Religious Studies: Phenomenon of Religion

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,