Daniel L. Pals
What is religion? How did it originate? How does it operate? How can it be explained?
Introducing Religion: Readings from the Classic Theorists presents the key writings of eleven theorists that explain the phenomenon of religion - its origin, historical growth, and world-wide
variations - without relying on the authority of the Bible or the articles of dogma. With the hope of uncovering core principles, these influential theorists sought to understand and to discover what makes people from a variety of cultures believe and behave as they do when it comes to religion.
An ideal companion to Nine Theories of Religion, Third edition, also by Daniel L. Pals, which shares its organization, Introducing Religion begins with a look at the ideas of Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer - two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative study of religion.
It continues with the "reductionist" approaches of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, still very much alive in current debates. Countering these approaches are the writings of philosopher-psychologist William James, theologian Rudolf Otto, sociologist Max Weber, and comparativist Mircea
Eliade. Finally, the book ends with the newer methods and ideas arising from the African field studies of ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz.
Preface
Introduction
1. E. B. Tylor: Animism and the Origin of Religion
2. James Frazer: Magic and the Rise of Religion
3. Sigmund Freud: Religion as Neurosis
4. Emile Durkheim: The Social as Sacred
5. Karl Marx: Religion as Agent of Economic Oppression
6. William
James: The Testimony of Religious Experience
7. Rudolf Otto: Religion and the Sense of the "Numinous"
8. Max Weber: Religion and Culture Interwoven
9. Mircea Eliade: Religion as Response to the Sacred
10. E. E. Evans-Pritchard: Primitive Religion and Modern Theories
11. Clifford
Geertz: Religion as World-view and Ethic
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Daniel L. Pals is a Professor of Religious Studies and History at the University of Miami.
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