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Religion may be defined as "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs," [1] whereas ritual is "an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or ...
This definition emphasizes the transformation of everyday actions into rituals that carry deeper meaning within a cultural or religious context. Rituals are symbolic, repetitive, and often prescribed activities that hold religious or cultural significance for a certain group of people.
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or revered objects. [1] [2] Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. [3]
Leaving the sphere of historical religions, the ritual-from-myth approach often sees the relationship between myth and ritual as analogous to the relationship between science and technology. The pioneering anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor is the classic exponent of this view. [ 6 ]
Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals that formed an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture. It centered on the Egyptians' interactions with many deities believed to be present and in control of the world. About 1,500 deities are known. [1]
The anthropology of religion, as a field, overlaps with but is distinct from the field of Religious Studies. The history of anthropology of religion is a history of striving to understand how other people view and navigate the world. This history involves deciding what religion is, what it does, and how it functions. [2]
In 1998, Jonathan Z. Smith wrote a chapter in Critical Terms for Religious Studies which traced the history of the term religion and argued that the contemporary understanding of world religions is a modern Christian and European term, with its roots in the European colonial expansion of the sixteenth century. [51]
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions concerned with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices of the world's religions. In general, the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics , metaphysics , and the nature and form of ...