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Anthropology of religion is the study of religion in relation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures.〔http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/497215/classification-of-religions〕 ==History== In the early 11th century, Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī (973-1048), wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of religions and cultures across the Middle East, Mediterranean and the Indian subcontinent.〔J. T. Walbridge (1998). "Explaining Away the Greek Gods in Islam", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 59 (3): 389-403〕 He discussed the peoples, customs, and religions of the Indian subcontinent. Anthropology circa 1940 assumed that religion is in complete continuity with magical thinking,〔 that it is a cultural product,.〔Manickam, T. M. (1977) (''Dharma according to Manu and Moses'' ) p.6 Quotation: 〕 The complete continuity between magic and religion has been a postulate of modern anthropology at least since early 1930s.〔Cassirer, Ernst (1944) (''An Essay On Man'' ), pt.II, ch.7 ''Myth and Religion'', pp.122-3. Quotation: 〕〔Robert Ranulph Marett (1932) (''Faith, Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion'' ), in Gifford Lectures. Lecture II (''Hope'' ). Quotation: 〕 The perspective of modern anthropology towards religion is the ''projection idea'', a methodological approach which assumes that every religion is created by the human community that worships it, that "creative activity ascribed to God is projected from man."〔Guthrie (2000) (pp.225-6 )〕〔Pandian, Jacob (1997) ''The sacred integration of the cultural self: An anthropological approach to the study of religion'', p.507 in S. Glazier (Ed.) ''The anthropology of religion''〕〔Harvey, Van A. (1996) ''Projection: a metaphor in search of a theory?'' p.67 in D.Z. Philips (ed.) ''Can religion be explained away?''〕 In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach, was the first to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion.〔Harvey, Van A. (1997) (''Feuerbach and the interpretation of religion'' ) p.4〕〔Feuerbach, Ludwig (1841) ''The Essence of Christianity''〕〔Mackey, James Patrick (2000) ''The Critique of Theological Reason'', Cambridge University Press. pp.41-2〕〔John K. Nelson (1990) (A Field Statement on the Anthropology of Religion )〕 A prominent precursor in the formulation of this projection principle was Giambattista Vico,〔〔Cotrupi, Caterina Nella (''Northrop Frye and the poetics of process'' ) p.21〕 and an early formulation of it is found in ancient Greek writer Xenophanes, which observed that "the gods of Ethiopians were inevitably black with flat noses while those of the Thracians were blond with blue eyes."〔 In 1912 Émile Durkheim, building on Feuerbach, considered religion "a projection of the social values of society," "a means of making symbolic statements about society," "a symbolic language that makes statements about the social order";〔Émile Durkheim (1912) ''The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life''〕〔Bowie, Fiona (1999) ''The Anthropology of Religion: An Introduction''. Oxford: Blackwell. p.15, 143〕 in short, "religion is society worshiping itself".〔〔Durkheim, p.266 in the 1963 edition〕 In the 19th century, cultural anthropology was dominated by an interest in cultural evolution; most anthropologists assumed that there was a simple distinction between “primitive” and “modern” religion and tried to provide accounts of how the former evolved into the latter. In the 20th century most anthropologists rejected this approach. Today the anthropology of religion reflects the influence of, or an engagement with, such theorists as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber. They are especially concerned with how religious beliefs and practices may reflect political or economic forces; or the social functions of religious beliefs and practices. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「anthropology of religion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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