Anthropology of Religion

Social/Cultural & Religious Anthropology

Currently enrolled as an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, Cameron's studies include Social/Cultural Anthropology (Major) and Religions (Specialist). Listed are some of Cameron's papers he has written in the course of his studies. >> [more]

Spiritual Interventions: Inside A.A.'s Fundamentalist Healing Program of Faith With Works

In 1995, the Greater Toronto Area Intergroup (G.T.A.I.) of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) removed the "Muckers" Group from their list of approved A.A. groups because their particular approach to Twelve Step recovery.¹ Furthermore, A.A. ejected two members from elected positions in a Toronto-based treatment center for advocating the "Mucker" creed.² In 2011, the G.T.A.I removed two A.A. agnostic groups, "We Agnostics" and "Beyond Belief". Both Groups were eliminated from the G.T.A.I. Meeting Directory and ceased to be recognized as legitimate A.A. Groups. >> [more]
By Cameron Freeman,

Kinship, Kin Cues and the Fulfillment of Institutional Aims

If social/cultural anthropology is the study of people's everyday life, wherever they live-which anyone can do-why then, should one need to take a course? Yes, anybody can observe everyday life, but mere description provides little insight. Anthropology, as scientific approach, is useful for uncovering emic blind spots that natives experience while participating in everyday social life. The inhabitants cannot see the proverbial forest because of all the trees, but by using abstract concepts, the anthropologist, as the participant observer, can step out of the society and analyze objectively what the natives are doing and why they are doing it. This is imminently more useful for understanding the workings of society and its social structures. Furthermore, the anthropological method, as a practical approach, enables societal powers to predict human behaviour and develop social structures to manage human agency. >> [more]
By Cameron Freeman,

Religion: The promise of an afterlife

Bronislaw Malinowski defines religion as an assertion that death is an illusion; that humankind has an immortal soul or spirit. This belief arises from love of one's own personality or beingness and is reinforced by the inability to accept one's own annihilation (Thrower 1999:116). Furthermore, Malinowski asserts that religion serves to reinforce societal values however, to do so it must satisfy a vital need within the individual if it were to play an essential role in human affairs. That need is the belief that one's short time on earth will be rewarded with another existence in the hereafter (Thrower 1999:115). Malinowski's theory of religion cleaves to a universal religious attribute-an ingredient shared by most past and present, Western and Eastern religious traditions, as well as many indigenous traditions-that human beings believe their spirit or soul endures independent of corporeal existence. >> [more]
By Cameron Freeman,

A Comparison of Schleiermacher's Inner Religious Sanctuary and the External Domain of Robert Orsi's Religious World

This essay compares Friedrich Schleiermacher's theory of "religion as feeling" to Robert Orsi's theory of "lived religion"--meaning religion as lived experience. I will show that for Schleiermacher, religion is an internal, subjective mystical experience felt directly by an individual, whereas Robert Orsi finds religion in the external world expressed communally by people in their everyday lives. I will, however, show that Schleiermacher and Orsi agree that religion reveals its true identity in the immediacy of the moment. Robert Orsi takes a phenomenological empiricist approach to "lived religion", that is, to meet the religious practices of people in their everyday activities as the best method for observing and answering such questions as, what is religion, what does it mean to be religious and what role does religion serve? >> [more]
By Cameron Freeman,