OBJECTIVE

• Explain the meaning and nature of

religion as a social institution
• Describe the organization of religions
and the types of religious institutions
• Discover the world’s major religions
and their inherent dynamics.
 NATURE OF RELIGION

• English word religion is from the Latin verb religare,

which means “to tie” or “to bind fast”. The bond
between God and man.
• According to John Cuber, “Religion is a culturally
entrenched pattern of behaviour composed of
sacred beliefs, emotional feelings accompanying
the belief, and overt conduct implementing the
beliefs and feelings.” This concept embodies the
following:
Sacred Beliefs
Emotional feelings accompanying the beliefs
Overt conduct implementing the beliefs and feelings.
 NATURE OF RELIGION
• Durkheim, in his classic study, The Elementary Form of Religious Life,
defined religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices related to
sacred things.
• Religious symbols and meanings shape the world views, thoughts, and
beliefs of their adherents.
• All religions divide the universe into two mutually exclusive categories:
Profane and the Sacred.
• Profane means all the empirically observable things, those that are
knowable through common, everyday experiences.
• The profane revolves around those human experiences that are
mundane, ordinary, and a matter of fact. It includes the entire human
experiences that are not worthy of religious worship.
• Religion is associated with the sacred, those experiences that transcend
everyday existence; it is extraordinary, powerful, potentially dangerous,
and awe inspiring.
• The sacred consist of all things kept separate or apart from everyday
experiences, things that are awe inspiring and knowable only through
extraordinary experience.
 ELEMENT OF RELIGION

• Ritual and Prayer

• Emotion
• Belief
• Organization
 THE UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGION
• Many anthropologist, sociologist, and psychologist have offered theories
to account for the universality of religion.
• Most of these theories seem to fall into three groups:
the psychological
the sociological
the mixture of the two.

• The psychological theories generally account for the universality of

religion as a way of reducing anxiety or a means of satisfying a cognitive
need for intellectual understanding.

• The sociological theories usually explain the universality of religion as a

reflection of society and its social condition.

• Using the two theories, it is held by some that religion is a response to

strain or deprivation which is felt by individuals and which is caused by
events in society.
 TECHNIQUES OF RELIGION

• Prayer
• Sacrifice
• Reverence
• Divination
• Taboo
• Rituals
• Ceremony
• Magic
VARIATIONS IN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

• There are at least two types of

supernatural:
Supernatural Forces
Supernatural Beings
• Those of non-human origin like gods
and spirits
• Those of human origin such as
ghosts and ancestral spirits
ACTIVITIES BELIEVED TO AFFECT THE
SUPERNATURAL
• Prayers
• Music
• Physiological Experience
• Exhortation or Preaching
• Reciting the Code
• Simulation
• Mana or Taboo
• Feasts
• Sacrifices
Offerings for the gods
Feasts for the people
• Congregation
• Inspiration
• Symbolism