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Lecture notes, cheat sheets
History of religion. Theories of the origin of religion (lecture notes)
Directory / Lecture notes, cheat sheets Table of contents (expand) Introduction Religion occupies an important place in everyone's life. In the sphere of interests of a believing person, it turns out to be already due to his faith in God (or gods), and an unbelieving person, faced with a manifestation of religiosity, should be able to explain to himself why he is not satisfied with religious faith as the main dominant of spiritual existence. Religion accompanies us throughout our lives, because we receive the first ideas about the existence of the supernatural from our parents, grandparents at the age when the information received is assimilated without much effort, superimposed on the unclouded children's consciousness and forming the initial idea of religion that can remain unchanged throughout life, and can be modified in accordance with changes in external circumstances or the spiritual qualities of the person himself. In the end, history knows many cases of disappointment of a believer in his beliefs, but also no less cases of reverse transformation, when a convinced atheist became a sincere believer. And this is not about giving up one's views under the influence of a changed socio-political situation (a vivid example of which was Russia in the 1990s), but about a radical reorientation of consciousness as a result of a collision with some phenomenon that does not fit into a one-sidedly rational picture of the world . Isn't it surprising that many scientists who glorified their names with fundamental discoveries in the field of nuclear physics or neurosurgery were believers who managed to rationally justify to themselves the need for the existence of faith? The subject "History of Religion" is taught today both in higher educational institutions and in ordinary schools. At the same time, it is important to understand that freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution of Russia, so the task of this subject is not to increase the number of believers, but to transfer to secondary school students and students the initial amount of knowledge regarding the specifics of religion, theories of its origin and development, the place of religion in modern the world. We must not forget that religion is one of the most important layers of culture, without knowledge of which it is impossible to claim the title of a cultured and educated person. Topic 1. Theories of the origin of religion 1.1. Origins of the Study of Religion Religion became an object of study by representatives of philosophical knowledge very early, and primacy in the study of religious phenomena should be given to ancient Greek philosophers and scientists. Thus, the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (500-428 BC) argued that gods are created by people in their own image and likeness, therefore “Ethiopians write their gods black and with flattened noses, Thracians - red-haired and blue-eyed... "[1] Other ancient philosophers also took a rationalistic approach to the study, arguing that the basis of the worship of gods was fear of natural phenomena, such as storms and earthquakes. This position alone indicated that in ancient society there was a transition from religious culture to secular culture, which generally made it possible to impartially study the very phenomenon of religion in all the diversity of its manifestations. Of course, statues of gods continued to rise on the streets of Athens, holiday and memorial sacrifices continued to be made, and commanders regularly asked oracles for advice before significant battles, but among ancient thinkers, religion was gradually becoming the subject of close study. For one of the most famous ancient philosophers - Plato (427-347 BC), myths about the gods have already lost their areola of inaccessibility and sacredness, becoming just one of the rhetorical ways of clarifying theoretical positions for an ordinary listener who is not able to operate with speculative constructions, consisting of philosophical terms, and comprehend them by ear. In addition, it was Plato who committed an act for which his immediate predecessors could pay with their lives: he not only used existing myths, giving them a different, more philosophical sound, but he himself began to compose myths, which thereby completely broke with their religious origin, becoming element of philosophical reasoning or literary works. Early Christian thinkers, for example Tertullian (III century), were very hostile to attempts to rationally study religion, asserting the priority of faith over reason: “I believe in order to understand.” [2] This position was dominant for centuries. It did not allow to scientifically study religion and write its history without dividing all the diversity of religious manifestations into “false” (pagan) and “true” (Christian). And only in the era of scholasticism (a set of religious and philosophical teachings that existed in Western Europe in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries) steps were taken towards eliminating such extremes and the emergence of a more balanced point of view on religion. Medieval theology perceived religion as a revelation given to people from God as the only means of salvation and atonement for original sin. The means of comprehending this revelation for the medieval philosopher and writer Pierre Abelard (1079-1142) was not blind faith, but reason: “I understand in order to believe.” [3] In order to believe that Christianity is the only absolute truth, it is necessary to approach the analysis of its postulates from a standpoint of rationality, to identify the advantage of its provisions over the statements of other religions (primarily Judaism and Islam). It was in the works of Abelard that the prerequisites for the comparative and rational study of religion were set out, which became widespread among philosophers of the Enlightenment. The most detailed explanation of the emergence of religion is set out in the works of the French educator Paul-Henri Holbach (1723-1789). According to him, the psychological basis for the existence of religion lies in the feeling of fear and anxiety inherent in man by virtue of his nature. As this fear disappears in the process of development of human cognitive abilities, the need for religion gradually disappears. Holbach's undoubted merit is his attempt not only to record the main features of religion, but also to present its evolution, the main stages of development: from the worship of material objects and forces of nature, through belief in the existence of spirits that control these forces, to the emergence of the idea of a single god. [4] The next stage in the study of the history of religion was the emergence of scientific schools that tried to present different points of view on the nature, mechanism of the emergence and development of religious views. It was from the beginning of the 19th century. One can talk about the emergence of a specialized history of religion, which began to be built not on speculative reasoning, but on the study of specific facts and their subsequent generalization in the form of a hypothesis or theory. 1.2. Mythological concept (M. Müller) The first scientific concept of the origin of religion arose in the first half of the 1823th century. among German philologists, whose most prominent representative was Max Müller (1900-5). An outstanding researcher of Sanskrit and Indian culture, he approached the problem of religion from the linguistic side, starting from the study of classical religious texts of Ancient India, most of which he himself first translated into German and thereby made it the property of European culture. Religiosity, according to Muller, does not come from a sense of divine revelation (as Christian theology interpreted religion), but serves as one of the manifestations of the sensory experience that a person receives in the process of direct contact with reality. [XNUMX] There is no supernatural side of religion, since human mental activity is based solely on sensory perception. It is with the help of the senses that the cognizing subject gets an idea of the surrounding world, which is made up of objects of two kinds. Some of these items are easily accessible and accessible to ordinary human senses (touch, smell, hearing, etc.). Others are accessible to any one sense, but remain inaccessible to all others. For example, the Sun, Moon and stars become the property of human thinking through vision, but it is impossible to touch them, therefore their inaccessibility inspired the primitive man with the idea of the Unattainable and Infinite, which ultimately led to the emergence of the idea of God. Imagery, originally characteristic of human thinking, is manifested in the fact that the idea of God is not a pure abstraction, but always exists in the form of concrete things or phenomena. The sun was not originally a god, but only symbolized the idea of divinity, but then the metaphorical nature of the comparison was forgotten and the person began to consider the Sun God. Such a transition from metaphorical to literal understanding Muller calls the "disease of language." In our everyday language, we often use the expression "The sun rises", thereby attributing to it the characteristics of a living being. According to Muller, primitive man was aware of the conditional, metaphorical nature of this expression, but then for some reason forgot it and began to consider individual phenomena and things as deities. Words that were originally expressions that had a figurative meaning later acquired an independent meaning. From this point of view, religion does not develop, but degrades, since the only true understanding of God was peculiar to primitive man. Language managed to distort this understanding, so modern people have already got the miserable remnants of true faith as a religion. The most accurate method of studying religion, from the point of view of the mythological concept, is the method of philological and etymological research, which allows revealing the original meaning of myths and legends enshrined in sacred texts. According to one of the ancient Greek myths, Apollo fell in love with Daphne, who fled from him and was turned into a laurel bush by an angry deity. Muller offers the following interpretation of this plot: Apollo is a solar (solar) deity, and the name Daphne, in addition to the literal meaning "laurel bush", also has a figurative meaning - "dawn". Thus, in this myth, which describes a common natural phenomenon, the coming of the Sun to replace the morning dawn is told. This method made it possible to explain some myths, but its absolutization led to such controversial statements that, for example, the Trojan War was also a solar myth. Müller's reasoning about the nature of the origin of religion, relatively correct from a philological point of view, turned out to be completely unsupported by historical data, therefore the most accurate characteristic that sums up the entire mythological concept are the words of the British anthropologist and religious scholar Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973): " Max Müller's influence on the study of religion was short-lived, and Müller himself managed to survive it." [6] 1.3. Materialistic concept (K. Marx, F. Engels) Other German researchers who contributed to the study of the origin and functioning of religion were Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1821-1893). The attitude towards them in modern Russian science cannot be called balanced and calm - the period of undivided dominance of their ideas, turned into absolute dogmas, turned out to be too long, after which the time of oblivion began. Neither one nor the other option can be considered successful, since these researchers wrote their own page in the history of religious thought. A feature of Marx's approach to religion was the recognition of the social nature of this phenomenon, its inclusion in the system of not just social, but socio-economic relations. The specificity of religion is generated by the fact that it is a product of certain social conditions that "program" the forms of religiosity, their structure and role in society. In addition, the social nature of religion lies in the function that it performs in society, serving the interests of the ruling class and maintaining in indisputable dogmas the postulate of the unequal position of the class of masters and the class of slaves. Any religion, according to Marx, is developed by government circles in order to subjugate other social groups, which allows for a more subtle and effective impact on people. The primitive violence that prevails in pre-class society is being replaced by religious postulates that cover the true motives of power with a veil of religious and moral norms. It is not difficult to notice that the very existence of religion in Marx is associated with the presence of acute social contradictions, which faith is fundamentally unable to resolve, but can only soften the awareness of the subordination of one class to another, which does not contribute to liberation from slavery, but only prolongs its oppression. Religion makes a person unfree because it alienates a person from his own nature, the essence of which Marx sees in work and in the ability to fully enjoy the results of one’s labor. Religious alienation is only one of the partial manifestations of a much more comprehensive economic alienation: “religious alienation as such occurs only in the sphere of consciousness, in the sphere of the inner world of man, but economic alienation is the alienation of real life - its abolition therefore covers both sides.” [7] The conservatism of religion is manifested in the fact that it legitimizes the established order, preserving the contradictions and shortcomings that exist in it, and not just preserving, but sanctifying them with the authority of religious values. Even the Christian religion, having emerged as a social movement of the lower classes, after establishing its dominance in the territory of the former Roman Empire, became an ideal way to justify social inequality by appealing to the divine establishment of such a world order. Having appeared to satisfy the needs of class society along with the emergence of the state, religion, according to Marx, has a transitory nature and therefore will disappear along with the destruction of class inequality. If Marx, being a philosopher, considered religion purely theoretically, without focusing on the heterogeneous nature of religious manifestations, then Engels, in his work “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” (1884), used the method of historical reconstruction to identify the consistent evolution of social and economic institutions, giving rise to such a social phenomenon as religion. [8] The growth of labor productivity and the division of labor lead to the emergence of private property and the state, which, in need of ideological “support,” builds a centralized religion from disparate cults. Based on surviving direct and indirect sources, Engels identifies similar phenomena in the emergence of religion among the ancient Greeks, ancient Romans and Germans. Already at the beginning of the 9th century. Many observations of theorists of the materialistic concept of the origin of religion were criticized by researchers of the primitive [XNUMX] peoples of Africa and Oceania, in the development of which the connection between the emergence of religion and the processes of class formation turned out to be almost impossible to trace. In addition, the very starting point of Marx’s concept, according to which religion only consolidates the changes that have occurred, without participating in the social transformations themselves, left out of the scope of consideration the possibility of religion to determine the further development of society and to develop together with this society. 1.4. Animistic concept (E.B. Tylor) Second half of the 1832th century in religious studies passed under the unconditional dominance of the so-called animistic theory of the origin of religion, which was greatly facilitated by the brilliantly written and encyclopedically detailed works of its founder, the English anthropologist Edward Barnet Tylor (1917-XNUMX). The English researcher made the term "anima" (from Latin anima, animus - soul, spirit) the key concept of his version of the origin of religion, which gave the name to his theory as a whole. It is animism (the belief in the presence of a soul both in humans and inanimate objects) that Tylor considers the initial stage in the formation of religion, from which other, more complex forms subsequently developed. In his work Primitive Culture, he fixes two premises from which he proceeds when considering the issue of the origin of religion: 1) religious teachings and rituals are considered as parts of religious systems generated exclusively by human consciousness, without the intervention of supernatural forces - a rational formulation of the question of religion; 2) the similarities and differences between traditional religions and the religions of civilized societies are analyzed - a comparative (comparative) analysis of religion. Based on these fundamental points and having analyzed in detail the abundant material presented by the myths of the peoples of Asia, Europe, Africa and America, Tylor comes to the conclusion that primitive man sought to rationally explain the phenomena that he encountered in his daily life, primarily death and dream. [10] Observation of dreams without a corresponding movement of the body in space led a person to the assumption that, along with the physical shell, there is also a spiritual shell - the soul, which is connected with its material carrier by not very strong ties. At the very least, it can be torn away from the body - either temporarily (during dreams) or forever (the final separation of the soul from the body is death). The primary stage of animism is the idea of people having a soul. At the secondary stage, this idea also extends to natural phenomena and inanimate objects. According to Tylor, primitive man, having become convinced that he had a spiritual basis, without hesitation, transferred this observation to the world around him, perceiving surrounding objects as endowed with a soul. In addition, the possibility of separation (even temporary) of the soul from the body led primitive man to the idea of souls that do not have a body and are, ultimately, spirits. It is the transition from the idea of an individual soul to the idea of the presence of supernatural beings, incorporeal in essence, that Tylor declares to be the condition for the emergence of religious consciousness. [eleven] The animistic concept of E.B. Tylor was undoubtedly a step forward in resolving the issue of primitive forms of religion, which, unfortunately, did not save her from significant flaws. Its main drawback was the unreasonable transfer of evolutionary ideas about the stages of the formation of religion from the simplest form to a more complex one to the psychology of primitive man. According to the animistic concept, the primitive man had the idea of the existence of the soul, which, through a long evolution, could become the idea of God. However, this position does not agree well with the study of modern peoples who are at a primitive stage of development, in which the idea of God is present, while the concept of the soul is in its infancy. Indirectly, this position is confirmed by Tylor himself, who, to prove his theory, uses mythological plots related to sufficiently developed religious systems - ancient Egyptian and Scandinavian. 1.5. The theory of pra-monotheism (E. Lang, V. Schmidt) The British philologist Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was one of the few people who, not satisfied with the animistic conception of the origin of religion that prevailed at that time, tried to find another explanation for the existing diversity of religions and religious manifestations. Being an evolutionist in his views (a supporter of the consistent development of religion), Lang strongly opposed the assertion that the primary form of religion is the belief in the universal animation of the world. If this form is primary and it is from it that, through a long evolution, the rest of religious manifestations proceed, culminating in the appearance of the idea of God, then it remains unclear how in many regions of the globe that are not directly connected with each other, there is not just the idea of supernatural beings, but the idea one God. The English scientist called his theory, which defends the presence of faith in a single god as the initial form of religion, the theory of pramonotheism (from Latin mono - one and Greek theos - god). Belief in the existence of a single God can be explained by the rational conclusion of primitive man, according to which the surrounding world, not being a product of human labor, was created by a supernatural being. Lang refutes the confidence of animism that the soul (spirit) became the prototype of God with the help of facts from the mythology of the primitive peoples of Oceania, indicating that God is perceived not as a spirit, but as a real living humanoid creature. Based on this, the scientist concludes that faith in God “during its development did not require any reflection on dreams and ghosts.” [12] The confidence in the existence of a disembodied soul, perceived from the existence of dreams and death, has a fundamentally different origin than the belief in a single God, which is present in the unclouded consciousness of primitive man, but is then subject to distortion by animistic ideas. Only the analysis of myths and epic literary works ("Iliad", "Odyssey", "Mahabharata", etc.) makes it possible to cleanse religion of later layers, figures of various gods and spirits and return to its original state. It is interesting that Lang, based on his concept, positively assessed the role of Christianity, which, in his opinion, restores the lost religious unity, combining the differing traditions of intellectual religion of the era of Hellenism and Messianic Judaism. [13] In the XX century. the idea of pra-monotheism found a response in the writings of those representatives of the Catholic Church who tried to reinforce the biblical idea of "initial revelation" by using the latest scientific data. An Austrian priest and researcher of primitive religion, Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954), who devoted 12 volumes of his work "The Origin of the Idea of God" (1912-1955), became an active successor to the theory of pra-monotheism. Based on the data of anthropological studies, Schmidt argued that the most primitive peoples are those who lack agriculture and cattle breeding. Among such peoples, he ranked the Pygmies of Africa, the natives of Australia, the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands and the inhabitants of the Far North - the Eskimos. Despite the fact that the researchers were not able to fix the presence of any animistic, totemistic or fetishistic beliefs among these tribes, belief in a single god turns out to be inherent in these small peoples, which confirms the presence in their development of a pra-monotheistic stage, which was later overcome by other peoples. The weak point of the supporters of the theory of pre-monotheism was the unjustified use of the very term "monotheism", which in the strict sense means the denial of polytheism, while Lang and Schmidt identified it with the idea of a Supreme Being (not necessarily God), which preceded polytheism or existed in parallel with the belief in the presence of many gods and spirits. The decline of the pra-monotheistic concept was associated with the crisis of the very theory of evolutionism, which sought to build a consistent chain of successive forms of religion, which was criticized for the arbitrariness of its constructions and the inability to confirm the change of these forms using anthropological or archaeological data. 1.6. Preanimist concept (J. Fraser, R. Marett) Dissatisfaction with the undivided dominance of the animistic concept of E.B. Tylor led to the emergence of the concept of pre-animist. The term "preanimism" itself was introduced into scientific circulation in 1899 by the English explorer of primitive peoples Robert Marett (1866-1943). Subsequently, several more religious scholars and anthropologists joined this point of view, the most famous of which, of course, was the English anthropologist James Fraser (1854-1941). At the same time, preanimism cannot be considered a unified theory, since each of the researchers who considered their position to be preanimistic defended their own views, and they were united only by the conviction that the animistic stage of the formation of religion formulated by Tylor was not the initial one, since it was preceded by other, more primitive forms. So, R. Marett, without denying the importance of belief in spirits, believed that the very need for a rational explanation of the world is not primary, since not ideas are expressed in the corresponding actions and rituals, but actions give rise to ideas. Religion is born as an emotional response to what is happening in the natural or social world, initially expressed through psychomotor actions - ritual movements or dances. The ideological component of religion arises only at the moment when the need to explain the actions and deeds performed becomes urgent. It was then that "backdating" the idea of spirits is formulated, for the appeasement of which it is necessary to perform certain rites. Primitive man, according to Marett, acted first with his body, and only then with his mind: body movements preceded rational explanation, and ritual preceded the emergence of proper religious ideas. A person in his activity is faced with some objects or phenomena that, at an unconscious level, can cause manifestations of various emotions - fear, surprise, hatred, or, conversely, affection and love. Feelings experienced in a collision with these objects, the representative of primitive society transfers to the objects themselves, endowing them with supernatural properties and making them objects of worship. At the primary stage of its existence, religion cannot be separated from magic, from which it subsequently breaks and begins to persecute (for example, the famous witch persecutions organized by the Church during the Middle Ages). The emergence of magic, according to Marett, also has an emotional explanation, which consists in the desire of a person to cope with the emotions embracing him by transferring these emotions to an impersonal object, which becomes a "substitute" for the real object of emotional affection. The belief that a symbolic impact on an object can lead to real consequences makes magic significant for both primitive and modern man (love elixirs, sentences, spells, etc.). Another explanation for the origin of magical phenomena was proposed by J. Frazer, who considered magic to be the most primitive form of religion, preceding the emergence of fairly rational animistic views. A brilliant researcher and extremely industrious man, this English anthropologist gained worldwide fame with The Golden Bough (1911-1915), which is still considered one of the classic works on the history of religion. Frazer attributed the emergence of magic to the practical needs of primitive human communities, as people depended on the environment and tried to find ways to influence it in order to improve their situation. If modern man builds his actions in relation to nature on the basis of certain laws (for example, he is able to state that the appearance of a cloud is the first symptom of the approach of rain, but is aware of his impossibility to influence this process), then primitive man was deprived of such an opportunity. He built his guesses on the basis of superficial comparisons and analogies, the essence of which can be expressed in two laws - the law of contact and the law of similarity. The law of contact consists in the belief that two objects that have been in contact with each other continue to influence each other in some way, even being at a certain distance. For example, it is enough to step on the trail left by the enemy in order to harm him. The law of similarity is based on the belief that objects that are similar in their external characteristics are in an invisible relationship with each other. For example, by influencing a photograph of a person or a doll made in his likeness, you can influence the person himself. Primitive magic, which at first was disposable and did not obey any canons, gradually turns into a special type of activity assigned to a healer or sorcerer. But, breaking away from specific cases of application, magical practice thereby loses its evidence, requiring a rational explanation, which gives rise to religion. Fraser gives the following example. In primitive societies, a sheaf of wheat was often left in the field for magical purposes to ensure fertility for the following year. Within the framework of religion, this act was given the following explanation: the sheaf is a sacrifice to the deity of fertility. The weak point of the theory of both J. Fraser and other representatives of pre-animistic theories is the insufficient argumentation of the transition from the stage of magic to the stage of religion, because even in the above example we are talking about rethinking magical practice within the framework of religion, and not about the transformation of magic into religious beliefs. An equally important argument for a cautious attitude to the pre-animistic concept is the presence of historical facts indicating that religion does not replace magic, but coexists with it. This calls into question the original premise of this theory, which consists in a successive change of stages. 1.7. Psychoanalytic concept (3. Freud, C. G. Jung) Psychoanalysis, which became one of the key theories in the humanities in the 1856th century, managed to prove itself in the study of religion, offering an extremely original interpretation of its origin. The founder of the psychoanalytic method, Sigmund Freud (1938-1913), was a practicing psychiatrist, so his concept grew from observing patients and transferring the experience of curing individual nervous and mental diseases to a wide range of problems, one of which was the problem of the emergence of religion, which he understands in "Totem and Taboo" (XNUMX). Religion, according to Freud, is based on guilt. In his medical practice, the Austrian psychiatrist often came across a feeling of animosity that a son feels towards his father. The reason for this was the repressed love for the mother, which resulted in hatred towards the one who had the preferential right to sexual relations with her. At the same time, the father served as a role model for the child, so hatred that found no way out was driven inside and served as a source of constant mental stress. This complex Freud called Oedipus, using the plot of the famous ancient myth, according to which Oedipus became the Theban king by killing his father and marrying his own mother. Having put forward the assumption that ontogenesis (the process of individual development) coincides with phylogenesis (the process of the gradual development of society), Freud concluded that the Oedipus complex that exists in a child somehow repeats the real development of events that occurred at the beginning of the emergence of society. At the primitive stage of human existence, a situation arose when the leader of the horde arrogated to himself the predominant right to all the women of the horde, for which he was killed by his sons, who subsequently repented of their act and declared a taboo on murder and incest (incest). [14] The murdered father became a totem animal, the eating of which was prohibited, and the periodic violation of this prohibition during ritual celebrations served as a source of periodic recollection of the gravity of the crime committed. Such a memory of the figure of the murdered father later served as the basis for the appearance of the figure of God, that is, it became the source not only of the formation of primitive forms of totemism, but also of developed religious forms. Freud's student, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), largely rethought the views of his teacher, abandoning excessive focus on the problems of the formation of sexuality and focusing on the presence of certain plots that are universal for all types of cultures and transmitted on an unconscious level. These stories, which underlie any religion, Jung called archetypes. In his works, he tried not only to theoretically substantiate the existence of such archetypes in different eras and in different types of culture, but also turned to specific myths in order to compare them and identify common symbols. For example, the symbolism of the circle can be observed in a variety of religious traditions: the circle as an ideal form - in Pythagoreanism, the mandala (i.e., the symbolic display of the universe in the form of a circle) - in Buddhism, etc. In one of his works ("Divine Child ") Jung analyzes the myths about the "divine baby", which are present in almost every developed mythology. For example, Perseus - in ancient Greek mythology, Jesus - in the Christian tradition, similar Middle Eastern and Indian myths. Of course, in the case of such a scatter of plots, it turns out to be difficult to assume that all these myths are borrowings from one source, therefore, recognizing them as archetypally present in the human subconscious makes it possible to avoid useless searches for the source of borrowing. The originality of the psychoanalytic concept of religion has caused a lot of criticism from different sides. The most controversial was Freud's idea of identifying individual human development with the progress of society, since this identity can hardly be reliably confirmed with the help of archaeological or anthropological data, and without taking this into account, the whole concept of the generation of the Oedipus complex crumbles to dust. Within the framework of the Freudian concept, the mechanism for transmitting information at the subconscious level also remains unclear, since Freud and Jung repeatedly emphasize that religious symbolism is generated by the human subconscious, which already contains the entire set of symbols (or complexes). A more specific reproach to Freud is his interpretation of the myth of Oedipus, which seems strained and does not agree with the rest of the complex of ancient Greek myths, in which the repeatedly present plots of parricide and incest have practically no overlap with each other. [15] 1.8. Sociological concept (E. Durkheim) The French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) became one of the most famous scholars of religion in the 1912th century, and his Elementary Forms of Religious Life (XNUMX) is still a classic work on the history of religion, although some provisions from this book are already are outdated, and some are too controversial to be accepted unconditionally. One way or another, it was precisely around Durkheim that a whole school of supporters of the sociological approach to religion developed. Some of its representatives, such as L. Levy-Bruhl, M. Moss, entered the history of religious thought with their works. The starting point of Durkheim's reasoning is the thesis about the social nature of religion, which predetermined the specifics of his research. Unlike his predecessors - supporters of the evolutionary theory of the development of religion - the French scientist, although he tried to grasp the chronological relationship between various forms of religiosity, set himself a completely different task. “There is no clear moment when religion began to exist, and we are not talking about discovering an ingenious way to mentally transport ourselves to it ... We set ourselves a completely different task. We would like to find a means of identifying the constantly operating causes on which the most essential forms of religious thought and religious practice." [16] In other words, Durkheim tries to determine those social conditions that create the originality of religious forms, determine the significance of religion for society as a whole or for individual social groups. Sacred as the basic concept of religion can be used in a broad sense as a set of prescriptions that is binding on all members of a particular social group. It is easy to see that such a definition of the sacred also includes the laws adopted in society, the violation of which is also severely prosecuted precisely because it destroys the integrity of society, endangering the unshakable values on which this society rests. Durkheim's conclusion is that religiosity is an obligatory attribute of the social structure, whether it manifests itself in the form of an official religion or hides under the guise of norms and rules of behavior accepted in a given community. The main function of religion, in his opinion, is to ensure social integration, that is, the cohesion of society, which is the main reason for the emergence of religion in its most primitive form - totemism. Totemism is an associative identification of any animal or plant with a social group, which is usually played by a clan. It is precisely the presence of the clan system that explains Durkheim's choice of the Australian communities of gatherers and hunters as the most primitive forms of the existence of religion. As a sociologist, for him the main criterion for choosing an object of study is the simplicity of social organization, which must correspond to the form of religiosity. Thus he comes to the conclusion, which was subsequently refuted by comparative analysis of primitive societies: totemism corresponds to the clan system, and the clan system corresponds to totemism. The totem serves as a kind of symbol of the clan, in the deification of which all members of this clan feel that they belong to one social group that differs from other groups that have their own totems. In addition, the totem is not an abstract concept, but finds its material embodiment in the symbolic image of a sacred animal, which is a wooden figurine, called "churinga" by the natives of Australia. During the performance of collective rituals around the image of the totem, spiritual unity of the social team is achieved. It is from the totem that the figure of a god grows, since each god was once the totem of a particular clan. The pantheon of gods in polytheism was a form of unification of the totems of various clans belonging to the same tribe; a way to emphasize the uniqueness of each clan, but at the same time their common origin and belonging to a larger social association. Abstract thinking, which develops in the later stages of human development, forms the concept of a god from individual totems, which is no longer tied to a specific clan, but serves as a source of integration for society as a whole. The weakness of Durkheim's sociological concept was the insufficient connection of his theory to the facts concerning primitive societies, since the very term “totem”, adopted from the language of the North American Indians and used to analyze the communities of the Australian aborigines, lost its specific content during this transfer and became too vague. But even in this extremely broad understanding, totemism could not be recorded in many primitive societies, and where it existed, it did not necessarily act as an attribute of the clan organization of society, which Durkheim strongly insisted on. Having made a giant step forward in correlating the type of social organization with religious ideas, he was unable to fully use the comparative method to identify specific forms of this connection. According to the English anthropologist E. Evans-Pritchard, at best, Durkheim can be classified as a philosopher rather than a scientist engaged in the study of religion. [17] 1.9. Phenomenological concept (R. Otto, M. Eliade) If the sociological approach emphasized the social nature of religion, its critics tried to isolate the origins of belief in God in the specifics of human thinking itself and ways of perceiving the world. This approach is called phenomenological (from the Greek phenomenon - phenomenon). Its founder was the German theologian Rudolf Otto (1869-1937). In his book “Das Heilige” [18] (1917), he expressed the need to study religion outside the historical context, taking into account only the psychological mechanisms that transform the direct perception of the world into religious experience. According to R. Otto, the natural emotionality of a person is manifested in the fact that when he encounters some unusual phenomenon, he begins to experience specific feelings that are dual in nature and are the starting point in the formation of religious faith. The duality of these feelings is manifested in the fact that, depending on the emotional state of the person himself, he is able to perceive the sacred both in a negative and in a positive aspect. The negative aspect lies in the perception of the sacred as something terrible and majestic, the consequence of which is the emergence in a person of a feeling of his own insignificance, the subordination of his life to divine providence. The positive aspect consists in emphasizing in the process of perception the beauty and splendor of the sacred, which gives rise to the observer's feeling of divine mercy and love. The specificity of Otto's phenomenological approach was to study the psychological mechanisms that contributed to the emergence of religion, but the ahistorical formulation of the question in his works did not allow identifying the historical conditions for the emergence and transformation of various forms and manifestations of religiosity. The combination of a phenomenological approach with an attempt to consider religion from a historical point of view was done in the works of the famous Romanian religious scholar and anthropologist Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). The specificity of perception, coupled with the psychological characteristics of the observer himself, according to Eliade, is already a sufficient condition for the rise of individual faith, but this faith turns into universal faith at the moment the observer transfers his religious experience to other people. The words he chooses to describe his feelings and emotions, what aspect of the sacred he places voluntary or involuntary emphasis in his narrative - all this leaves an imprint on the forms of religiosity that dominate in specific societies and in specific historical eras. It is also important that the choice of objects that serve as a source of religious experience is not the exclusive property of the person himself. For example, viewing a thunderstorm can evoke religious experiences in a person belonging to a social group or tribe where thunderstorms are given special significance. Unfortunately, Eliade remained undeveloped in addressing the problem of the cultural conditioning of religious manifestations. In the book “Sacred and Profane,” Eliade traces how the fundamental contradiction between the sacred and ordinary spheres of life is realized in various religious traditions. The opposition “sacred - profane” itself is found in E. Durkheim, but for him it plays the role of a theoretical construct, and its presence in primitive societies is practically not indicated. Eliade shows that the division of life into sacred and profane existed in both spatial and temporal aspects. The sacred center in primitive society was the personification of the stability of order amid the surrounding chaos. As we moved away from the center, the degree of holiness weakened and the role of the everyday, the everyday, increased, which, precisely because of its distance from holiness, served as a source of danger and constant threat. In the temporal aspect, the heterogeneity of the world was manifested in the division into holidays, which had ritual significance and returned a person to the moment of the creation of the world, requiring him to carry out supporting rituals, and everyday life, imbued with any connection with the supernatural, true world. [19] The phenomenological approach to the problem of the emergence of religion made it possible to abandon the evolutionism that dominated religious thought throughout the XNUMXth century, and to propose its own version of the conditions under which the emergence of religion is possible. Recognition of the commonality of religious experience, regardless of the time and place of its experience, made it possible to grasp the universal psychological basis on which religion is based. However, the lack of attention to the ways of understanding this experience in various traditions has significantly narrowed the possibility of applying this approach to the study of the history of religion. 1.10. Structuralism (K. Levi-Strauss, J. Dumezil) The last of the main approaches to the study of religion was the structuralist approach, the principles of which were formulated in the 1940s. in the writings of the French anthropologists Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-1990) and Georges Dumézil (1898-1986). The key concept of the structuralist approach is the concept of structure. Thus, Levi-Strauss saw in all spheres of human life - from language to kinship systems - the dominance of the same principles of structuring, which remain unchanged and are built on the opposition "raw - boiled", "living - dead", "old - new", "top - bottom", etc. (i.e., a binary system). Such a structure may not be realized by the person himself, therefore, an impartial view of the researcher is needed, who is able to isolate the basic connections in the confusing picture of social life. The same approach underlies the structuralist study of myths: each myth or individual version of a myth is not considered as a unique work; the object of consideration are all variants of myths that form a whole. It is in the complex of various interpretations of the myth that one can single out the basic opposites that appear in any of the variants, regardless of how far it differs from the original version. At the same time, the structure being built is not the original, most ancient version of the myth, but is only a myth model, based on which newly discovered interpretations can be considered. For example, K. Levi-Strauss analyzes the myth of Oedipus, isolating behind the external sequence of events (which had once served as an object of study for 3. Freud) an internal structure that manifests itself in the opposition of ideas about the birth of a person from the earth (the appearance of armed warriors from dragon teeth sown in the field) and its appearance from the marriage of a man with a woman (the fate of Lai). From this point of view, Freud's version is just a new version of the original myth, showing exactly the same structure and therefore subject to analysis on a par with ancient counterparts. Such an approach, although it avoids speculative and purely theoretical attempts to reconstruct the original myth, at the same time deprives the study of myths of any correlation with real history: if all variants of a myth are equivalent, then there is no difference between the one that arose earlier and the one , which is the fruit of individual artistic creativity. In addition, the very position of Levi-Strauss about the presence of initial binary oppositions in myths does not mean that only one such opposition can be singled out. In any myth, one can find several elements opposing each other at once, so the search for those that are most consistent with the structure of the myth is left to the researcher's imagination. J. Dumezil used a structuralist scheme along with a comparative method of research for his reconstruction of the social structure and religious views of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. [20] In his work, he proceeds from the assumption that Indo-European society was originally characterized by a rigid social structure, determined by the basic needs of a primitive society: priesthood, warriors and peasants. Each of these social groups had its own function: priests - the function of ordering the cosmos by performing appropriate rituals; warriors - a function of protecting their own social group and aggression towards others; peasants - the function of providing material living conditions. The celestial hierarchy, according to Dumezil, clearly corresponds to this social structure: in Iranian, Indian and Scandinavian mythology there are “triples” of gods responsible for the patronage of the listed social groups. The weak side of Dumézil's concept is the numerous stretches to which he has to resort to maintaining a trinitarian structure in religious pantheons, as well as the lack of archaeological data that could support the very assumption of the existence of three social groups. >> Forward: Early forms of religion (Religion of Neanderthals and primitive peoples. Religion of Ancient Egypt. Religion of Ancient Mesopotamia. Religion of Ancient Iran (Mazdaism). Religion of Ancient Greece. Religion of Ancient Rome. Religion of the peoples of Central America) Author: Anikin D.A.
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