Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Cultural Construction of Religion
The Cultural Construction of Religion
Elements of Culture
Language
Norms (expectations)
Sanctions (punishments and rewards)
Values
Geertz’s definition
Culture “denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings
embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions
expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men
communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about
and attitudes toward life.” (Geertz 1972:89)
Religion as a Cultural System
Cognitive superstructure
doctrine: “Prose”
Organizational structures
sect, church, denomination, congregation
The Social Construction of Reality
Objectivation
“The transformation of man’s products into a world that
not only derives from man, but that comes to confront
him as a facticity outside himself… The humanly
produced world becomes something ‘out there’”(Berger
1967:8-9)
Internalization
Socialization: individuals internalize objectified symbols.
Symbolic Definition of Religion
Examples of symbols
the Crescent
a painting [one that conveys meaning]
a word, e.g., "God," "reality," "woman."
a story, a ritual, a "holy book"
Images from Google
The Experiential Dimension of Religion
People who value and expect religious experience are those who report
having had one.
Myths explain and justify specific cultural values and social rules.
Examples:
Muslim’s daily prayers
The Holy Communion (The Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, or the Mass)
Burial rituals
Symbols, Worldviews and Ethos
“A people’s ethos is the tone, character, and quality of their life, its
moral and aesthetic style and mood, it is the underlying attitude
toward themselves and their world”(Geertz 1958:421).
Shang-Chi (2021):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGl3tBltok4