by Bosco Bae

Created on: March 23, 2008   Last Updated: March 10, 2009

Prior to delving into the complexities of the anthropology of religion, the terms anthropology and religion need to be defined. Anthropology can be loosely defined as the study of humankind in all its respects i.e. the origins, development, sociocultural, biological, and everything in between these categories of study within the discipline. Religion can be defined as a set of beliefs as a mental enterprise in conjunction with a set of practices and ritual comprising a cosmology or an understanding of reality as well as an ethos regarding moral conduct and behavioral customs. The anthropology of religion can thus be defined as the study of humans within a specific set of behavioral and mental practices pertaining to a particular understanding of reality.

There are several methods in approaching the anthropology of religion. The biological approach looks at the evolution of our cognitive capabilities providing us with the capacity to have religion and a concept of God, which is crucial within the context of most religions. Within this approach there are two focuses: the individual's cognitive evolution and the group's social evolution, particularly in regards to communal rituals and environments. In regards to the individual, we can look at the brain and how we have adapted several cognitive mechanisms we utilize today but in a different form than when we first evolved our mechanisms. We can look at our capabilities of detecting agency and attributing intention as well as our capacity to make inferences from our environment and react. In these respects we can look at our capacities for memory and emotions. In regards to communal development we can take these individual cognitive capacities into account as given and look at group dynamics as well as archaeological evidence to speculate upon religion at the time. We can also look at cultures today who have kept their original religion in tact apart from outside influence.

The socio-cultural approach can take several directions, such as, language within a particular religion of a specific region, the history of a religion in a particular region which could be accompanied by an analysis of any human phenomena; the analysis may document the change in language from one religion to another religion or it may document the change in ritual or practice, it could document how a particular culture adapted to a particular religion and created its own version of a religion. There are many ways to approach the anthropology

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