1

Like tool-making, the use of fire, and cooking food, religious behavior seems to be a human universal.  Put yourself in the shoes of an outside observer and imagine the circumstances under which you’d be convinced someone was making a tool, using fire, or cooking food.  In other words, construct a definition for each of these activities.  Your definitions likely contain some outwardly observable element like using one object to produce change in another object for a certain outwardly observable effect (like obtaining and/or preparing food to eat).  Now imagine the circumstances under which, as an outside observer, you’d be convinced someone was engaging in religious behavior.  It should be just as easy to define something as universal as cooking food, right?

For many scholars, past and present, the definition of religious behavior does not always contain outwardly observable elements like the definitions we introduced earlier did. Rather, many definitions rely on one’s ‘belief’ in the supernatural to define religious behavior.  As early as 1871, in his book Primitive Culture, Sir Edward B. Tyler described the most “primitive” form of religion – animism – simply as, “A belief in souls” (Tyler 1871). While Tyler’s view on culture of non-Western societies was paternalistic and has long been abandoned, the concept of animism is still in use in anthropology. Importantly for this course, and as you will read later in this chapter, one’s belief in anything cannot truly be verified by an outside observer like one’s ability to use a tool can.

What can be verified by an outside observer is someone’s behavior after hearing, reading, or experiencing in any way another person’s supernatural claim.  Supernatural being beyond that which can be verified by the senses.

Going through with a baptism after being told it will wash away your sins, attending that street preacher’s church, stocking up on more winter supplies, and saying a prayer before eating, are all outwardly observable phenomena like using fire to cook food. An empirical definition of religious behavior then, is what all four of these examples observably have in common. They all showcase the communicated acceptance of another person’s supernatural claim (Steadman and Palmer 2007).

Communicated acceptance can take on many forms: clasping your hands when being encouraged to pray, flying thousands of miles to visit Mecca, going to church every Sunday. One doesn’t need to always verbally communicate their acceptance, their behavior can easily send the same message.

Anthropology, the holistic study of humans, is uniquely equipped with the methods needed to tackle the study of religion. Using these methods, this book answers the question of why people communicate their acceptance of other people’s supernatural claims. In other words, why have people engaged, and continue to engage, in religious behavior in our modern age?

Tylor, Edward B. 1871. Primitive Culture : Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. London: J. Murray.

Religion is one of the most prominent subjects of research in Anthropology going back to the establishment of the field in the 19th century. In this course students learn and are supported to think critically about Anthropological approaches to explaining religious behavior across human societies. Initially, Anthropology borrowed heavily from other social science fields such as Psychology and Sociology. In the 20th century, Anthropological approaches began to develop synthetic explanations, and more recent frameworks incorporate concepts from evolutionary theory and even postmodernism. In addition to the common social science approaches to explaining religion, this course encourages students to explore the apparent contradiction between the universality of religion in all known human societies and the vast diversity of religious practices we find across societies. The cross-cultural comparative approach, exposure to empirical, fieldwork-based data collection methods employed by Anthropologists, and critical thinking about a diversity of theoretical approaches to religious behavior make this course an epitome of excellence in the Foundations of Social Sciences curriculum at Boise State.

In each of the following modules the course explores anthropological categories of religious behavior, the traditional social science approaches to that topic, and more recent approaches to that topic. In learning activities students compare and contrast approaches, and in the culminating project students analyze the approach of an anthropologist to explaining a specific religious tradition and develop an alternative explanation based on more recent approaches. The course utilizes topics of interest to teach students in any major about the various social science approaches.

After taking this course students will Know about the major types of religious behavior across cultures and the social science approaches to explaining them; students will be able to Do cross cultural research on religious behavior using existing ethnographic sources, to identify the schools of thought of the ethnographers, and to synthesize a clear explanation given advances in the field; and students will Become better citizens through exposure to and reflection on the diversity of religious behavior found across the globe. Students are also supported to reflect on their own learning gains and develop curiosity about and respect for unfamiliar and different ways of living.