Religion: A cultural universal?

       Religion has been an interest to anthropologists and archaeologists since the beginning of those respective fields. Religion is such an important facet in human history and our present that it has become a main focus of many studies of culture and biology. E.B. Tylor is credited with one of the first definitions of religion, that religion "is the belief in spiritual beings" (Winzeler, 2012: 4). This definition might seem overly simplified to many religious persons out there but at its core religion really is a faith that there is a being or are beings of supernatural power either in the world or shaping the world. In the beginning Tylor felt that religion was lacking in various societies (Winzeler, 3). However, today it is assumed that all societies have religion but there are different degrees to religion.

     It is my belief that religion is a cultural universal. A cultural universal means that no matter where you are the culture possesses this trait. Other well known cultural universals are language, measured units of time, and classification. There are many cultural universals so that is definitely not an exhaustive list. The reason I believe religion to be a cultural universal is simply that you can go to any community of people in the world and there will be members of the community who believe in some spiritual being or beings. "Anthropologists are now confident that religion is present in all human societies, even though they may lack a traditional word for religion in their own language and therefore do not separate "religion" from other realms of culture" (Winzeler, 3).

     Religion is a part of one's identity. I myself have visited and been a part of ceremonies at a Hindu temple in Singapore, a Buddhist temple in South Korea, a Voodoo altar in New Orleans, a Confucian temple in China, a Muslim mosque in Indonesia, a Jewish feast here in Florida, many different branches of Christian service in North and South America, a Pagan feast here in Florida, and a reenactment of praise to the Roman pantheon in Italy. Although this seems like a wide variety of religious experience it in fact is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to observing religion. There are more religions in this world than we can even count and even if you were to look at the major religions they have many, many offshoots.

Wat Pho - Bangkok, Thailand

Sultan's Palace - Singapore

Sri Mariamman Temple - Singapore

     There is a great deal of research to suggest that religion has been an evolutionary adaptation created since as far back as Neanderthal and possibly further. At this point there really isn't any specific gene reference to say that it is a biological enhancement that has enhanced human survival or changed our reproductive success rates (Winzeler, 38). We can at least see an evolution of religion, going from a belief in theriomorphic deities (theriomorphic meaning deities that manifest as either animalistic or hybrid spiritual guardians such as those worshipped by Native American, Indian and Egyptian cultures), to a pantheon of deities with very human physical characteristics (such as those worshipped by the Greek or Roman cultures), to a belief in one spiritual human deity (such as those worshipped in Christian, Jewish and Muslim cultures). This is not to say that there are not still religions that believe in both theriomorphic and polytheistic deities. Also our ways of praising these deities has changed a great deal as blood sacrifice has become very rare, and material sacrifice has moved into more of a monetary sacrifice.

     It seems like religion is a universal that may be changing at a slow evolutionary pace. As agnosticism and atheism are becoming a bigger statistic across the world, is it possible that religion will evolve out of our day to day lives? It's important to consider what religion's role in the future will be and what more we can gleam from the origins of religion. What do you think?

References:

Winzeler, Robert L.
2012. Anthropology and Religion: What we Know, Think, and Question. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.

Suggested Further Reading:

The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by Sir James George Frazer

Call number: BL310.F8 1963

The Anthroplogy of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft by Rebecca and Phillip Stein

Call number: GN470.S73 2010

A brief introduction

Good afternoon fellow explorers,

     My name is Anthony Saturno. I am a thesis writing graduate student of Florida Atlantic University in the field of Cultural Anthropology. I also work at the Jupiter campus library for FAU. Pretty much my whole life right now involves books either loaning them to fellow students or researching them for my thesis. However, most of my life has been involved in roaming the world meeting new people, trying new things, and random adventure walking.

     I started this blog to share with fellow students three of my passions: Anthropology, History, and Travel. These three pursuits have a lot of commonalities with in them which I will discuss here.

     Anthropology is the study of man, many times associated with studying the culture of man however it is actually much more than that. In America, differing from the rest of the world, anthropology is studied within four subfields (Cultural Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics). From aaanet, one of the leading web resources for anthropologists the American Anthropological Association website, "anthropology is the study of humans past and present" (aaa.net). Cultural anthropology is used to look at cultures today and talk about the most modern aspects of cultures in a global perspective. Archaeology looks at cultures long past through a keen study of things found through digging in the dirt. Artifacts, and the context in which they are found, are unearthed, cleaned, dated and studied to come up with ideas of what cultures gone from the world may have been like. Biological anthropology looks even farther in the past at what our ancestors may have been like to help create ideas about why we are, morphologically and physically, the way we are. They also look at genetics and cognition to try and understand human behavior on the biological level, instead of looking at culture they intend look at evolutionary biology. Finally Linguistics studies the history of the way we speak, our accents, and our writing to determine how language has evolved throughout human history. They also look sometimes to biology for how our bodies were formed to promote language both in the brain and elsewhere.

     History is the written and sometimes spoken record of our endeavors. Without history, anthropology would be a  much harder study. We use history to locate possible archaeological sites, to get ideas of what certain peoples were like before we study them, to see the changes in language and usage of words and to determine our origins. History is an amazing thing to study because it tells us so much about ourselves and the people we are surrounded by. History has also become a great source of entertainment in the historical fictions we read and the many historical movies we watch. "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (Santayana, 2005).


http://classicwalksparis.com/paris/tours/french-revolution-walk

     Travel, travel is the best part of any good study. It means not just reading about the world, not just writing about it but going out there and living it. In my life I have been to every continent but Africa, and have spent a great amount of time living in Asia and in the Caribbean. I think it is very important to set sail to wherever your dreams may take you. You can't say much about the Reign of Terror, if you've never been to Paris. You can't say much about the Maori people if you've never been to New Zealand.

     Well I hope you enjoy this little adventure we will go on together. Next post will be about Anthropology and Religion. Two of my favorite topics! Did you know that it is believed that our ancestors as early as neanderthals had some religious custom? We were already possibly burying our dead with items for them to use in the afterlife at this time!


http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/05/2011/burial-practices-in-neanderthals

References:

American Anthropological Association
2013. "What is Anthropology".http://www.aaanet.org/about/WhatisAnthropology.cfm , accessed February 5th, 2013.

Classic Walks
2013. "The French Revolution Walk". Picture taken from Classic Walks website. http://classicwalksparis.com/paris/tours/french-revolution-walk , accessed February 5th 2013.

Meyers, Kate
2011. "Burial Practices in Neanderthals?" Picture taken from Past Horizons: Adventures in Archaeology website. http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/05/2011/burial-practices-in-neanderthals, accessed February 5th, 2013.

Santayana, George
2005. The Life of Reason, Vol. 1: Reason in Common Sense. In Project Gutenberg Ebook. Prepared by Fraser-Cunliffe, et al. (284). http://www.gutenberg.lib.md.us/1/5/0/0/15000/15000-h/15000-h.htm, accessed February 5th, 2013.