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»Ancient Astronaut« Narrations. A Popular Discourse on Our Religious Past
No full textIn their typical explanatory and unveiling gesture, the narrations about Ancient Astronauts have become a popular myth about our religious past. Nowadays, these narrations are often contained in a specific genre of literature on the alternative bookshelves, and a gigantic theme park in Interlaken (“Mystery Park”) is staging some of its basic ideas. This Ancient Astronaut discourse owes much to Swiss-born Erich von Däniken, to be sure, but it can be traced back to the earlier impact of Charles Fort and his iconoclastic books about “damned data” – anomalistic sightings and findings which an ignorant science deliberately seemed to “exclude”. Since then, the “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Ancient Times” (Paleo-SETI or PSETI) has become a popular “research” subject, leading not only to various publications in many languages of the world, but also to lay-research organizations and conventions. – The paper tries to identify the major themes, motivations and argumentative strategies in the Ancient Astronauts discourse, as well as its typical oscillation between an ‘alternative science’ and manifest esotericism. With its ‘neo-mythic’ activity (ufological Euhemerism, re-enchantment of heaven, foundation myth for modernity, etc.), it resembles a secular and ‘ufological’ parallel to creationism, displaying a strong belief in the ‘hidden’ truth of the religious traditions. This ‘broken’ myth with its technological explanations of religion has influenced many New Age or ‘esoteric’ strands – especially UFO-religions like the “Raëlian Religion”. The Ancient Astronaut narrations knit together our specific late-modern mode of beingin-the-world with a lay people’s attempt at a new search for the fundamental truth of the myth: The protagonists still “want to believe”, and they find it plausible that a pre-astronautic “truth is somewhere out there”: But in the end, the seemingly self-evident technological possibilities of our age are projected back into a remote past, on the surface of ancient texts and artifacts, – and the result is nothing but a shining mirror of us, and of our time
Christian Eilinghoff: Ökonomische Analyse der Religion. Theoretische Konzepte und rechtspolitische Empfehlungen
No full textDem rezensierten Buch, das auf einer wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Dissertation beruht, kommt das Verdienst zu, die bislang einzige Monografie zur ökonomischen Analyse von Religion zu sein – abgesehen von der institutionenökonomischen Darstellung von Ron Brinitzer, 2003
Harvey Whitehouse: Modes of Religiosity. A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission
No full textDer Kulturanthropologe Harvey Whitehouse erarbeitet in seinem Buch Modes of Religiosity eine kognitionswissenschaftlich orientierte Religionstheorie, in welcher er zwei divergierende Tradierungsformen religiöser Praxis skizziert, die er mit den mentalen Funktionsweisen bestimmter Gedächtnisfunktionen in Verbindung setzt. Die Grundlagen seiner Theorie der Modes of Religiosity entwickelte er bereits in zwei vorangegangenen Publikationen
Framing Effects in the Coverage of Scientology versus Germany: Some Thoughts on the Role of Press and Scholars
No full text"Scientology might be one weird religion, but the German reaction to it is weirder still - not to mention disturbing." 2 This is how Richard Cohen of the Washington Post describes the controversy of Scientology vs. Germany, and he adds, "[...] the treatment of Scientologists is both inexplicable and troubling." 3 The inexplicable or rather as yet unexplained could usually be expected to raise the attention of scholars, especially if there is a troubling thrill to it. However, German scholars have mostly preferred to remain silent on the issue, and the few who spoke out published in German, but not in English.4 American scholars, on the other hand, quite often seem to have firm opinions on the issue, but what finally gets published are usually rather general evaluations. Although the controversy on the whole has gained widespread media attention, the actual causes of disturbance remain rather murky, especially if one decides to take a closer look
Sect-Bashing in the Guise of Scholarship: A Critical Appraisal of Select Studies of Soka Gakkai
No full textWe began by noting that, although certain kinds of analyses of religion have been rejected by the academic mainstream, older patterns of prejudicial scholarship have tended to persist in the subfield of new religious movements. While there is no sound reason for continuing to permit writers to articulate judgmental points of view in this subfield, popular prejudice against minority religions has served to make many scholars "tone-deaf" to an author\u27s biases against such religious groups. The task the present paper set for itself was to argue against this double standard. The argument was built around an analysis of select scholarship on Soka Gakkai International, an organization chosen because it has been highly controversial and because a reasonable quantity of articles and books had been composed about the group. It was also argued that the scholar\u27s primary goal should always be to articulate a humanly meaningful understanding of a given religion--both an understanding of the world of the participants as well as an understanding of what such religions mean for society as a whole
Kevin Trainor: Relics, Ritual and Representation in the Theravada Tradition of Sri Lanka. Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition
No full textThis work, by Kevin Trainor of Western Michigan University, USA, would appear to be the first widely ranging and yet detailed treatment of the cult of relics in the Buddhist tradition. Given the importance of relics in Buddhism it is astonishing that previous work on the subject has been mainly incidental and partial. Though the subject may seem abstruse to outsiders, is actually quite central to the understanding of Buddhist religiosity in the Theravada tradition. This work is based on an expert knowledge of the relevant sources in Pali Buddhism and is extremely well-worked from a philological point of view. The level of execution is extremely good throughout. The overall style is really excellent, the signposting of references and correlation with the wider literature is very helpfully done. In short, the work is a pleasure to read
Ökologie und Religionen. Eine religionswissenschaftliche Darstellung
No full textErst in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten hat sich im Westen allgemein die Erkenntnis durchgesetzt, daß Natur nicht nur beherrscht, sondern auch geschützt werden muß. Die allgemeine Relevanz des ökologischen Diskurses konnte auch von den religiösen Gemeinschaften nicht ignoriert werden, weil dieser Diskurs eine ethische Komponente enthält, die traditionell in ihren Zuständigkeitsbereich als ethisch normative Instanzen fällt. Der Anteil der Religionen am Diskurs selbst liegt im wesentlichen in dem Versuch, eine Art Umweltethik aus der eigenen Denktradition bzw. den normativen Schriften abzuleiten. Dabei ist zu beachten, daß bislang in keiner der uns bekannten Religionen der Umweltschutz im heutigen Sinne explizit thematisiert wurde, von den mahnenden Stimmen Einzelner abgesehen , da das Problembewußtsein gegenüber ökologischen Fragestellungen überhaupt erst sehr jung ist. Bei der Betrachtung des Verhältnisses der Religionen zu Umwelt und Natur muß man zwei grundlegende Aspekte unterscheiden, nämlich erstens die theoretische Interpretation und Würdigung der Natur und der Position des Menschen darin bzw. ihr gegenüber und zweitens den praktischen Umgang der konkreten Angehörigen einer religiösen Tradition mit der Natur. Es geht also um Weltverständnis und Weltverhalten und die Beziehung zwischen beiden
Religious Attendance and subjective Well-being in an Eastern-Culture Country: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan
No full textThis paper investigates the relationship between religious attendance and subjective well-being in an Eastern-culture country. The findings of this study indicate that religious attendance has positive relationships with happiness as well as domain satisfactions with interpersonal relationship, health, and marital life, but it is not significantly related to the satisfaction with personal financial status. Interestingly, for believers of Eastern religions, those who have a higher level of relative income tend to have higher levels of satisfaction with financial status and health status, but are less satisfied with being free of worry and interpersonal relationship. Moreover, for the adherents of Eastern religions, those who have a higher educational attainment appear to report lower levels of overall happiness and the satisfaction with being free of worry. It appears that the differences in the religious practices and organizational settings between Eastern religions and Western Christianity lead to different patterns of the relationships between religious attendance and various measures of subjective well-being
A Religious Administration to Secure Secularism: The Presidency of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Turkey
No full textThis article is primarily concerned with an agency, the Presidency of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, which was instituted to regulate Islamic services, but in actuality was used as a means of \u27securing\u27 secularism in Turkey for over a period of 80 years. This apparent paradox in terms was the muse which led me reflect on the representation of the construction (and deconstruction) of \u27modernity\u27 and of \u27state and religion\u27 in Turkey. In order to develop my argument I focus on the legal and bureaucratic structure of the Presidency of Religious Affairs
Terrorism and Religious Fundamentalism: Prospects for a Predictive Paradigm
No full textThe term ‘fundamentalism’, broadly speaking, names today a religio-political perspective found in many if not all major religions in the contemporary world. Most disturbingly, it is associated with variant forms of religious extremism and thus religiously-oriented terrorism, in particular – though by no means exclusively – that of an Islamic ilk. Movements of a fundamentalist type are evident in Islam, certainly, but they may be found also in Christianity, in Hinduism, in Judaism and other religious communities. Contemporary fundamentalism is not the sole province of any one religion. And an upsurge in the totalising claims of fundamentalist ideologues, of whatever religion, together with the utilisation of globalized communication, transportation and related modern technologies, means that the issue of religious fundamentalism itself requires, once again, some careful attention. Although both Christianity and Islam are susceptible to imperialist impositions of one sort or another, as history only too clearly has demonstrated, it is nonetheless the case that Islamic modalities of terrorism have presently taken centre-stage in current world affairs. However, the religious fundamentalism with which Islamist extremism is associated arguably follows an identifiable paradigm that has a wider purview