among farmers and herdsmen. Individual totemism is especially emphasized among the Australian Aborigines and the American India ns. [edit] Some examples of totemism [edit] Wiradjuri Among the Wiradjuri, an Aboriginal people who traditionally lived in New South W ales, Australia, totem clans are divided among two subgroups and corresponding m atrilineal moieties. The group totem, named "flesh," is transmitted from the mot her. In contrast to this, individual totems belong only to the medicine men and are passed on patrilineally. Such an individual totem is named bala, "spirit com panion," or jarawaijewa, "the meat (totem) that is within him." There is a stric t prohibition against eating the totem. Breach of the taboo carries with it sick ness or death. It is said: "To eat your jarawaijewa is the same as if you were t o eat your very own flesh or that of your father." The medicine man identifies himself with his personal totem. Every offense or in jury against the totem has its automatic effect upon the man who commits it. It is a duty of the totem to guard the ritualist and the medicine man while he is a sleep. In the case of danger or the arrival of strangers, the animal goes back i nto the body of the medicine man and informs him. After the death of the medicin e man, the animal stands watch as a bright flickering light near the grave. The individual totem is also a helper of the medicine man. The medicine man emits th e totem in his sleep or in a trance so that it can collect information for him. In this tradition, sorcery may also be practiced by the medicine man. By singing , for instance, the medicine man can send out his totem to kill an enemy; the to tem enters the chest of the enemy and devours his viscera. The transmission of t he individual totem to novices is done through the father or the grandfather, wh o, of course, himself is also a medicine man. While the candidate lies on his ba ck, the totem is "sung into" him. The blood relative who is transmitting the tot em takes a small animal and places it on the chest of the youngster. During the singing, the animal supposedly sinks slowly into his body and finally disappears into it. The candidate is then instructed on how he has to treat the animal tha t is his comrade, and he is further instructed in song and the ritual concentrat ion that is necessary to dispatch the totem from his body. [edit] Nor-Papua Among the Nor-Papua of New Guinea, patrilineal, exogamous groups (consanguineous sibs) are spread over several villages and are associated with animals, especia lly fish. They believe that they are born from totems, and they make them taboo. Children are given an opportunity to decide during their initiation whether the y will respect the paternal or maternal totem. Each group of relatives has a hol y place to which the totem animal brings the souls of the dead and from which th e souls of children are also believed to come. Totem animals are represented in various manifestations: as spirit creatures in sacred flutes, in disguises, and in figures preserved in each man's house. At the end of initiation ceremonies, t he totems are mimicked by the members of the group. [edit] Iban

Among the Iban of Sarawak, Malaysia, individual totemism has been the tradition. Particular persons dream of a spirit of an ancestor or a dead relative; this sp irit appears in a human form, presents himself as a helper and protector, and na mes an animal (or sometimes an object) in which he is manifested. The Iban then observe the mannerisms of animals and recognize in the behaviour of the animals the embodiment of their protector spirit (ngarong). Sometimes, members of the tribe also carry with them a part of such an animal. N ot only this particular animal, but the whole species, is given due respect. Mea ls and blood offerings are also presented to the spirit animal. Young men who wish to obtain such a protector spirit for themselves sleep on the graves of prominent persons or seek out solitude and fast so that they may drea m of a helper spirit. Actually, only a few persons can name such animals as thei r very own. Individuals with protector spirits have also attempted to require fr om their descendants the respect and the taboo given the animal representing the spirit. As a rule, such descendants do not expect special help from the protect or spirit, but they observe the totemistic regulations anyway. [edit] Birhor The Birhor, a people that were traditionally residents of the jungle of Chota Na gpur Plateau in the northeast Deccan (India), are organized into patrilineal, ex ogamous totem groups. According to one imperfect list of 37 clans, 12 are based on animals, 10 on plants, 8 on Hindu castes and localities, and the rest on obje cts. The totems are passed on within the group, and tales about the tribe's orig ins suggest that each totem had a fortuitous connection with the birth of the an cestor of the clan. The Birhor think that there is a temperamental or physical similarity between th e members of the clan and their totems. Prohibitions or taboos are sometimes cul tivated to an extreme degree. In regard to eating, killing, or destroying them, the clan totems are regarded as if they were human members of the group. Moreove r, it is believed that an offense against the totems through a breach of taboo w ill produce a corresponding decrease in the size of the clan. If a person comes upon a dead totem animal, he must smear his forehead with oil or a red dye, but he must not actually mourn over the animal; he also does not bury it. The close and vital relationship between the totem and the clan is shown in a de finite ceremony: the yearly offering to the chief spirit of the ancestral hill. Each Birhor community has a tradition of an old settlement that is thought to be located on a hill in the area. Once a year, the men of each clan come together at an open place. The elder of the clan functions as the priest who gives the of fering. A diagram with four sections is drawn on the ground with rice flour. In one of these, the elder sits while gazing in the direction of the ancestral hill . The emblem of the particular totem is placed in one of the other sections of t he diagram; depending on the circumstances, this emblem could be a flower, a pie ce of horn or skin, a wing, or a twig. This emblem represents the clan as a whol e. If an animal is needed for such a ceremony, it is provided by the members of another clan who do not hold it as a totem. The Birhor show great fear of the sp irits of the ancestral hill and avoid these places as far as possible. [edit] Kpelle Among the Kpelle people of Liberia there is not only group totemism but also ind ividual totemism. Both kinds of totems are referred to variously as "thing of po ssession," "thing of birth," or "thing of the back of men." These phrases expres s the idea that the totem always accompanies, belongs to, and stands behind one as a guide and warner of dangers. The totem also punishes the breach of any tabo o.

Kpelle totems include animals, plants, and natural phenomena. The kin groups tha t live in several villages were matrilineal at an earlier time, but during the 2 0th century they began to exhibit patrilineal tendencies. The group totems, espe cially the animal totems, are considered as the residence of the ancestors; they are respected and are given offerings. Moreover, a great role is played by indi vidual totems that, in addition to being taboo, are also given offerings. Person al totems that are animals can be transmitted from father to son or from mother to daughter; on the other hand, individual plant totems are assigned at birth or later. The totem also communicates magical powers. It is even believed possible to alte r one's own totem animal; further, it is considered an alter ego. Persons with t he same individual totem prefer to be united in communities. The well-known leop ard confederation, a secret association, seems to have grown out of such desires . Entirely different groups produce patrilineal taboo communities that are suppo sedly related by blood; they comprise persons of several tribes. The animals, pl ants, and actions made taboo by these groups are not considered as totems. In a certain respect, the individual totems in this community seem to be the basis of group totemism. [edit] A short history of totemistic theory [edit] McLennan to Thurnwald There are a number of theories or hypotheses concerning totemism. Many of them a re marked by methodological deficiencies, preconceived ideas, and a prejudiced s election of source documents; nevertheless, some of these theories contain point s of view that deserve consideration. The first theory was proposed by the Scottish ethnologist John Ferguson McLennan . Following the vogue of 19th-century research, he wanted to comprehend totemism in a broad perspective, and in his study The Worship of Animals and Plants (186 9, 1870)[citation needed] he did not seek to explain the specific origin of the totemistic phenomenon but sought to indicate that all of the human race had in a ncient times gone through a totemistic stage. In 1899 McLennan's theories were criticized by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor[citation needed], an English anthropologist who rejected the confusion of totemism with mere worship of animals and plants. Tylor claimed to find in totemism the tenden cy of the human spirit to classify the world and its things. He thus viewed tote mism as a relationship between one type of animal and a clan. But he was opposed to the idea of seeing totems as the basis of religion. Another Scottish scholar, Andrew Lang, early in the 20th century advocated a nom inalistic meaning for totemism[citation needed], namely that local groups, clans , or phratries, in selecting totem names from the realm of nature, were reacting to a need to be differentiated. If the origin of the names was forgotten, there followed a mystical relationship between the objectsfrom which the names were on ce derivedand the groups that bore these names. Lang wanted to explain the relati onship through nature myths according to which animals and natural objects were considered as the relatives, patrons, or ancestors of the respective social unit s. He felt that thoughts by the tribes on these matters led eventually to taboos , and that group exogamy first originated in the formation of totemistic associa tions. The first comprehensive work on totemism was Totemism and Exogamy[citation neede d], published in 1910 in four volumes by the British anthropologist Sir James Ge orge Frazer. It presented a meritorious compilation of the worldwide data then a vailable on the subject. Basing his view on research done among indigenous peoples in Australia and Melan esia, Frazer saw the origin of totemism as an interpretation of the conception a

nd birth of children, a belief he called "conceptionalism." According to Frazer, conceptualist cultures explain that women become impregnated when a spirit of a n animal or a spiritual fruit enters into their wombs. As children therefore par ticipate in the nature of the animal or plant, these plants or animals take on s ignificance. Frazer thought that conceptualist explanations of conception result ed in the beginning of totem clans derived from a particular natural creature. A Russian American ethnologist, Alexander Goldenweiser, subjected totemistic phe nomena to sharp criticism[citation needed]. His critique had lasting importance, especially in the United States, where it engendered a skeptical attitude conce rning totemism. Goldenweiser saw in totemism three phenomena that could exist si ngly and actually coincided only in the rarest of cases. These phenomena were: ( 1) clan organization, (2) clans taking animal or plant names or having "emblems" obtained from nature, and (3) belief in a relationship between groups and their totems. Goldenweiser did not perceive these phenomena as a unity, since any of them could exist apart from the others. In another treatise published in 1910, a German ethnologist, Richard Thurnwald, claimed to recognize in totemism the expression of a specific way of thinking am ong nonindustrial societies[citation needed]. He felt that such groups judge the natural environment according to its external appearance without analyzing it a ny closer and assume that there are sympathetic connections and combinations of natural things; from these ideas come lasting rules of behaviour such as taboos, respect, and social relationships. For the psychology of totemism, Thurnwald la ter (191718) put forth a detailed, systematic presentation; by means of concrete examples, he also raised questions about the connections of totemism with ancest or worship, notions of souls, and beliefs in power, magic, offerings, and oracle s. [edit] Durkheim to Radcliffe-Brown The founder of a French school of sociology, mile Durkheim, examined totemism fro m a sociological and theological point of view[citation needed]. Durkheim hoped to discover a pure religion in very ancient forms and generally claimed to see t he origin of religion in totemism. For Durkheim, the sphere of the sacred is a r eflection of the emotions that underlie social activities, and the totem was, in this view, a reflection of the group (or clan) consciousness, based on the conc eption of an impersonal power. The totemistic principle was then the clan itself , and it was permeated with sanctity. Durkheim held that such a religion reflect s the collective consciousness that is manifested through the identification of the individuals of the group with an animal or plant species; it is expressed ou twardly in taboos, symbols, and rituals that are based on this identification. In further contributions, Goldenweiser in 191516 and 1918 criticized Lang, Frazer , and Durkheim and insisted that totemism had nothing to do with religion; he he ld instead that man in no way viewed his totem as superior to himself or as a de ified being but viewed it as his friend and equal[citation needed]. Goldenweiser also rejected Frazer's thesis of conceptionalism as an explanation of totemism. On the other hand, Goldenweiser was of the opinion that all totemistic manifest ations do have at least something of a kind of religion, but he was not inclined to include the guardian spirit conception within totemism. In 1916 an American ethnologist, Franz Boas, suggested that totemism exhibited n o single psychological or historical origin; since totemistic features can be co nnected with individuals and all possible social organizations, and they appear in different cultural contexts, it would be impossible to fit totemistic phenome na into a single category[citation needed]. Boas was against systematizing and t hought it senseless to ask questions about the origins of totemism. The first theoretician of the Vienna school of ethnology, Fritz Graebner, attemp ted to explain the forms of both individual totemism and group totemism and desi

gnated them as a moderately creedal or semireligious complex of ideas according to which individual members or subgroups of a society are thought to be in an es pecially close (but not cultic) relationship to natural objects[citation needed] . According to Graebner, one can use the cultural-historical method to establish the extent to which totemistic forms belong to one definite cultural complex; w hich forms of totemism are "older" or "younger"; and the extent to which forms b elong together in an antecedent-decedent relationship. Graebner tried to work ou t a "totem complex" (a "culture circle"; see kulturkreis) for the South Seas. Th is complex entailed a patrilineal group totemism as well as the material, econom ic, and religious elements that, in his opinion, appear to be combined with the totemism in that area. Another member of the same school, Bernhard Ankermann, in 191516 championed the v iew that all totemisms, regardless of where they are found, contained a common k ernel around which new characteristics are built[citation needed]. As seen from the standpoint of what was found in Africa, this kernel appeared to him to be th e belief in a specific relationship between social groups and natural thingsin a feeling of unity between botha relationship he believed to be spread throughout t he world, even if only in a modified or diminished form. From Ankermann's perspe ctive, magical and animalistic ideas and rites are merged with totemism in a str ong inseparable unity. The genesis of this type of relationship presupposes a state of mind that makes no distinction between man and beast. Although magic can be closely connected wi th totemism, the feeling of unity between man and beast has nothing to do with m agic, which was connected with it only later. According to Ankermann, the totems are not something perilous, something to be shunned, but on the contrary are so mething friendlya totem is thought to be like a brother and is to be treated as s uch[citation needed]. Further, the totemistic taboo occurs because the totem is a relative. Ankermann was inclined to see the formation of totemism in an emotio nal animal-man relationship: early hunters, he thought, might have imitated thos e animals that attracted their attention most of all. Ankermann further explaine d that "primitive man" identifies himself with the animal while he is imitating it, and that the habit of so doing could lead to a continuing identification exp ressed as totemism. In 191516 Wilhelm Schmidt, then the leader of the Vienna School of Ethnology, vie wed totemism strictly according to the then-popular schemes of culture circles o r kulturkreis (today long abandoned); because totemism was disseminated througho ut the world, he thought of it as a single cultural complex in spite of local di fferences[citation needed]. He maintained that the differences in totemism explo red by earlier theories are exaggerations and could, moreover, be due to the lac k of particular elements of totemism, to the loss of certain forms of totemism, to incursions from the outside, or to different stages of the development of tot emism, none of which would exclude a unified origin for all of totemism. Schmidt believed that the cultural-historical school of ethnology had produced proof th at an older, genuine totemism had been an integral part of a culture located in a definite area and that it was "organically" connected with definite forms of t echnology, economy, art, and worldview. From this supposedly "pure" form of tote mism, Schmidt wanted to separate derived forms, such as individual totemism. Mor eover, though he did not designate totemism as a religion, he saw that it did ha ve some sort of religious meaning. In opposition to Ankermann, Schmidt regarded a more recent, or "higher," form of hunting as the economic basis for the totemi stic "culture circle." The leading representative of British social anthropology, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown , took a totally different view of totemism[citation needed]. Like Boas, he was skeptical that totemism could be described in any unified way. In this he oppose d the other pioneer of social anthropology in England, Bronisaw Malinowski, who w anted to confirm the unity of totemism in some way and approached the matter mor

e from a biological and psychological point of view than from an ethnological on e. According to Malinowski, totemism was not a cultural phenomenon, but rather t he result of trying to satisfy basic human needs within the natural world. As fa r as Radcliffe-Brown was concerned, totemism was composed of elements that were taken from different areas and institutions, and what they have in common is a g eneral tendency to characterize segments of the community through a connection w ith a portion of nature. In opposition to Durkheim's theory of sacralization, Ra dcliffe-Brown took the point of view that nature is introduced into the social o rder rather than secondary to it. At first, he shared with Malinowski the opinio n that an animal becomes totemistic when it is "good to eat." He later came to o ppose the usefulness of this viewpoint, since many totemssuch as crocodiles and f liesare dangerous and unpleasant. In 1952, when Radcliffe-Brown rethought the problem, he found that the similarit ies and differences between species of animals are to a certain degree translate d into ideas of friendship and conflict, or close relationships and opposition a mong people. The structural principle that Radcliffe-Brown believed he had disco vered at the end of this study is based on the fusion of the two contrary ideas of friendship and animosity. In this view, totemism speaks in its own way of int errelationships and antitheses, ideas that are also found in moieties. Thinking in terms of opposing things is, according to Radcliffe-Brown, an essential struc tural principle for evaluating totemism. [edit] Lvi-Strauss The most incisive critique of totemistic phenomena, one that denied the "reality " of totemism, was supplied by the French ethnologist Claude Lvi-Strauss in Le To tmisme aujourd'hui (English translation, Totemism, 1963)[citation needed]. As a c hief representative of modern structuralism, Lvi-Strauss was especially stimulate d by Radcliffe-Brown, whose views he attempted to further expand. Lvi-Strauss bel ieved that he was to approach the apparent, acknowledged difficulties in the stu dy of totemism from the viewpoint of a study of structure. In order to study the structure of totemism, Lvi-Strauss devised a scheme to illustrate the abstract p olarities that he saw in totemism as a phenomenon in human culture. His scheme was implemented in a table of oppositions or polarities, or mutual re lationships. The basic opposition, or relationship, was between nature and cultu re. On the one hand, there were in nature certain realities such as species of a nimals or plants and specific animals or plants. On the other hand, there were i n culture various groups and individuals who identified themselves with particul ar species or with specific animals or plants. Lvi-Strauss distinguished four kin ds of relationship between nature and culture within totemism: (1) a species of animal or plant identified with a particular group, (2) a species of animal or p lant identified with an individual, (3) a particular animal or plant identified with an individual, and (4) a particular animal or plant identified with a group . According to Lvi-Strauss, each of these four combinations corresponds to the phen omena that are to be observed in one people or another. The first holds good, fo r example, for the Australians, for whom natural things are associated with cult ural groups (moieties, sections, subsections, phratries, clans, or the associati on of persons from the same sex). As an example of the second combination, there is the individual totemism of North American Indians, in which a person is corr elated with a species of nature. For the third type of combination, the Mota peo ple of the Banks Islands of Melanesia are cited: the individual child is thought of as the incarnation of a particular animal, plant, or natural creature that w as found and consumed by the mother at the time that she was conscious of her pr egnancy. For the fourth type of correlation, Lvi-Strauss cited examples from Poly nesia and Africa where definite individual animals formed the object of group pa tronage and veneration.

Lvi-Strauss also critiqued the findings of A. P. Elkin[citation needed], a specia list on Australia, where totemism had already played a special role in the forma tion of anthropological and sociological theories and where it exhibits an abund ance of forms. Elkin had also differentiated four forms: individual totemism; so cial totemismi.e., totemism that is in a family, moiety, section, subsection, pat rilineal clan, or matrilineal clan; cultic totemism, with a religious content th at is patrilineal and "conceptional" in form; and dream totemismtotemistic conten t in dreamsfound in social or individual totemism. Elkin denied the unity of tote mism, but (according to Lvi-Strauss) wanted to preserve its reality on the condit ion that he might trace it back to a multiplicity of types. For Elkin, there is no longer "one" totemism but many totemisms, each in itself a single irreducible whole. In connection with the Australian material, Lvi-Strauss argued that matrilineal c lan totemismwhich was passed on through the "flesh" or "blood"and patrilineal clan totemismwhich was based on dreamingwere in no way heterogeneous but were to be th ought of as being mutually complementary. These two types of totemism were diffe rent means of connecting the material and spiritual world; together, they expres sed the relationship between nature and society. From the Australian data, Lvi-Strauss concluded that "real" totemism was based no t on the similarities of the matrilineal and patrilineal types but on their diss imilarities. Such a pattern was clearly expressed in the basic model of the cont rasts of the natural with the cultural (that were outlined above). Building on t he ideas of Radcliffe-Brown, Lvi-Strauss claimed to perceive antithetical thinkin g as a crucial structural principle in totemism and believed that the similarity among totemistic ideas in various cultures lay in similarities between systems of differencesthose documented in the natural sphere and those in the culturally defined social groups. Lvi-Strauss concluded that the distinction between the cla sses of man and animal serves as the conceptual basis for social differences. Fo r Lvi-Strauss, totemism is therefore an "illusion" and a "logic that classifies"a post hoc explanation in which the structure of social relations is projected ont o the natural phenomena, not taken from it. [edit] After Lvi-Strauss During the later 20th century, anthropologists and sociologists became increasin gly preoccupied with such issues as the construction of meaning and identity in a postcolonial world[citation needed]. Given that totemistic belief systems had proved to be relatively durable over the course of human history, many scholars asked whether it was useful, as Lvi-Strauss had advocated, to dispose of totemism as a "mere" social construct. As a result, investigations of totemism generally declined; those that were undertaken moved away from treatments of its universa lity (or lack thereof) and toward studies that considered totem systems in more specific contexts. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A taboo is a vehement prohibition of an action based on the belief that such beh avior is either too sacred or too accursed for ordinary individuals to undertake , under threat of supernatural punishment.[1][2] Such prohibitions are present i n virtually all societies.[1] The word has been somewhat expanded in the social sciences to include strong prohibitions relating to any area of human activity o r custom that is sacred or forbidden based on moral judgment and religious belie fs.[citation needed] "Breaking a taboo" is usually considered objectionable by s ociety in general, not merely a subset of a culture. Etymology The term "taboo" comes from the Tongan tabu, related to the Maori tapu. Its Engl

ish use dates to 1777 when the British explorer James Cook visited Tonga. Descri bing the cultural practices of the Tongans, he wrote: Not one of them would sit down, or eat a bit of any thing.... On expressing my surprise at this, they were all taboo, as they said; which word has a very co mprehensive meaning; but, in general, signifies that a thing is forbidden.[3] and When any thing is forbidden to be eaten, or made use of, they say, that it i s taboo.[4] The term was translated to him as "consecrated, inviolable, forbidden, unclean o r cursed".[5] Tabu itself has been derived from Tongan ta ("mark") and bu ("espe cially").[6][7] and Fijian tabu ("prohibited", "disallowed", "forbidden").[8] In its current use on Tonga, the word tapu means "sacred" or "holy", often in the sense of being restricted or protected by custom or law. On the main island, the word is often appended to the end of "Tonga" as Tongatapu, here meaning "Sacred South" rather than "Forbidden South". [edit] Examples Sigmund Freud posited that incest and patricide were the only two universal tabo os and formed the basis of civilization.[9] However, although cannibalism, in-gr oup murder, and incest are taboo in the majority of societies, modern research h as found exceptions for each and no taboo is presently known to be universal.[ci tation needed] Common taboos include restrictions or ritual regulation of killing and hunting; sex and sexual relationships (primarily incest, pedophilia, necrophilia, interma rriage, miscegenation, adultery, homosexuality, fornication, and bestiality); re production (abortion, infanticide); the deceased and their graves; food and dini ng (primarily cannibalism and dietary laws such as vegetarianism, kashrut, and h alal); and bodily functions (primarily menstrual cycles, but also defecation and urination). Taboos often extend to cover discussion of taboo topics, resulting in euphemisms and replacement of taboo words.[citation needed] [edit] Function Taboos may serve many functions[clarification needed] and often remain in effect after their original reason has disappeared.[citation needed] Communist and materialist theorists have argued that taboos can be used to revea l the histories of societies when other records are lacking.[10] Marvin Harris p articularly endeavored to explain taboos as a consequence of ecologic and econom ic conditions.[specify][citation needed] [edit] Modernity The rise of rationalism and science has reduced the potency of many former taboo s in modern cultures.[citation needed] In the United States and Europe, people o penly discuss and explore previously taboo subjects such as sexuality and aborti on. Increasing understanding has led medical disorders such as epilepsy, birth d efects, and sexually transmitted diseases to be treated more analytically and le ss judgmentally than in the past.[citation needed] However, changing social customs and standards also create new taboos, such as b ans on slavery; conflation of ephebophilia with pedophilia;[11] prohibitions on alcohol, tobacco, or psychopharmaceutical consumption (particularly among pregna nt women); and the employment of politically correct euphemisms to at times quit e unsuccessfully mitigate various forms of discrimination.

Incest itself has been pulled both ways, with some seeking to normalize consensu al adult relationships regardless of the degree of kinship[12] (notably in Europ e[13][14]) and others expanding the degrees of prohibited contact (notably in th e United States[15]). Contemporary multicultural societies have established a number of taboos rooted in the perceived injustice and deleterious effects of modern history, particular ly neocolonialism. Tribalisms (for example, ethnocentrism and nationalism) and p rejudices (racism, sexism, religious extremism) are opposed at times reflexively despite the potentially high cost of diverse societies in terms of trust and so lidarity.[16] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Animism (from Latin anima "soul, life")[1][2] refers to the belief that non-huma n entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle. [3] Animism encompasses the beliefs that there is no separation between the spiritua l and physical (or material) world, and souls or spirits exist, not only in huma ns, but also in all other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mo untains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment.[4] Animism may further attribute souls to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metap hors in mythology. Examples of Animism can be found in forms of Shinto, Hinduism , Buddhism, Pantheism, Paganism, and Neopaganism. Throughout European history, philosophers such as Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, among others, contemplated the possibility that souls exist in animals, plants, and people; however, the currently accepted definition of animism was only devel oped in the 19th century by Sir Edward Tylor, who created it as "one of anthropo logy's earliest concepts, if not the first".[5] According to the anthropologist Tim Ingold, animism shares similarities to totem ism but differs in its focus on individual spirit beings which help to perpetuat e life, whereas totemism more typically holds that there is a primary source, su ch as the land itself or the ancestors, who provide the basis to life. Certain i ndigenous religious groups such as the Australian Aborigines are more typically totemic, whereas others like the Inuit are more typically animistic in their wor ldview.[6] Etymology Sir Edward Tylor was responsible for forming the definition of animism currently accepted in anthropology. The term Animalism appears to have been first developed as animismus by German s cientist Georg Ernst Stahl, circa 1720, to refer to the "doctrine that animal li fe is produced by an immaterial soul." The actual English language form of animi sm, however, can only be attested to 1819.[7] The term was taken and redefined b y the anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor in his 1871 book Primitive Culture, in whi ch he defined it as "the general doctrine of souls and other spiritual beings in general."[8] According to religious scholar Robert Segal, Tylor saw all religio ns, "modern and primitive alike", as forms of animism.[1] According to Tylor, animism often includes "an idea of pervading life and will i n nature";[9] i.e., a belief that natural objects other than humans have souls. As a self-described "confirmed scientific rationalist", Tylor believed that this view was "childish" and typical of "cognitive underdevelopment",[10] and that i t was therefore common in "primitive" peoples such as those living in hunter gat

herer societies. Tylor's definition of animism has since largely been followed by anthropologists , such as mile Durkheim, Claude Lvi-Strauss and Tim Ingold. However, some anthropo logists, such as Nurit Bird-David, have criticised the Tylorian concept of animi sm, believing it to be outdated.[11] [edit] Motivation Further information: anthropology of religion and psychology of religion Animism in the widest sense, i.e., thinking of objects as animate, and treating them as if they were animate, is near-universal. Jean Piaget applied the term in child psychology in reference to an implicit understanding of the world in a ch ild's mind which assumes that all events are the product of intention or conscio usness. Piaget explains this with a cognitive inability to distinguish the exter nal world from one's . Developmental psychology has since established that the d istinction of animate vs. inanimate things is an abstraction acquired by learnin g.[citation needed] The justification for attributing life to objects was stated by David Hume in hi s Natural History of Religion (Section III): "There is a universal tendency amon g mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every objec t those qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they a re intimately conscious."[12] Lists of phenomena, from the contemplation of which "the savage" was led to beli eve in animism, have been given by Sir E. B. Tylor, Herbert Spencer, Andrew Lang , and others; a controversy arose between the former as to the priority of their respective lists.[citation needed] Among these phenomena are trance states, dre ams, and hallucinations.[citation needed] [edit] Animism and religion Animism is a belief held in many religions around the world, and is not, as some have purported, a type of religion in itself.[citation needed] It is a belief, such as shamanism, polytheism or monotheism, that is found in several religions. [citation needed] In modern usage, the term is sometimes used improperly as a ca tch-all classification of "other world religions" alongside major organized reli gions. [edit] Tylor's theory Some theories have been put forward that the anthropocentric belief in animism a mong early humans was the basis for the later evolution of religions. In one suc h theory, put forward by Sir E. B. Tylor, early humans initially, through mere o bservation, recognized what might be called a soul, life-force, spirit, breath o r animus within themselves; that which was present in the body in life and absen t in death. These early humans equated this soul with figures which would appear in dreams and visions. These early human cultures later interpreted these spiri ts to be present in animals, the living plant world, and even in natural objects in a form of animism. Eventually, these early humans grew to believe that the s pirits were invested and interested in human life, and performed rituals to prop itiate them. These rituals and beliefs eventually evolved over time into the vas t array of developed religions. According to Tylor, the more scientifically advanc ed the society, the less that society believed in Animism; however, any remnant ideologies of souls or spirits, to Tylor, represented survivals of the original an imism of early humanity.{{link}} [edit] World view In many animistic world views found in hunter-gatherer cultures, the human being is often regarded as on a roughly equal footing with other animals, plants, and natural forces.[13][page needed] Therefore, it is morally imperative to treat t hese agents with respect. In this world view, humans are considered a part of na

ture, rather than superior to, or separate from it. [edit] Death It is not surprising to find that many peoples respect and even worship animals (see totem or animal worship), often regarding them as relatives. It is clear th at widespread respect was paid to animals as the abode of dead ancestors, and mu ch of the cults to dangerous animals is traceable to this principle; though ther e is no need to attribute an animistic origin to it.[14] [edit] Mythology A large part of mythology is based upon a belief in souls and spirits that is, u pon animism in its more general sense. Urarina myths that portray plants, inanim ate objects, and non-human animals as personal beings are examples of animism in its more restrictive sense.[15] [edit] Distinction from Pantheism Animism is not the same as Pantheism, although the two are sometimes confused. S ome faiths and religions are even both pantheistic and animistic. One of the mai n differences is that while animists believe everything to be spiritual in natur e, they do not necessarily see the spiritual nature of everything in existence a s being united (monism), the way pantheists do. As a result, animism puts more e mphasis on the uniqueness of each individual soul. In Pantheism, everything shar es the same spiritual essence, rather than having distinct spirits and/or souls. [16][17] [edit] Science and animism Some early scientists such as Georg Ernst Stahl (1659-1734) and Francisque Bouil lier (18131899) had supported a form of animism which life and mind, the directiv e principle in evolution and growth, holding that all cannot be traced back to c hemical and mechanical processes, but that there is a directive force which guid es energy without altering its amount. An entirely different class of ideas, als o termed animistic, is the belief in the world soul anima mundi, held by philoso phers such as Schelling and others.[18][19] In the early 20th century William Mc Dougall defended a form of animism in his book Body and Mind: A History and Defe nce of Animism (1911). The physicist Nick Herbert has argued for "quantum animism" in which mind permea tes the world at every level.[20] Werner Krieglstein wrote regarding his quantum animism: Herbert's quantum animism differs from traditional animism in that it av oids assuming a dualistic model of mind and matter. Traditional dualism assumes that some kind of spirit inhabitats a body and makes it move, a ghost in the mac hine. Herbert's quantum animism presents the idea that every natural system has an inner life, a conscious center, from which it directs and observes its action .[21] The terms animism and panpsychism have become related in recent years. The biolo gist Rupert Sheldrake has supported a form of animism which David Skrbina calls "a unique form of pansychism". Sheldrake in his book The Rebirth of Nature: New Science and the Revival of Animism (1991) has claimed that Morphic fields "anima te organisms at all levels of complexity, from galaxies to giraffes, and from an ts to atoms".[22] In his book The Science Delusion (2012) he wrote that the phil osophy of the organism (organicism) has updated the ideas of animism as it treat s all of nature as alive.[23] [edit] Contemporary animist traditions Further information: Folk religion and Shamanism Shinto, the traditional religion of Japan, is highly animistic. In Shinto, s pirits of nature, or kami, are believed to exist everywhere, from the major (suc h as the goddess of the sun), which can be considered polytheistic, to the minor

, which are more likely to be seen as a form of animism. Many traditional beliefs in the Philippines centuries ago, and perhaps still practiced by some to an extent or in seclusion today, are beliefs strongly asso ciated with animism and spiritual beliefs, which have featured rituals aimed at pacifying malevolent spirits. There are some Hindu groups which may be considered animist. The coastal Kar nataka has a different tradition of praying to spirits (see also Folk Hinduism). Many traditional Native American religions are fundamentally animistic. See, for example, the Lakota Sioux prayer Mitakuye Oyasin. The Haudenausaunee Thanks giving Address, which can take an hour to recite, directs thanks towards every b eing - plant, animal and other. The New Age movement commonly purports animism in the form of the existence of nature spirits.[24] Modern Neopagans, especially Eco-Pagans, sometimes like to describe themselv es as animists, meaning that they respect the diverse community of living beings and spirits with whom humans share the world/cosmos.[25] New tribalist American author Daniel Quinn identifies himself as an animist and defines animism not as a religious belief but a religion itself,[26] though with no holy scripture, organized institutions, or established dogma.[27] He con siders animism the first worldwide religion, common among all tribal societies b efore the advent of the Agriculture Revolution and its resulting globalized cult ure, along with the proliferation of this culture's organized, "salvationist" re ligions.[28] His first discussions of animism appear in his two 1994 books: his novel, The Story of B, and his autobiography, Providence: The Story of a Fifty-Y ear Vision Quest. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

; divs) is an umbrella term for a heterogeneous s Adivasi (Sanskrit: Nepali: Hindi: thnic and tribal groups claimed to be the aboriginal population of India.[1][2][ 3] They comprise a substantial indigenous minority of the population of India. T he word is used in the same sense in Nepal as is another word janajati (Nepali: ; jana jti), although the political context differed historically under the Shah and Ran a dynasties. Adivasi societies are particularly present in the Indian Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Mad hya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar , Jharkhand, West Bengal, Mizoram, and other northeastern states, and the Andama n and Nicobar Islands. Many smaller tribal groups are quite sensitive to ecologi cal degradation caused by modernization. Both commercial forestry and intensive agriculture have proved destructive to the forests that had endured swidden agri culture for many centuries.[4] Officially recognized by the Indian government as "Scheduled Tribes" in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India, they are often grouped together with scheduled castes in the category "Scheduled Castes and Tribes", which is eligible for certain affirmative action measures. Connotations of the word 'Adivsi' Although terms such as atavika, vanavsi ("forest dwellers"), or girijan ("hill pe ople")[5] are also used for the tribes of India, adivsi carries the specific mean ing of being the original and autochthonous inhabitants of a given region, and w as specifically coined for that purpose in the 1930s.[6] Over a period of time, unlike the terms "aborigines" or "tribes", the word "adivasi" has also developed a connotation of past autonomy which was disrupted during the British colonial period in India and has not been restored.[7] In Nepal, the infiltration of Khas people from west to east through the Middle H ills, then the consolidation of dozens of petty kingdoms by the Shahs followed b y the usurpation by the Ranas brought indigenous nationalities under orthodox Hi

ndu rule and then codified inferior social and political status into a corpus of law known as Muluki Ain. Although the Shah kings were restored to power in the revolution of 1950, they still governed mostly for and through high caste Bahuns , Thakuris, Chhetris and Newars. Enfranchisement of adivasisexcept Newarsseldom ad vanced beyond lip service. This produced grievances that were instrumental in th e Nepalese Civil War, where the rank and file of guerilla fighters were largely adivasi. Thus in Nepal, there are no historical parallels to British interferenc e with orthodox Hindu discrimination, nor was there much resembling India's sign ificantly effective post-Independence efforts to improve the lot of adivasis. In India, opposition to usage of the term is varied, and it has been argued that the "original inhabitant" contention is based on dubious claims and that the ad ivsi - non adivasi divide that has been created is artificial.[8] It should also be noted that in Northeast India, the term Adivsi applies only to the Tea-tribes imported from Central India during colonial times, while all tribal groups refer collectively to themselves by using the English word "tribes". [edit] Scheduled tribes The Constitution of India, Article 366 (25) defines Scheduled Tribes as "such tr ibes or tribal communities or part of or groups within such tribes or tribal com munities as are deemed under Article 342 to the scheduled Tribes (STs) for the p urposes of this Constitution". In Article 342, the procedure to be followed for specification of a scheduled tribe is prescribed. However, it does not contain t he criterion for the specification of any community as scheduled tribe. An often used criterion is based on attributes such as: Geographical isolation - they live in cloistered, exclusive, remote and inho spitable areas such as hills and forests. Backwardness - their livelihood is based on primitive agriculture, a low-val ue closed economy with a low level of technology that leads to their poverty. Th ey have low levels of literacy and health. Distinctive culture, language and religion - communities have developed thei r own distinctive culture, language and religion. Shyness of contact they have a marginal degree of contact with other culture s and people.[9] [edit] Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups[10] The Scheduled Tribe groups who were identified as more isolated from the wider c ommunity and who maintain a distinctive cultural identity have been categorised as 'Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups' (PTGs) (previously known as Primitive Tribal Groups) by the Government at the Centre. So far seventy-five tribal comm unities have been identified as 'particularly vulnerable tribal groups' in diffe rent States of India. These hunting, food-gathering, and some agricultural commu nities, have been identified as less acculturated tribes among the tribal popula tion groups and in need of special programmes for their sustainable development. The tribes are awakening and demanding their rights for special reservation quo ta for them.[11] [edit] Geographical overview A girl of the Chenchu tribe in the Nallamala forest, Andhra Pradesh There is a substantial list of Scheduled Tribes in India recognised as tribal un der the Constitution of India. Tribal people constitute 8.2% of the nation's tot al population, over 84 million people according to the 2001 census. One concentr ation lives in a belt along the Himalayas stretching through Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand in the west, to Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Aru nachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland in the northeast. In the northeas tern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland, more than 90 % of the population is tribal. However, in the remaining northeast states of Ass am, Manipur, Sikkim, and Tripura, tribal peoples form between 20 and 30% of the

population. Another concentration lives in the hilly areas of central India (Chhattisgarh, M adhya Pradesh, Orissa and, to a lesser extent, Andhra Pradesh); in this belt, wh ich is bounded by the Narmada River to the north and the Godavari River to the s outheast, tribal peoples occupy the slopes of the region's mountains. Other trib als, including the Santals, live in Jharkhand and West Bengal. Central Indian st ates have the country's largest tribes, and, taken as a whole, roughly 75% of th e total tribal population live there, although the tribal population there accou nts for only around 10% of the region's total population. There are smaller numbers of tribal people in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala in south India; in western India in Gujarat and Rajasthan, and in the union terr itories of Lakshadweep and the Andaman Islands and Nicobar Islands. About one pe rcent of the populations of Kerala and Tamil Nadu are tribal, whereas about six percent in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are members of tribes. [edit] The peopling of India The concept of 'original inhabitant' is directly related to the initial peopling of India, which, due to the debate on topics such as the Indo-Aryan migration h ypothesis, has been a contentious area of research and discourse.[12] Some anthr opologists hypothesize that the region was settled by multiple human migrations over tens of millennia, which makes it even harder to select certain groups as b eing truly aboriginal.[13] One narrative, largely based on genetic research, des cribes Negritos, similar to the Andamanese adivasis of today, as the first human s to colonize India, likely 30-65 thousand years before present (kybp).[14][15] 60% of all Indians share the mtDNA haplogroup M, which is universal among Andama nese islander adivasis and might be a genetic legacy of the postulated first Ind ians.[16] Some anthropologists theorize that these settlers were displaced by in vading Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people (who largely shared skin pigmen tation and physiognomy with the Negritos, but had straight rather than kinky hai r), and adivasi tribes such as the Irulas trace their origins to that displaceme nt.[17][18] The Oraon adivasi tribe of eastern India and the Korku tribe of west ern India are considered to be examples of groups of Australoid origin.[19][20] Subsequent to the Australoids, most anthropologists and geneticists agree that C aucasoids (including both Dravidians and Indo-Aryans) and Mongoloids (Sino-Tibet ans) immigrated into India: the Dravidians possibly from Iran,[21][22][23] the I ndo-Aryans possibly from the Central Asian steppes[22][24][25] and the Tibeto-Bu rmans possibly from the Himalayan and north-eastern borders of the subcontinent. [26] None of these hypotheses is free from debate and disagreement. Ethnic origins and linguistic affiliations in India match only inexactly, howeve r: while the Oraon adivasis are classified as an Australoid group, their languag e, called Kurukh, is Dravidian.[27] Khasis and Nicobarese are considered to be M ongoloid groups[28][29] and the Munda and Santals are Australoid groups,[30][31] [32] but all four speak Austro-Asiatic languages.[28][29][30] The Bhils and Gond s are frequently classified as Australoid groups,[33] yet Bhil languages are Ind o-European and the Gondi language is Dravidian.[27] Also, in post-colonial India , tribal languages suffered huge setbacks with the formation of linguistic state s after 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act. For example, under state-spons ored educational pressure, Irula children are being taught Tamil and a sense of shame has begun to be associated with speaking the Irula language among some chi ldren and educated adults.[17] Similarly, the Santals are "gradually adopting la nguages of the areas inhabited, like Oriya in Orissa, Hindi in Bihar and Bengali in West Bengal."[31] [edit] Disruptions during Mughal and colonial periods Although considered uncivilized and primitive,[34] adivasis were usually not hel d to be intrinsically impure by surrounding (usually Dravidian or Aryan) casted Hindu populations, unlike Dalits, who were.[6][35] Thus, the adivasi origins of

Valmiki, who composed the Ramayana, were acknowledged,[36] as were the origins o f adivasi tribes such as the Grasia and Bhilala, which descended from mixed Rajp ut and Bhil marriages.[37][38] Unlike the subjugation of the dalits, the adivasi s often enjoyed autonomy and, depending on region, evolved mixed hunter-gatherer and farming economies, controlling their lands as a joint patrimony of the trib e.[34][39][40] In some areas, securing adivasi approval and support was consider ed crucial by local rulers,[6][41] and larger adivasi groups were able to sustai n their own kingdoms in central India.[6] The Gond Rajas of Garha-Mandla and Cha nda are examples of an adivasi aristocracy that ruled in this region, and were " not only the hereditary leaders of their Gond subjects, but also held sway over substantial communities of non-tribals who recognized them as their feudal lords ."[39][42] This relative autonomy and collective ownership of adivasi land by adivasis was severely disrupted by the advent of the Mughals in the early 16th century. Begin ning in the 18th century, the British added to the consolidation of feudalism in India, first under the Jagirdari system and then under the zamindari system.[43 ] Beginning with the Permanent Settlement imposed by the British in Bengal and B ihar, which later became the template for a deepening of feudalism throughout In dia, the older social and economic system in the country began to alter radicall y.[44][45] Land, both forest areas belonging to adivasis and settled farmland be longing to non-adivasi peasants, was rapidly made the legal property of Britishdesignated zamindars (landlords), who in turn moved to extract the maximum econo mic benefit possible from their newfound property and subjects without regard to historical tenure or ownership.[46] Adivasi lands sometimes experienced an infl ux of non-local settlers, often brought from far away (as in the case of Muslims and Sikhs brought to Kol territory)[47] by the zamindars to better exploit loca l land, forest and labor.[43][44] Deprived of the forests and resources they tra ditionally depended on and sometimes coerced to pay taxes, many adivasis were fo rced to borrow at usurious rates from moneylenders, often the zamindars themselv es.[48][49] When they were unable to pay, that forced them to become bonded labo rers for the zamindars.[50] Often, far from paying off the principal of their de bt, they were unable even to offset the compounding interest, and this was made the justification for their children working for the zamindar after the death of the initial borrower.[50] In the case of the Andamanese adivasis, long isolated from the outside world in autonomous societies, mere contact with outsiders was often sufficient to set off deadly epidemics in tribal populations,[51] and it is alleged that some sections of the British government directly attempted to de stroy some tribes.[52] Land dispossession and subjugation by British and zamindar interests resulted in a number of adivasi revolts in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuri es, such as the Santal hul (or Santhal rebellion) of 1855-56.[53] Although these were suppressed ruthlessly by the governing British authority (the East India C ompany prior to 1858, and the British government after 1858), partial restoratio n of privileges to adivasi elites (e.g. to Mankis, the leaders of Munda tribes) and some leniency in tax burdens resulted in relative calm, despite continuing a nd widespread dispossession, from the late nineteenth century onwards.[47][54] T he economic deprivation, in some cases, triggered internal adivasi migrations wi thin India that would continue for another century, including as labor for the e merging tea plantations in Assam.[55] [edit] Tribal classification criteria and demands Scarification, a traditional symbol of Great Andamanese tribal identity (1901 ph oto) Population complexities, and the controversies surrounding ethnicity and languag e in India, sometimes make the official recognition of groups as adivasis (by wa y of inclusion in the Scheduled Tribes list) political and contentious. However, regardless of their language family affiliations, Australoid and Negrito groups that have survived as distinct forest, mountain or island dwelling tribes in In

dia and are often classified as adivasi.[56] The relatively autonomous Mongoloid tribal groups of Northeastern India (including Khasis, Apatani and Nagas), who are mostly Austro-Asiatic or Tibeto-Burman speakers, are also considered to be a divasis: this area comprises 7.5% of India's land area but 20% of its adivasi po pulation.[57] However, not all autonomous northeastern groups are considered adi vasis; for instance, the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Meitei of Manipur were once trib al but, having been settled for many centuries, are caste Hindus.[58] It is also difficult, for a given social grouping, to definitively decide whethe r it is a 'caste' or a 'tribe'. A combination of internal social organization, r elationship with other groups, self-classification and perception by other group s has to be taken into account to make a categorization, which is at best inexac t and open to doubt.[59] These categorizations have been diffused for thousands of years, and even ancient formulators of caste-discriminatory legal codes (whic h usually only applied to settled populations, and not adivasis) were unable to come up with clean distinctions.[60] [edit] Demands for tribal classification An additional difficulty in deciding whether a group meets the criteria to be ad ivasi or not are the aspirational movements created by the federal and state ben efits, including job and educational reservations, enjoyed by groups listed as s cheduled tribes (STs).[61] In Manipur, Meitei commentators have pointed to the l ack of scheduled tribe status as a key economic disadvantage for Meiteis competi ng for jobs against groups that are classified as scheduled tribes.[58] In Assam , Rajbongshi representatives have demanded scheduled tribe status as well.[62] I n Rajasthan, the Gujjar community has demanded ST status, even blockading the na tional capital of Delhi to press their demand.[63] However Government of Rajasth an declined Gujjars demand by saying that they are treated as upper caste and th ey are by no mean a tribe.[64] In several cases, these claims to tribalhood are disputed by tribes who are already listed in the schedule and fear economic loss es if more powerful groups are recognized as scheduled tribes; for instance, the Rajbongshi demand faces resistance from the Bodo tribe,[62] and the Meena tribe has vigorously opposed Gujjar aspirations to be recognized as a scheduled tribe .[65] [edit] Endogamy, exogamy and ethnogenesis Part of the challenge is that the endogamous nature of tribes is also conformed to by the vast majority of Hindu castes. Indeed, many historians and anthropolog ists believe that caste endogamy reflects the once-tribal origins of the various groups who now constitute the settled Hindu castes.[66] Another defining featur e of caste Hindu society, which is often used to contrast them with Muslim and o ther social groupings, is lineage/clan (or gotra) and village exogamy.[67][68] H owever, these in-marriage taboos are also held ubiquitously among tribal groups, and do not serve as reliable differentiating markers between caste and tribe.[6 9][70][71] Again, this could be an ancient import from tribal society into settl ed Hindu castes.[72] Interestingly, tribes such as the Muslim Gujjars of Kashmir and the Kalash of Pakistan observe these exogamous traditions in common with ca ste Hindus and non-Kashmiri adivasis, though their surrounding Muslim population s do not.[67][73] Some anthropologists, however, draw a distinction between tribes who have contin ued to be tribal and tribes that have been absorbed into caste society in terms of the breakdown of tribal (and therefore caste) boundaries, and the proliferati on of new mixed caste groups. In other words, ethnogenesis (the construction of new ethnic identities) in tribes occurs through a fission process (where groups splinter-off as new tribes, which preserves endogamy), whereas with settled cast es it usually occurs through intermixture (in violation of strict endogamy).[74] [edit] Other criteria Unlike castes, which form part of a complex and interrelated local economic exch

ange system, tribes tend to form self-sufficient economic units. For most tribal people, land-use rights traditionally derive simply from tribal membership. Tri bal society tends to the egalitarian, with its leadership based on ties of kinsh ip and personality rather than on hereditary status. Tribes typically consist of segmentary lineages whose extended families provide the basis for social organi zation and control. Tribal religion recognizes no authority outside the tribe. Any of these criteria may not apply in specific instances. Language does not alw ays give an accurate indicator of tribal or caste status. Especially in regions of mixed population, many tribal groups have lost their mother tongues and simpl y speak local or regional languages. In parts of Assam - an area historically di vided between warring tribes and villages - increased contact among villagers be gan during the colonial period, and has accelerated since independence in 1947. A pidgin Assamese developed while educated tribal members learned Hindi and, in the late twentieth century, English. Self-identification and group loyalty do not provide unfailing markers of tribal identity either. In the case of stratified tribes, the loyalties of clan, kin, and family may well predominate over those of tribe. In addition, tribes cannot always be viewed as people living apart; the degree of isolation of various trib es has varied tremendously. The Gonds, Santals, and Bhils traditionally have dom inated the regions in which they have lived. Moreover, tribal society is not alw ays more egalitarian than the rest of the rural populace; some of the larger tri bes, such as the Gonds, are highly stratified. The apparently wide fluctuation in estimates of South Asia's tribal population t hrough the twentieth century gives a sense of how unclear the distinction betwee n tribal and nontribal can be. India's 1931 census enumerated 22 million tribal people, in 1941 only 10 million were counted, but by 1961 some 30 million and in 1991 nearly 68 million tribal members were included. The differences among the figures reflect changing census criteria and the economic incentives individuals have to maintain or reject classification as a tribal member. These gyrations of census data serve to underline the complex relationship betwe en caste and tribe. Although, in theory, these terms represent different ways of life and ideal types, in reality they stand for a continuum of social groups. I n areas of substantial contact between tribes and castes, social and cultural pr essures have often tended to move tribes in the direction of becoming castes ove r a period of years. Tribal peoples with ambitions for social advancement in Ind ian society at large have tried to gain the classification of caste for their tr ibes. On occasion, an entire tribe or part of a tribe joined a Hindu sect and th us entered the caste system en masse. If a specific tribe engaged in practices t hat Hindus deemed polluting, the tribe's status when it was assimilated into the caste hierarchy would be affected. [edit] Religion Main article: Tribal religions in India The majority of Adivasi practice Hinduism and Christianity. During the last two decades Adivasi from Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand have converted to Protest ant groups. Adivasi beliefs vary by tribe, and are usually different from the hi storical Vedic religion, with its monistic underpinnings, Indo-European deities (who are often cognates of ancient Iranian, Greek and Roman deities, e.g. Mitra/ Mithra/Mithras), lack of idol worship and lack of a concept of reincarnation.[75 ] The "centre of Rig Vedic religion was the Yajna, the sacrificial fire" and the re was "no Atma, no Brahma, no Moksha, no idol worship in the Rig Veda."[76] Two specific rituals held great importance and it is known that, "when the Indo-Ary ans and the Persians formed a single people, they performed sacrifices (Vedic ya jna: Avestan yasna), and that they already had a sacred drink (Vedic soma: Avest an haoma)."[77] [edit] Hinduism

[edit] Adivasi roots of modern Hinduism Some historians and anthropologists assert that much of what constitutes folk Hi nduism today is actually descended from an amalgamation of adivasi faiths, idol worship practices and deities, rather than the original Indo-Aryan faith.[76][78 ][79] This also includes the sacred status of certain animals such as monkeys, c ows, peacocks, cobras (nagas) and elephants and plants such as the sacred fig (p ipal), Ocimum tenuiflorum (tulsi) and Azadirachta indica (neem), which may once have held totemic importance for certain adivasi tribes.[78] [edit] Adivasi Saints Saint Buddhu Bhagat, led the Kol Insurrection (1831-1832) aimed against tax imposed on Mundas by Muslim rulers. Saint Dhira or Kannappa Nayanar[2], one of 63 Nayanar Shaivite saints, a hun ter from whom Lord Shiva gladly accepted food offerings. It is said that he pour ed water from his mouth on the Shivlingam and offered the Lord swine flesh.[3] Saint Dhudhalinath, Koli, Gujarati, a 17th or 18th century devotee (P. 4, Th e Story of Historic People of India-The Kolis) Saint Ganga Narain, led the Bhumij Revolt (1832-1833) aimed against missiona ries and British colonialists. Saint Girnari Velnathji, Koli, Gujarati of Junagadh, a 17th or 18th century devotee[80] Saint Gurudev Kalicharan Brahma or Guru Brahma, a Bodo whose founded the Bra hma Dharma aimed against missionaries and colonialists. The Brahma Dharma moveme nt sought to unite peoples of all religions to worship God together and survives even today. Saint Kalu Dev, Punjab, related with Fishermen community Nishadha Saint Jatra Oraon, Oraon, led the Tana Bhagat Movement (19141919) aimed again st the missionaries and British colonialists Saint Sri Koya Bhagat, Koli, Gujarati, a 17th or 18th century devotee[80] Saint Tantya Mama (Bhil), a Bhil after whom a movement is named after - the "Jananayak Tantya Bhil" Saint Tirumangai Alvar, Kallar, composed the six Vedangas in beautiful Tamil verse [4] [edit] Sages Bhaktaraj Bhadurdas, Koli, Gujarati, a 17th or 18th century devotee[80] Bhakta Shabari, a Nishadha woman that offered Shri Rama and Shri Laxmana her half-eaten ber fruit, which they gratefully accepted when they were searching f or Shri Sita Devi in the forest. Madan Bhagat, Koli, Gujarati, a 17th or 18th century devotee[80] Sany Kanji Swami, Koli, Gujarati, a 17th or 18th century devotee[80] Bhaktaraj Valram, Koli, Gujarati, a 17th or 18th century devotee[80] [edit] Maharishis Maharshi Matanga,[81] Matanga Bhil, Guru of Bhakta Shabari. In fact, Chandal as are often addressed as Matanga n passages like Varaha Purana 1.139.91 Maharshi Valmiki, Kirata Bhil, composed the Ramayana.[36] He is considered t o be an avatar in the Balmiki community. [edit] Avatars Birsa Bhagwan or Birsa Munda, considered an avatar of Khasra Kora. People ap proached him as Singbonga, the Sun god. His sect included Christian converts.[5] He and his clan, the Mundas, were connected with Vaishnavite traditions as they were influenced by Sri Chaitanya.[6] Birsa was very close to the Panre brothers Vaishnavites. Kirata - the form of Lord Shiva as a hunter. It is mentioned in the Mahabhar

ata. The Karppillikkavu Sree Mahadeva Temple, Kerala adores Lord Shiva in this a vatar and is known to be one of the oldest surviving temples in Bharat. Vettakkorumakan, the son of Lord Kirata. Kaladutaka or 'Vaikunthanatha', Kallar (robber), avatar of Lord Vishnu.[7] [edit] Other Tribals and Hinduism Some Hindus believe that Indian tribals are close to the romantic ideal of the a ncient silvan culture[82] of the Vedic people. Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar said: The tribals "can be given yajopavta () They should be otings in the matter of religious rights, in temple worship, as, and in general, in all our social and religious affairs. ght solution for all the problems of casteism found nowadays y.[83] given equal rights and fo in the study of Ved This is the only ri in our Hindu societ

At the Lingaraj Temple in Bhubaneswar, there are Brahmin and Badu (tribal) pries ts. The Badus have the most intimate contact with the deity of the temple, and o nly they can bathe and adorn it.[84][85] The Bhils are mentioned in the Mahabharata. The Bhil boy Ekalavya's teacher was Drona, and he had the honour to be invited to Yudhisthira's Rajasuya Yajna at In draprastha.[86] Indian tribals were also part of royal armies in the Ramayana an d in the Arthashastra.[87] Shabari was a Bhil woman who offered Rama and Lakshmana jujubes when they were s earching for Sita in the forest. Matanga, a Bhil, became a Brahmana.[citation ne eded] [edit] Sarna Some western authors and Indian sociologists refer to adivasi beliefs as animism and spirit worship, and hold them to be distinct from Hinduism, Christianity or Islam. In Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Orissa states, their religion is sometimes called Sarna. The Jharkhand movement gave the Santals an opportunity to create a great tradition of their own.[88] As Orans reported, The movement is spoken of in the following terms we should not leave our religion; we should continue to use rice-beer; we should have our worship at the sacred grove. We will call our reli gion Sarna Dhorom.[89] Sarna is the Munda word for Sacred Grove while Dhorom is the Oriya word meaning religion.[90] Sarna involves belief in a great spirit called the Sing Bonga. Santhal belief ho lds the world to be inhabited by numerous spiritual beings of different kinds. S anthals consider themselves as living and doing everything in close association with these spirits. Rituals are performed under groves of Sal trees called Jaher (or sacred grove), where Bonga is believed to appear or express himself. Often, Jaher are found in the forests. According to the mythology of the Santhal community, the genesis of the Sarna reli gion occurred when the Santhal tribals had gone to the forest for hunting and the y started the discussion about their Creator and Savior while they were taking res t under a tree. They questioned themselves that who is their God? Whether the Su n, the Wind or the Cloud? Finally, they came to a conclusion that they would lea ve an arrow in the sky and wherever the arrow would target that will be the God house. They left an arrow in the sky; it fell down under a Sal tree. Then, they started worshiping the Sal tree and named their religion as Sarna because it is de rived from a Sal tree.[citation needed]4 Thus, Sarna religion came into existenc e. There are priests and an assistant priests called "Naikey" and "Kudam Naike" in every Santhal village. [edit] Demands for a separate religion code

Some Adivasi organizations have demanded that a distinct religious code be liste d for Adivasis in the 2011 census of India. The All India Adivasi Conference was held on 01.01.2011 and 02.01.2011 at Burnpur, Asansol, West Bengal. 750 delegat es were present from all parts of India and cast their votes for Religion code a s follows: Sari Dhorom - 632, Sarna - 51, Kherwalism - 14 and Other Religions 03. Census of India.[91] [edit] Tribal system Tribals are not part of the caste system,[92] and usually constitute egalitarian societies. Christian tribals do not automatically lose their traditional tribal rules. When in 1891 a missionary asked 150 Munda Christians to "inter-dine" with people of different rank, only 20 Christians did so, and many converts lost their new faith. Father Haghenbeek concluded on this episode that these rules are not "pag an", but a sign of "national sentiment and pride", and wrote: On the contrary, while proclaiming the equality of all men before God, we now tell them: preserve your race pure, keep your customs, refrain from eating with Lohars (blacksmiths), Turis (bamboo workers) and other people of lower rank. To become good Christians, it (inter-dining) is not required.[93] However, many scholars argue that the claim that tribals are an egalitarian soci ety in contrast to a caste-based society is a part of a larger political agenda by some to maximize any differences from tribal and urban societies. According t o scholar Koenraad Elst, caste practices and social taboos among Indian tribals date back to antiquity: "The Munda tribals not only practise tribal endogamy and commensality, but a lso observe a jti division within the tribe, buttressed by notions of social poll ution, a mythological explanation and harsh punishments. A Munda Catholic theolo gian testifies: The tribals of Chhotanagpur are an endogamous tribe. They usuall y do not marry outside the tribal community, because to them the tribe is sacred . The way to salvation is the tribe. Among the Santals, it is tabooed to marry o utside the tribe or inside ones clan, just as Hindus marry inside their caste an d outside their gotra. More precisely: To protect their tribal solidarity, the S antals have very stringent marriage laws. A Santal cannot marry a non-Santal or a member of his own clan. The former is considered as a threat to the tribe's in tegrity, while the latter is considered incestuous. Among the Ho of Chhotanagpur , the trespasses which occasion the exclusion from the tribe without chance of a ppeal, are essentially those concerning endogamy and exogamy." Inter-dining has also been prohibited by many Indian tribal peoples. [edit] Education Extending the system of primary education into tribal areas and reserving places for tribal children in middle and high schools and higher education institution s are central to government policy, but efforts to improve a tribe's educational status have had mixed results. Recruitment of qualified teachers and determinat ion of the appropriate language of instruction also remain troublesome. Commissi on after commission on the "language question" has called for instruction, at le ast at the primary level, in the students' native tongue. In some regions, triba l children entering school must begin by learning the official regional language , often one completely unrelated to their tribal tongue. Many tribal schools are plagued by high dropout rates. Children attend for the f irst three to four years of primary school and gain a smattering of knowledge, o nly to lapse into illiteracy later. Few who enter continue up to the tenth grade ; of those who do, few manage to finish high school. Therefore, very few are eli gible to attend institutions of higher education, where the high rate of attriti

on continues. Members of agrarian tribes like the Gonds often are reluctant to s end their children to school, needing them, they say, to work in the fields. On the other hand, in those parts of the northeast where tribes have generally been spared the wholesale onslaught of outsiders, schooling has helped tribal people to secure political and economic benefits. The education system there has provi ded a corps of highly trained tribal members in the professions and high-ranking administrative posts. An academy for teaching and preserving Adivasi languages and culture was establi shed in 1999 by the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre. The Adivasi Academy is located at Tejgadh in Gujarat. [edit] Economy Most tribes are concentrated in heavily forested areas that combine inaccessibil ity with limited political or economic significance. Historically, the economy o f most tribes was subsistence agriculture or hunting and gathering. Tribal membe rs traded with outsiders for the few necessities they lacked, such as salt and i ron. A few local Hindu craftsmen might provide such items as cooking utensils. In the early 20th century, however, large areas fell into the hands of non-triba ls, on account of improved transportation and communications. Around 1900, many regions were opened by the government to settlement through a scheme by which in ward migrants received ownership of land free in return for cultivating it. For tribal people, however, land was often viewed as a common resource, free to whoe ver needed it. By the time tribals accepted the necessity of obtaining formal la nd titles, they had lost the opportunity to lay claim to lands that might rightf ully have been considered theirs. The colonial and post-independence regimes bel atedly realized the necessity of protecting tribals from the predations of outsi ders and prohibited the sale of tribal lands. Although an important loophole in the form of land leases was left open, tribes made some gains in the mid-twentie th century, and some land was returned to tribal peoples despite obstruction by local police and land officials. In the 1970s, tribal peoples came again under intense land pressure, especially in central India. Migration into tribal lands increased dramatically, as tribal people lost title to their lands in many ways lease, forfeiture from debts, or b ribery of land registry officials. Other non-tribals simply squatted, or even lo bbied governments to classify them as tribal to allow them to compete with the f ormerly established tribes. In any case, many tribal members became landless lab ourers in the 1960s and 1970s, and regions that a few years earlier had been the exclusive domain of tribes had an increasingly mixed population of tribals and non-tribals. Government efforts to evict nontribal members from illegal occupati on have proceeded slowly; when evictions occur at all, those ejected are usually members of poor, lower castes. Improved communications, roads with motorized traffic, and more frequent governm ent intervention figured in the increased contact that tribal peoples had with o utsiders. Commercial highways and cash crops frequently drew non-tribal people i nto remote areas. By the 1960s and 1970s, the resident nontribal shopkeeper was a permanent feature of many tribal villages. Since shopkeepers often sell goods on credit (demanding high interest), many tribal members have been drawn deeply into debt or mortgaged their land. Merchants also encourage tribals to grow cash crops (such as cotton or castor-oil plants), which increases tribal dependence on the market for basic necessities. Indebtedness is so extensive that although such transactions are illegal, traders sometimes 'sell' their debtors to other m erchants, much like indentured peons. The final blow for some tribes has come when nontribals, through political jocke ying, have managed to gain legal tribal status, that is, to be listed as a Sched uled Tribe.

Tribes in the Himalayan foothills have not been as hard-pressed by the intrusion s of non-tribal. Historically, their political status was always distinct from t he rest of India. Until the British colonial period, there was little effective control by any of the empires centered in peninsular India; the region was popul ated by autonomous feuding tribes. The British, in efforts to protect the sensit ive northeast frontier, followed a policy dubbed the "Inner Line"; non tribal pe ople were allowed into the areas only with special permission. Postindependence governments have continued the policy, protecting the Himalayan tribes as part o f the strategy to secure the border with China. Government policies on forest reserves have affected tribal peoples profoundly. Government efforts to reserve forests have precipitated armed (if futile) resist ance on the part of the tribal peoples involved. Intensive exploitation of fores ts has often meant allowing outsiders to cut large areas of trees (while the ori ginal tribal inhabitants were restricted from cutting), and ultimately replacing mixed forests capable of sustaining tribal life with single-product plantations . Nontribals have frequently bribed local officials to secure effective use of r eserved forest lands. The northern tribes have thus been sheltered from the kind of exploitation that those elsewhere in South Asia have suffered. In Arunachal Pradesh (formerly part of the North-East Frontier Agency), for example, tribal members control commerc e and most lower-level administrative posts. Government construction projects in the region have provided tribes with a significant source of cash. Some tribes have made rapid progress through the education system (the role of early mission aries was significant in this regard). Instruction was begun in Assamese but was eventually changed to Hindi; by the early 1980s, English was taught at most lev els. Northeastern tribal people have thus enjoyed a certain measure of social mo bility. The continuing economic alienation and exploitation of many adivasis hted as a "systematic failure" by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan 2009 conference of chief ministers of all 29 Indian states, where he this as a major cause of the Naxalite unrest that has affected areas Red Corridor.[94][95][96][97][98] [edit] Participation in Indian independence movement was highlig Singh in a also cited such as the

There were tribal reform and rebellion movements during the period of the Britis h Empire, some of which also participated in the Indian freedom struggle or atta cked mission posts.[99] There were several Adivasis in the Indian independence m ovement including Dharindhar Bhyuan, Laxman Naik, Jantya Bhil, Bangaru devi and Rehma Vasave. [edit] List of rebellions against British rule During the period of British rule, India saw the rebellions of several backwardcastes, mainly tribals that revolted against British rule. These were:.[100] Great Kuki Invasion of 1860s Halba rebellion (177479) Chamka rebellion (17761787)[101] Chuar rebellion in Bengal (17951800)[102] Bhopalpatnam Struggle (1795) Khurda Rebellion in Orissa (1817)[103] Bhil rebellion (18221857)[104] Paralkot rebellion (1825) Tarapur rebellion (184254) Maria rebellion (184263) First Freedom Struggle (185657) Bhil rebellion, begun by Tantya Tope in Banswara (1858)[105]

Koi revolt (1859) Gond rebellion, begun by Ramji Gond in Adilabad (1860)[106] Muria rebellion (1876) Rani rebellion (187882) Bhumkal (1910) The Kuki Uprising (19171919)in Manipur [edit] Some notable Scheduled Tribes Kukis Tribes inhabiting parts of Tripura, Manipur, Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya Apatani Munda people Thakar Peoples of Maharashta Andamanese Bodos Bhils Chakma Chenchu Dhodia Tribes of Gujarat Gonds Khasis indigenous people of Lakshadweep Kurichiya Kurumbar Tripuris Mizos Malhar Koli Mundaris Nagas Nicobarese Oraon Santals Saharia Todas Maldharis of Gujarat. Cholanaikkan Kokana / Kokani Warli Katkari / Kathodi Kisan Tribe Dongria Kondh Bonda Kutia Kondh Bishapus A'Mishapus --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Magical thinking in various forms is a cultural universal and an important aspec t of religion. In many cases it becomes difficult or impossible to draw any meaningful line bet ween beliefs and practices that are magical versus those that are religious, but in general the term religion is reserved for an organized cult with a priesthoo d and dedicated sites of worship or sacrifice, while magic is prevalent in all s ocieties, regardless of whether they have organized religion or more general sys tems of animism or shamanism. Religion and magic became conceptually separated w ith the development of western monotheism, where the distinction arose between s upernatural events sanctioned by mainstream religious doctrine ("miracles") and

mere magic rooted in folk belief or occult speculation. In pre-monotheistic reli gious traditions, there is no fundamental distinction between religious practice and magic; tutelary deities concerned with magic are sometimes called "hermetic deities" or "spirit guides." Magical practices in prehistory Main article: Prehistoric religion Appearing from aboriginal tribes in Australia and New Zealand to rainforest trib es in South America, bush tribes in Africa and pagan tribal groups in Western Eu rope and Britain (as personified by Merlin, based on Welsh prophet Myrddin Wyllt ), some form of shamanism and belief in a spirit world seems to be common in the early development of human communities. According to Joseph Campbell, the ancie nt cave paintings in Lascaux may have been associated with "the magic of the hun t."[1] Much of the Babylonian and Egyptian pictorial writing characters appear d erived from the same sources. Although indigenous magical traditions persist to this day, very early on some c ommunities transitioned from nomadic to agricultural civilizations, and with thi s shift, the development of spiritual life mirrored that of civic life. Just as tribal elders were consolidated and transformed into monarchs and bureaucrats, s o too did shamans and adepts evolve into priestly caste. This shift is not in nomenclature alone. It is at this stage of development that highly codified and elaborate rituals, setting the stage for formal religions, began to emerge, such as the funeral rites of the Egyptians and the sacrifice ri tuals of the Babylonians, Persians, Aztecs, and Maya civilizations. [edit] Anthropological and psychological perspectives Main articles: Magical thinking and Evolutionary origin of religion It is a postulate of modern anthropology, at least since ealry 1930s, that there is complete continuity between magic and religion.[2][3] In the past, there hav e been many attempts by anthropologist to establish some fundamental distinction between magic and religion, most notably by James George Frazer and Bronisaw Mal inowski; they tried to demonstrate that "magical thinking" is a form of proto-sc ience or pseudoscience rather than a form of religious practice, and that by thi s line of thought, early magical beliefs developed through a post-hoc fallacy a supplication was made on the altar, and then it rained shortly afterward. Regard less of whether the supplication was the actual cause, it was credited with the change, and thus magical beliefs could grow.[citation needed] One magician's response to this is that magic is unconcerned with establishing c ausality, only repeatability: Ramsey Dukes explains in his book S.S.O.T.B.M.E. t hat questions such as "Are you sure it was your magic that cured her?" are irrel evant to the magician. "If it was a coincidence, it doesn't matter just so long as he can bring about such coincidences"[4] [edit] Religious practices and Magic Closely related to magic are most forms of religious supplication, asking the di vine for aid. Perhaps the most famous form is prayer, which is often considered[ by whom?] a spiritual duty in communing with the divine, even aside from any mir aculous effects on the outside world.[improper synthesis?] Both magic and religion contain rituals. Typically, there is a recognition that rituals do not always work; rather, it is thought to simply increase the likelih ood of the desired result coming to pass[original research?]. (Some practitioner s[who?] of "natural" magic believe that their spells always work.) While many ri tuals focus on personal communion with the divine and spiritual purification, ot hers often seek "magical" results, such as healing or good luck in battle.

Likewise, both can be divided by the effects they produce into perception and ma terial changes. That is, whether prayer or some type of spell is used, it can ei ther bring about an actual change (material) or a change in the way the subject feels (perception). The same prayer, for it to be "cooler" could therefore eithe r actually raise the temperature, or simply alter the praying subject and any ot her targets feeling of the temperature. This is not to say that perception chang es are not "real" as it could be used in healing to numb the sensation of pain, allowing healing to take place more easily.[original research?] [edit] The names of the Gods There is a long-standing belief in the power of "true names;" this often descend s from the magical belief that knowing a being's true name grants you power over it.[5] This is often seen[by whom?] as a requirement in spiritualism; knowing t he identity of a spirit greatly aids in soliciting information from it. If names have power, then knowing the name of a god that is regarded as supreme in your religion should grant the greatest power of all. This belief is reflecte d in traditional Wicca, where the names of the Goddess and the Horned God - the two supreme deities in Wicca - are usually held as a secret to be revealed only to initiates. This belief is also reflected in ancient Judaism, which used the T etragrammaton (YHWH, usually translated as "Lord" in small caps) to refer to God "safely" in the Tanakh. The same belief is seen in Hinduism, but with different conclusions; rather, attaining transcendence and the power of God is seen as a good thing. Thus, some Hindus chant the name of their favorite deities as often as possible, the most common being Krishna[6]. [edit] Religious artifacts Some religions believe in transferring holiness to objects and places; this is o ften seen in even simple things like "christening" ceremonies for a new boat. Ch urches and certain religiously-minded individuals often consecrate the ground wh ere a building will be constructed. The practice was common during the Middle Ages, where a large market for spiritu al trinkets existed. Fragments of the true cross and bones of saints were often brought back by Crusaders from the Holy Land, where they were sold to the peasan try as cure-alls. Most scholarly sources agree that the vast majority of these s ales were frauds and simply a form of supplemental income for the Crusaders.[cit ation needed]. This practice somewhat fell into disrepute during the Reformation ; it became associated with idol worship. As a result, this is less seen in Prot estantism than Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.[7] [edit] Sacrifice Main article: Sacrifice One of the more controversial practices in magic and religion both, this involve s a sacrifice to a supernatural being, such as a god, angel, or demon, who is as ked to intervene on behalf of the person performing the sacrifice. Sacrifice can take many forms. The most common forms of supplication and sacrifi ce in pagan and neopagan religious practice involves the burning of oils or ince nse. Other common forms of supplication may include the offering of personal obj ects to a deity, offering chants, and the offering of drinks and food. Less used is blood sacrifice. In early history, blood sacrifice was common; a goat or cal f would be sacrificed. Often, divination would be practiced via the reading of e ntrails (notably in Ancient Rome). Leviticus contains detailed rules for proper blood sacrifice, used in early Judaism. Blood sacrifice has been rejected by som e neopagans, but not all; both satr and Celtic/Irish Reconstructionists still prac tice blood sacrifice and burnt animal offerings. In hoodoo, blood ritual, or the giving of one's own blood in ritual practices, is not entirely uncommon. Most s trands of modern Judaism believe that with the destruction of the Temple in Jeru salem, there is no place to sacrifice to any more, and thus the need is negated

(modern Samaritans disagree, and maintain the practice). In Christianity, it is believed that Jesus's final sacrifice renders any further sacrifices unnecessary . Some syncretic blends of Islam and native practices in places such as Indonesi a feature sacrifice as an element of worship. The most extreme form of sacrifice, and the one carrying the most negative taboo , is human sacrifice. The moloch is one famous but disputed example of the pract ice; the Carthaginians seemingly sacrificed young children when circumstances lo oked grim, hoping to regain their gods' favor. Some historians attribute this as one reason for their downfall.[citation needed] Other cultures preferred to sac rifice only their enemies, offering up captured prisoners in supplication; the D ruids became one of the two religions banned by the Roman Empire due to their pr actice of (Roman) human sacrifice.[6] The book Genesis contains the famous story of the "Binding of Isaac"; Abraham is ordered to sacrifice his son Isaac by God , but it turns out that God was only performing a test, and a ram is sent instea d. Human sacrifice is condemned afterward. The Qur'an contains strong condemnati ons of the Arabian pagans who would sacrifice babies who turned out to be unwant ed girls by leaving them in pots in the desert to die of exposure, saying that s uch practice surely leads to hell. [edit] Magic and Abrahamic religion Magic and Abrahamic religions have had a somewhat checkered past. The King James Version of the Bible included the famous translation "Thou shalt not suffer a w itch to live" (Exodus 22:18),[8] and Saul is rebuked by God for seeking advice f rom a diviner who could contact spirits. On the other hand, seemingly magical si gns are documented in the Bible: For example, both the staff of Pharaoh's sorcer ers as well as the staff of Moses and Aaron could be turned into snakes (Exodus 7:8-13). However, as Scott Noegel points out, the critical difference between th e magic of Pharaoh's magicians and the non-magic of Moses is in the means by whi ch the staff becomes a snake. For the Pharaoh's magicians, they employed "their secret arts" whereas Moses merely throws down his staff to turn it into a snake. To an ancient Egyptian, the startling difference would have been that Moses nei ther employed secret arts nor magical words. In the Torah, Noegel points out tha t YHWH does not need magical rituals to act.[9] See also Numbers 21:5-9, in which Moses creates a Bronze Snake in order to heal the Israelites from snake bites. But see the Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 29a, which as serts that it was not the bronze serpent that healed the Israelites, but rather their seeing the snake and submitting themselves to God. The words "witch" and "witchcraft" appear in some English versions of the Christ ian Holy Bible. One verse that is probably responsible for more deaths of suspec ted witches than any other passage from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) is Exodus 22:18. In the King James Version, this reads: "Thou shalt not suffer a w itch to live." The precise meaning of the Hebrew word kashaph, here translated a s 'witch' and in some other modern versions, 'sorceress', is uncertain. In the S eptuagint it was translated as pharmakeia, meaning 'poisoner', and on this basis , Reginald Scot claimed in the 16th century that 'witch' was an incorrect transl ation and poisoners were intended.[10] His theory still holds some currency, but is not widely accepted, and in Daniel 2:2 kashaph is listed alongside other mag ic practitioners who could interpret dreams: magicians, astrologers and Chaldean s. It may be noted that gender the Hebrew word kashaph is in the masculine, and in modern Hebrew usage, kashaph is synonemous with a male sorcerer. The Judeo-Christian abhorrence of witches was not peculiar to them. The pagan Ro man Empire, Egyptian Empire and Babylonian Empires all developed laws against ma levolent witchcraft. The ancient Code of Hammurabi specifically called for death to witches, and also proscribed false accusations of witchcraft: If a man has laid a charge of witchcraft and has not justified it, he upon w

hom the witchcraft is laid shall go to the holy river; he shall plunge into the holy river and if the holy river overcome him, he who accused him shall take to himself his house. Theories on the relationship of magic to religion Main articles: Magic and religion and Myth and ritual Magic and religion are categories of beliefs and systems of knowledge used withi n societies. While generally considered distinct categories in western cultures, the interactions, similarities, and differences have been central to the study of magic for many theorists in sociology and anthropology, including Frazer, Mau ss, S. J. Tambiah, Malinowski and Isabelle Sarginson. From the intellectualist a nd functionalist perspectives, magic is often considered most analogous to scien ce and technology. [edit] Marcel Mauss In A General Theory of Magic,[49] Marcel Mauss classifies magic as a social phen omenon, akin to religion and science, but yet a distinct category. In practice, magic bears a strong resemblance to religion. Both use similar types of rites, m aterials, social roles and relationships to accomplish aims and engender belief. They both operate on similar principles, in particular those of consecration an d sanctity of objects and places, interaction with supernatural powers mediated by an expert, employment of symbolism, sacrifice, purification and representatio n in rites, and the importance of tradition and continuation of knowledge. Magic and religion also share a collective character and totality of belief. The rule s and powers of each are determined by the community's ideals and beliefs and so may slowly evolve. Additionally neither supports partial belief. Belief in one aspect of the phenomena necessitates belief in the whole, and each incorporates structural loopholes to accommodate contradictions. The distinction Mauss draws between religion and magic is both of sentiment and practice. He portrays magic as an element of pre-modern societies and in many re spects an antithesis of religion. Magic is secretive and isolated, and rarely pe rformed publicly in order to protect and to preserve occult knowledge. Religion is predictable and prescribed and is usually performed openly in order to impart knowledge to the community. While these two phenomena do share many ritual form s, Mauss concludes that "a magical rite is any rite that does not play a part in organized cults. It is private, secret, mysterious and approaches the limit of prohibited rite."[3] In practice, magic differs from religion in desired outcome . Religion seeks to satisfy moral and metaphysical ends, while magic is a functi onal art which often seeks to accomplish tangible results. In this respect magic resembles technology and science. Belief in each is diffuse, universal, and rem oved from the origin of the practice. Yet, the similarity between these social p henomena is limited, as science is based in experimentation and development, whi le magic is an "a priori belief."[50] Mauss concludes that though magical belief s and rites are most analogous to religion, magic remains a social phenomenon di stinct from religion and science with its own characteristic rules, acts and aim s. [edit] Tambiah According to Tambiah, magic, science, and religion all have their own "quality o f rationality", and have been influenced by politics and ideology.[51] Tambiah a lso believes that the perceptions of these three ideas have evolved over time as a result of Western thought. The lines of demarcation between these ideas depen d upon the perspective of a variety of anthropologists, but Tambiah has his own opinions regarding magic, science, and religion. According to Tambiah, religion is based on an organized community, and it is sup posed to encompass all aspects of life. In religion, man is obligated to an outs ide power and he is supposed to feel piety towards that power. Religion is effec

tive and attractive because it is generally exclusive and strongly personal. Als o, because religion affects all aspects of life, it is convenient in the sense t hat morality and notions of acceptable behavior are imposed by God and the super natural. Science, on the other hand, suggests a clear divide between nature and the supernatural, making its role far less all-encompassing than that of religio n. As opposed to religion, Tambiah suggests that mankind has a much more personal c ontrol over events. Science, according to Tambiah, is "a system of behavior by w hich man acquires mastery of the environment."[52] Whereas in religion nature an d the supernatural are connected and essentially interchangeable, in science, na ture and the supernatural are clearly separate spheres. Also, science is a devel oped discipline; a logical argument is created and can be challenged. The base o f scientific knowledge can be extended, while religion is more concrete and abso lute. Magic, the less accepted of the three disciplines in Western society, is a n altogether unique idea. Tambiah states that magic is a strictly ritualistic action that implements force s and objects outside the realm of the gods and the supernatural. These objects and events are said to be intrinsically efficacious, so that the supernatural is unnecessary. To some, including the Greeks, magic was considered a "proto-scien ce." Magic has other historical importance as well. Much of the debate between religion and magic originated during the Protestant R eformation. The Catholic Church was attacked for its doctrine of transubstantiat ion because it was considered a type of sacramental magic. Furthermore, the poss ibility of anything happening outside of God's purpose was denied. Spells[53] we re viewed as ineffective and blasphemous, because religion required belief in "a conscious agent who could be deflected from this purpose by prayer and supplica tion."[54] Prayer was the only way to effectively enact positive change. The Pro testant Reformation was a significant moment in the history of magical thought b ecause Protestantism provided the impetus for a systematic understanding of the world. In this systematic framework, there was no room for magic and its practic es. Besides the Reformation, the Renaissance was an influential epoch in the his tory of thought concerning magic and science. During the Renaissance, magic was less stigmatized even though it was done in se cret and therefore considered "occult". Renaissance magic was based on cosmology , and its powers were said to be derived from the stars and the alignment of the planets. Newton himself began his work in mathematics because he wanted to see "whether judicial astrology had any claim to validity."[55] The lines of demarcation between science, magic, and religion all have origins d ating to times when established thought processes were challenged. The rise of W estern thought essentially initiated the differentiation between the three disci plines. Whereas science could be revised and developed through rational thought, magic was seen as less scientific and systematic than science and religion, mak ing it the least respected of the three. [edit] Bronisaw Malinowski Main article: Bronisaw Malinowski In his essay "Magic, Science and Religion", Bronisaw Malinowski contends that eve ry person, no matter how primitive, uses both magic and science. To make this di stinction he breaks up this category into the "sacred" and the "profane"[56] or "magic/religion" and science. He theorizes that feelings of reverence and awe re ly on observation of nature and a dependence on its regularity. This observation and reasoning about nature is a type of science. Magic and science both have de finite aims to help "human instincts, needs and pursuits."[57] Both magic and sc ience develop procedures that must be followed to accomplish specific goals. Mag ic and science are both based on knowledge; magic is knowledge of the self and o

f emotion, while science is knowledge of nature. According to Malinowski, magic and religion are also similar in that they often serve the same function in a society. The difference is that magic is more about the personal power of the individual and religion is about faith in the power o f God. Magic is also something that is passed down over generations to a specifi c group while religion is more broadly available to the community. To end his essay, Malinowski poses the question, "why magic?" He writes, "Magic supplies primitive man with a number of ready-made rituals, acts and beliefs, wi th a definite mental and practical technique which serves to bridge over the dan gerous gaps in every important pursuit or critical situation."[58] [edit] Robin Horton In "African Traditional Thought and Western Science,"[59] Robin Horton compares the magical and religious thinking of non-modernized cultures with western scien tific thought. He argues that both traditional beliefs and western science are a pplications of "theoretical thinking." The common form, function, and purpose of these theoretical idioms are therefore structured and explained by eight main c haracteristics of this type of thought: In all cultures the majority of human experience can be explained by common sense. The purpose then of theory is to explain forces that operate behind and w ithin the commonsense world. Theory should impose order and reason on everyday l ife by attributing cause to a few select forces.[60] Theories also help place events in a causal context that is greater than com mon sense alone can provide, because commonsense causation is inherently limited by what we see and experience. Theoretical formulations are therefore used as i ntermediaries to link natural effects to natural causes.[61] "Common sense and theory have complementary roles in everyday life."[62] Com mon sense is more handy and useful for a wide range of everyday circumstances, b ut occasionally there are circumstances that can only be explained using a wider causal vision, so a jump to theory is made. "Levels of theory vary with context."[63] There are widely and narrowly enco mpassing theories, and the individual can usually chose which to use in order to understand and explain a situation as is deemed appropriate. All theory breaks up aspects of commonsense events, abstracts them and then reintegrates them into the common usage and understanding.[64] Theory is usually created by analogy between unexplained and familiar phenom ena.[65] When theory is based on analogy between explained and unexplained observatio ns, "generally only a limited aspect of the familiar phenomena is incorporated i nto (the) explanatory model".[66] It is this process of abstraction that contrib utes to the ability of theories to transcend commonsense explanation. For exampl e, gods have the quality of spirituality by omission of many common aspects of h uman life. Once a theoretical model has been established, it is often modified to expla in contradictory data so that it may no longer represent the analogy on which is was based.[67] While both traditional beliefs and western science are based on theoretical thou ght, Horton argues that the differences between these knowledge systems in pract ice and form are due to their states in open and closed cultures.[68] He classif ies scientifically oriented cultures as open because they are aware of other modes of thought, while traditional cultures are closed because they are unaware of alt ernatives to the established theories. The varying sources of information in the se systems results in differences in form which, Horton asserts, often blinds ob servers from seeing the similarities between the systems as two applications of theoretical thought.

Examples of magical, folk-magical, and religio-magical traditions include: Alchemy Animism Asatru Benedicaria Black Magic Bn Candombl Jeje Ceremonial magic Chaos magic Druidry Feri Tradition Haitian Vodou Hermetic Qabalah Hermeticism Hoodoo

Huna Kabbalah Louisiana Voodoo Nagual Obeah Onmyd Palo Pow-wow Psychonautics Quimbanda Reiki Santera Satanism

Seid Setianism Sex Magic Shamanism Shinto Sigil Magic Tantra Taoism Thelema West African Vodun Witchcraft Wicca Zos Kia Cultus --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------