The Concept of Religion According to Erich Fromm (original) (raw)
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Authoritarianism: Psychological Reflections and Theological Implications
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The end of World War II as well as the defeat of Nazism and Fascism in Europe spurred western psychologists to investigate the phenomenon of authoritarianism prevalent in the culture of the 1930s and 40s. It was a dark period of brutal and irrational behaviours on the part of some leaders and their followers. Questions like: why did people elect and follow enthusiastically authoritarian and non-democratic leaders, why were the Jews particularly targeted as the object of prejudice and elimination, what were the characteristics of authoritarian personalities, what was the role of obedience in such a society is propelled
Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religion (JBASR)
The keynote contributes to critical analysis of religion and attendant categories by proposing that religions be understood as vestigial states. According to this hypothesis, religion is a modern discursive product that is not present in the Bible. The category evolves as a management strategy, a technology of statecraft to contain and control conquered, colonized and/or marginalized populations as an alternative to genocide. Examples are drawn from Greek mythology, Jewish and Druid history and recent Buddhist politics. The author uses texts pertaining to international law and political philosophy to argue that viewing religion as synonymous with displaced, uneasy, former government opposes male hegemony by revealing the political structure of mystified nostalgia for male leadership. She also maintains that understanding religions as restive governments promotes clarity in regard to contemporary conflicts between religious freedom and equality rights. Psychoanalytic theories of Si...
Bertrand Russell said; “My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.” Everybody knows what religion is before you ask them. But when you ask them what religion is, they will find it very hard to define! By definition we might also say religion is for people who feel they lack a core guidance system and need to have higher rules and guidelines to live their life to the fullest. Appropriately, this is identical to the definition of authoritarian control. That is because religion is a complex subject and “religion” is only a word. Like all words, it can mean anything we want it to mean, but in a discussion, it is important that we understand how the word is used. I believe it is impossible to give a satisfactory universal definition of religion, in part, it crosses so many different boundaries in human experience. There are principally two reasons why religion is notoriously difficult to define: definitions are too narrow and omit numerous belief systems which many agree are religious, or they are too broad, suggesting that everything is or can be a religion.
EDITORIAL - RELIGION STATE AND SOCIETY-A PERSPECTIVE - Volume 1, Issue 3
It is beyond any question that any society or nation is not void of religion of some kind or other. Today religion and its various practices have become the macro-determinants of social, economic, cultural and political aspects of any nation. Both in history and at present, religious beliefs, ideas, philosophies, structures, social systems, cultural patterns, institutions, rituals and symbols are in the process of exploration. There are theories that suggest a mode of interdependence wherein one sees religion as the soul of the society, but such a perspective does not take into account the existence of certain aspects of societies or cultures whose identifiable elements do not fit into popular prescribed religious elements. Such heterogeneity is confused with and against grammatical directives of dominant religious praxis and popular culture, which clashes with a societal interpretation of functional rules for a nation's governance and policymaking. Karl Marx in his statement notes that 'Religion is the opium of people.' For many intellectuals, perhaps this statement is the lone source to know about the ideas, ideology and writings of Marx, mostly quoted – rather misquoted – as per the whims and fancies. This is more specific when such intellectuals from the European Christian background or that of any other similar religions. This differing opinion about religion needs a serious revisit. This snippet from Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right goes like this… 'Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions. " It is the opium of the people. " The abolition of religions as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their conditions is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.' In the Indian context too, one could observe many critiques of religion. In modern India, Ambedkar was the first person to challenge the more liberal paradigms of Vivekanand and Gandhi where he emphasised untouchabilty as part of the caste system, whereas caste system is the foundation on which the Hindu religion stands. He believed that repairing the blot of untouchability
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions
In the last quarter of a century, religion has emerged as something of a 'dark force' in human affairs. Its negative associations have come from two main sources. One is the prevalent stereotype about New Religious Movements, under the rubric of 'cults', and the other is the perceived threat posed by 'fundamentalism'. Literatures about the threat of religious violence have thus focused on two types of groups that appear radically dissimilar: new groups that operate outside conventional religious communities, and fundamentalists, who claim to represent historic religious traditions. The cult stereotype asserts that a combination of malevolent leaders, brainwashed followers and poisonous belief systems lead such groups to engage in violence against both their own members and outsiders. In fact, in the overwhelming majority of cases, there is no evidence to support this assertion. 1 Nonetheless, such beliefs have been sufficiently widespread to stigmatise many new and unconventional religious groups. By an unstated convention, a small number of what might be termed the 'canonical cases' occupy much of both the popular and academic literature on new religions. These cases include Jonestown, the Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo and the Branch Davidians. 2 In only one of them-Aum Shinrikyowere religionists the indisputable first users of violence against outsiders. In the others, violence was either directed inwards (for example, Jonestown) or against armed outsiders (for example, the Branch Davidians). This
A Psychological Definition of Religion
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