(K) Ch 12: Religion
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21 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Animism | Belief in souls or doubles |
| Antimodernism | The rejection of the modern in favor of what is perceived as an earlier, purer, and better way of life |
| Cargo cults | Postcolonial, acculturative religious movements, common in Melanesia, that attempt to explain European domination and wealth and to achieve similar success magically by mimicking European behavior |
| Communal religions | In Wallace's typology, these religions have, in addition to shamanic cults, communal cults in which people organize community rituals such as harvest ceremonies and rites of passage |
| Communitas | Intense community spirit, a feeling of great social solidarity, equality, and togetherness; characteristic of people experiencing liminality together |
| Cosmology | A system, often religious, for imagining and understanding the universe |
| Fundamentalism | Describes anti-modernist movements in various religions. Fundamentalists assert an identity separate from the larger religious group from which they arose; they advocate strict fidelity to the "true" religious principles on which the larger religion was founded |
| Leveling mechanism | A custom or social action that operates to reduce differences in wealth and thus to bring standouts in line with community norms |
| Liminality | The critically important marginal or in-between phase of a rite of passage |
| Magic | Use of supernatural techniques to accomplish specific aims |
| Mana | Sacred impersonal force in Melanesian and Polynesian religions |
| Monotheism | Worship of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent supreme being |
| Olympian religions | In Wallace's typology, develop with state organization; have full-time religious specialists - professional priesthoods |
| Polytheism | Belief in several deities who control aspects of nature |
| Religion | Belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces |
| Revitalization movements | Movements that occur in times of change, in which religious leaders emerge and undertake to alter or revitalize a society |
| Rites of passage | Culturally defined activities associated with the transition from one place or stage of life to another |
| Ritual | Behavior that is formal, stylized, repetitive, and stereotyped, performed earnestly as a social act; rituals are held at set times and places and have liturgical orders |
| Shaman | A part-time religious practitioner who mediates between ordinary people and supernatural beings and forces |
| Syncretisms | Cultural mixes, including religious blends, that emerge from acculturation—the exchange of cultural features when cultures come into continuous firsthand contact |
| Taboo | Set apart as sacred and off-limits to ordinary people; prohibition backed by supernatural sanctions |
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