Transcript Religious Realms

Religious Realms
Chapter 6
The Human Mosaic
Introduction
 Religion can be defined as a set of beliefs
and practices through which people seek
mental and physical harmony with the powers
of the universe, through which they attempt to
influence and accommodate the awesome
forces of nature, life, and death
Introduction
 Religion produces variations that can be
mapped as culture regions
 Spatial variations produced by cultural
diffusion
 The spatial pattern of religion is visibly
imprinted on the cultural landscape
 Religion very often lies at the root of conflict
between cultural groups
Mecca
Introduction
 People are less willing to tolerate or accommodate
differences in religious matters than any other aspect
of culture
 Proselytic religions
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Actively seek new members
Their goal is the conversion of all humankind
 Ethnic religions
 Identified with some particular ethnic or tribal group
 Does not seek converts
 Proselytic religions sometimes grow out of ethnic
religions—Christianity from Judaism
Culture Regions
 Religious Regions
 Religious Diffusion
 Religious Ecology
 Cultural Integration in Religion
 Religious Landscapes
Religious culture regions
 Christianity
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A proselytic faith
World’s largest in both area and number of
adherents—about 1.9 billion
Long fragmented into separate churches
Greatest division is between Western and
Eastern Christianity
Religious culture regions
 Eastern church dominated the Greek world from Constantinople
(Istanbul)
 Coptic Church—originally the nationalistic religion of the
Egyptians, and today is the dominant church of the highland
people of Ethiopia
 Maronites — Semitic descendants of seventh-century
heretics who retreated to a mountain refuge in Lebanon
 Nestorians — live in the mountains of Kurdistan and India’s
Kerala State
 Eastern Orthodoxy — originally centered in Greek-speaking
areas
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Converted many Slavic groups
Later split in a variety of national churches—Russian, Greek,
Ukrainian, and Serbian
Religious culture regions
 Western Christianity initially identified with
Rome and Latin-speaking areas
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Most notable split was the Protestant
breakaway of the 1400s and 1500s
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Tended to divide into a rich array of sects
Denominational map of the United States and
Canada reflects fragmented nature and complex
pattern of religious culture regions
Religious culture regions
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American frontier a breeding ground for new
religious groups
Small communities may have churches
representing half a dozen religious groups
Individual families may split along religious
lines
Religious culture regions
 United States displays less regionalization of
faiths
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“Bible Belt”—lies across the South, Baptist
and other conservative fundamentalist
denominations dominate
Utah is core of Mormon realm
Religious culture regions
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Lutheran belt — stretches from Wisconsin
through Minnesota and the Dakotas
Roman Catholicism — dominates southern
Louisiana, the southwestern borderland, and
heavily industrialized areas of the Northeast
The Midwest a thoroughly mixed zone —
Methodism generally the largest single faith
 Some experts believe American culture is
becoming homogenized religiously, with
weakening regional contrasts
Religious culture regions
 Geographer Roger Stump points to a twentieth-
century trend toward religious regional divergence
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Baptists in South
Lutherans in upper Midwest
Catholics in Southwest
Mormons in the West
Each dominate their respective regions more today
than at turn of century
Each has long-standing, strong infrastructure
Islam
 Monotheistic, proselytic faith claims 1.1 billion followers
 Located mostly in the desert belt of Asia and northern Africa,
extends as far east as Indonesia and the Philippines
 Biblical figures, such as Moses, Abraham, and Jesus are
venerated in Islam
 Most important prophet and founder is Muhammad —lived
about 14 centuries ago
 The Koran — Muslim holy book, contains a code of morals and
ethics, and promises an afterlife for the faithful
Islam
 The Five Pillars of Islam
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Adherents are expected to pray five times
daily at established times
Give alms to the poor
Fast from dawn to sunset in the holy ninth
month
Make at least one pilgrimage to the sacred city
of Mecca in Saudi Arabia
Profess belief in Allah, the one god
Islam
 Two major sects prevail
 Shiite Muslims — 11 percent of Islamic total in diverse
subgroups
 Form the majority in Iran and Iraq
 Major fundamentalist revival now occurring under
Iranian leadership to throw off Western influences, and
restore the purity of the faith
 Political tension with the potential for severe disruption
is spreading
 Strongest among Indo-European groups
Islam
 Two major sects prevail
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Sunni Muslims — represent Islamic orthodoxy
forming the large majority
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Strength is greatest in the Arabic-speaking lands
Non-Arabic Indonesia now contains world’s
largest concentration
Large clusters occur in western China, IndoEuropean Bangladesh, and Pakistan
Judaism
 Monotheistic faith
 Parent of Christianity, and closely related to
Islam
 Certain Hebrew prophets and leaders are
recognized by Christians and Muslims
 Does not actively seek converts and has
remained an ethnic religion
 Has split into a variety of subgroups, partly as
a result of forced dispersal
Judaism
 Forced from Israel in Roman times and lost contact with other
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colonies
Jews who resided in Mediterranean lands were called the
Sephardim
Those residing in central and Eastern Europe were known as
the Ashkenozim
Large-scale migration of Ashkenazic from Europe to America
during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
During Nazi years, perhaps a third of the entire Jewish
population of the world was systematically murdered, mainly
Ashkenazim
Judaism
 Europe ceased to be primary homeland and
many survivors fled overseas to Israel and
America
 Has about 14 million adherents throughout
the world
 Nearly 7 million live in North America
Hinduism
 Closely tied to India and its ancient culture
 Claims about 750 million adherents
 Polytheistic religion involving the worship of a
myriad of deities
 Linked to the caste system — rigid
segregation of people according to ancestry
and occupation
Hinduism
 Believe in ahimsa — veneration of all forms of
life
 Belief in reincarnation
 No set standard of beliefs prevails, and the
faith takes many local forms
 Includes very diverse peoples
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The faith straddles a major ethnic/linguistic
divide
Includes both Indo-Europeans and Dravidians
Hinduism
 Once a proselytic religion, is today a regional,
biethnic faith
 Suggestive of its former missionary activity is
an outlier on the distant Indonesian island of
Bali
Hinduism
 Hinduism has splintered into diverse religious, some
regarded as separate religions
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Jainism — ancient outgrowth, claiming perhaps 5
million adherents
 Traces its roots back over twenty-five centuries
 Reject Hindu scriptures, rituals, and priesthood
 Share Hindu belief in ahinisa and reincarnation
 Adhere to a stern asceticism
Sikhism — arose in the 1500s, in an attempt to unify
Hinduism and Islam
 Centered in the Punjab state of northwestern India
 Has about 19 million followers
 Sikhs practice monotheism and have their own holy
book, the Adi Granth
Buddhism
 Derived from Hinduism began 25 centuries ago
 Reform movement grounded in the teaching of Prince
Siddhartha — the Buddha
 He promoted the four “noble truths”
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Life is full of suffering
Desire is the cause of this suffering
Cessation of suffering comes with the quelling of desire
An “eight-fold path” of proper personal conduct and
meditation permits the individual to overcome desire
Nirvana — reached when one has achieved a state of
escape and peace, which is attained by very few
Buddhism
 Today the most widespread religion in Asia
 Dominates a culture region from Sri Lanka to Japan
and from Mongolia to Vietnam
 Proselytic religion
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Formed composite faiths as it fused with ethnic faiths
especially in China and Japan
Fused with Confucianism, Taoism, and Shintoism
Southern Buddhism dominant in Sri Lanka and
mainland Southeast Asia retains greatest similarity to
original form
Special variation known as Lamaism prevails in Tibet
and Mongolia
Buddhism
 Difficult to determine number of adherents
because of tendency to merge with native
religions — estimates range from 334 million
to over 500 million people
 In China, has enmeshed with local faiths to
become part of an ethnic religion
 Outside China, remains one of the great
proselytic religions in the world
Animism
 Retained tribal ethnic religion of people around the
world
 Today, adherents number at least 100 million
 Animists believe certain inanimate objects possess
spirits or souls
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Spirits live in rocks, rivers, mountain peaks, and
heavenly bodies
Each tribe has its own characteristic form of animism
 A Shaman — tribal religious figure usually serves as
the intermediary between people and the spirits
Animism
 To some animists, objects do not actually possess
spirits, but are valued because they have a potency
to serve as a link between people and the
omnipresent god
 Animism can be a very complex belief system
 Sub-Saharan Africa is the greatest surviving
stronghold of animism
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Along the north edge Islam is rapidly winning converts
Christian missionaries are very active throughout the
area
Animism
 Animism in the Western Hemisphere
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Umbanda — kept alive by descendants of
African slaves in Brazil has 30 million followers
Santeria — is found mainly in Cuba
Survives beneath a facade of nominal Roman
Catholicism in Cuba
Secularism
 In much of Europe religion has declined
 Today, number of nonreligious and atheistic persons
worldwide is about 1 billion
 Typically displays vivid regionalization on a variety of
scales
 Areas of religious vitality lie alongside secularized
districts in a disorderly jumble
 Causes of retreat from religion
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A government’s active hostility toward a particular faith
or religion
Failure of religions oriented toward the need of rural
folk to adapt to the urban scene
Sacred space
 Includes areas and sites recognized as worthy of
devotion, loyalty, fear, or esteem
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Notion occurs in many different cultures, past and
present the world over
B.C. Lane says—”an ordinary place made
extraordinary through ritual”
May be sought out by pilgrims or barred to members of
other religions
 Often contain the site of supposed supernatural
events or viewed as abode of gods
Jerusalem
Sacred Space
 Jerusalem is sacred space
to Christians, Jews, and
Muslims. It contains the Via
Dolorosa (Way of the Cross)
leading to the site of Christ’s
crucifixion.
 According to Jewish
tradition, the sealed Golden
Gate (far right) is where the
Messiah will enter the city
and bring redemption. Ruins
of the City of David are at the
southwest corner of the wall.
Sacred Space
 Muslims are buried at the
foot of the wall; Jews on the
Mount of Olives in the
foreground; and, Christians
in the valley between. The
golden Dome of the Rock
covers the site where
Abraham prepared to
sacrifice his son Isaac and
Mohammed ascended to
heaven.
 It also occupies the site of
the First and Second
Temples built by Kings
Solomon and Herod. All that
remains is the sacred
Wailing Wall.
Sacred space
 Conflict can result of two religions venerate
the same space
 Example of conflict in Jerusalem
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Muslim Dome of the Rock — site of
Muhammad’s ascent to heaven
Wailing Wall — remnant of greatest Jewish
temple
 Cemeteries also generally regarded as type
of sacred space
Sacred space
 Sacred space is receiving increased attention
in the world
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An internationally funded Sacred Land Project
began in the middle 1990s
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Goal — to identify and protect such sites
In the United Kingdom alone, 5000 sites have
been cataloged
Includes — ancient stone circles, pilgrim routes,
and holy springs
Sacred space
 Sacred space is receiving increased attention in the
world
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Mystical places — locations unconnected with
established religion where some people believe
extraordinary, supernatural things can happen
 “Bermuda Triangle”
 Some include the expanses of the American Great
Plains
Some ancient sacred spaces never lose or they regain
the functional status of mystical place —example of
Stonehenge in England
Culture Regions
 Religious Regions
 Religious Diffusion
 Religious Ecology
 Cultural Integration in Religion
 Religious Landscapes
The Semitic religious hearth
 Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all arose among
Semitic-speaking people
 All three arose from the margins of the southwestern
Asian deserts
 Judaism, the oldest, originated about 4,000 years
ago probably along the southern edge of the Fertile
Crescent
 Later, Judaism acquired dominion over lands
between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River —
territorial base of modern Israel
The Semitic religious hearth
 About 2,000 years later, Christianity arose as a child of
Judaism from this same area
 Islam arose about seven centuries later in western Arabia,
partly from Jewish and Christian roots
 Religions spread by both relocation and expansion diffusion
 Expansion diffusion can be divided into hierarchical and
contagious subtypes
 Hierarchical diffusion — ideas are implanted at top of a
society, leapfrogging across the map taking root in cities
 Use of missionaries involves relocation diffusion
The Semitic religious hearth
 Christianity spread through the Roman
Empire using the existing splendid road
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Clearly reflected hierarchical expansion
diffusion
Early congregations were established in cities
and towns
Temporarily established a pattern of
Christianized urban centers and pagan rural
areas
The Semitic religious hearth
 Scattered urban clusters of early Christianity were
created by relocation diffusion
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Missionaries moved from town to town bearing news of
the emerging faith
Missionaries often used the technique of converting
kings or tribal leaders
Some expansion was militaristic — reconquest of
Iberia, invasion of Latin America
 Christianity spread farther by contagious diffusion,
also called contact conversion
Malaysia
Diffusion of Christianity
 This is St Mary’s
Anglican Cathedral in a
primarily Muslim nation.
Constructed under
British rule in 1894, it
catered to English
residents and
missionized among the
locals. Services are
also in Tamil, a
Dravdian language of
southern India
Diffusion of Christianity
 Tamils were brought to
Malaya as indentured
labor to work in mines
and plantations during
the colonial era. Many
Hindu Tamils were of a
low caste or even
untouchables in India.
Christianity, without
proclaimed social
divisions, was and
remains attractive to
downtrodden peoples.
The Semitic religious hearth
 Islamic faith spread in a militaristic manner
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Followed the command in the Koran
Arabs exploded westward across North Africa
in a wave of religious and linguistic conquest
Turks, once converted, carried out similar
Islamic conquests
Muslim missionaries followed trade routes
eastward to implant Islam hierarchically in the
Philippines, Indonesia, and interior China
The Semitic religious hearth
 Tropical Africa is the current major area of
Islamic expansion
 Diffusion successes in Sub-Saharan Africa
and high birthrates in the older sphere of
dominance has made Islam the world’s
fastest-growing religion
The lndus-Ganges Hearth
 Second great religious hearth lies on the
plains fringing the northern edge of the Indian
subcontinent
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Lowland, drained by the Ganges and Indus
rivers
Gave birth to Hinduism and Buddhism
The lndus-Ganges Hearth
 Hinduism is at least 4,000 years old
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Originated in the Punjab, from where it
diffused to dominate the subcontinent
Missionaries later carried the faith in its
proselytic phase, to overseas areas
Most converted regions were subsequently
lost
The lndus-Ganges Hearth
 Buddhism began in the foothills bordering the
Ganges Plain about 500 B.C.
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For centuries remained confined to the Indian
subcontinent
Missionaries later carried it to other countries and
regions
 China — between 100 B.C. and A.D. 200
 Korea and Japan — between A.D. 300 and 500
 Southeast Asia — between A.D. 400 and 600
 Tibet — A.D. 700
 Mongolia — A.D. 1500
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Developed many regional forms and died out in its
area of origin
California
Diffusion of Buddhism
 Buddhism arrived with
Asian migrants in the
early 19th century and
has become
increasingly important
with each subsequent
immigrant group.
 This is the Fo Kuang
Shan Hsi Lai Temple in
Hacienda Heights, an
emerging Asian
Suburban area near
Los Angeles.
Diffusion of Buddhism
 Hsi Lai means “coming to
the west.” Replicating a
Taiwan temple and
practicing Pure Land
Buddhism, this ten building
complex trains both monks
and nuns and offers an array
of programs for Asians and
non-Asians alike. The
foreground Field of Merit
represents rice paddies,
recalling hard work and
devotion.
Barriers and time-distance decay
 Religious ideas weaken with distance from places of
origin and time
 Most religious barriers are permeable, but weaken
and retard religious spread
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Partial acceptance of Christianity by various Indian
groups in Latin America and the western United States
Served as a camouflage under which many aspects of
tribal religions survived
Permeable barriers are normally present in expansion
diffusion
Barriers and time-distance decay
 Most religions become modified by older local
beliefs as they diffuse spatially
 Absorbing barriers — example of China
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Christian missionaries to China expected to
find fertile ground for conversion
Chinese had long settled the question of what
is basic human nature
Believed humans were inherently good and
evil desires represented merely a deviation
from that state
Barriers and time-distance decay
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Evil desires could be shrugged off and people would
return to the basic nature they shared with heaven
Christian idea of original sin left the Chinese baffled
Chinese could not understand the concept of
humankind being flawed or their impossibility to return
to godhood
Many concepts of Christianity fell on rocky soil in China
In the early twentieth century some Chinese became
Christians in exchange for the rice missionaries gave
them
Barriers and time-distance decay
 Religion can act as a barrier to the spread of
nonreligious innovations
 Religious taboos can function as absorbing barriers
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Can prevent diffusion of foods and drinks
Mormons are forbidden to consume products
containing caffeine
Some Pennsylvania Dutch churches prohibit cigarette
smoking, but not the raising of tobacco by member
farmers for commercial markets