Thinking About Religion

Ivan Strenski is Holstein Family and Community Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside. His previous publications include Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History (1988), Religion in Relation: Method, Application, and Moral Location (1993), Durkheim and the Jews of France (1997), Contesting Sacrifice: Religion, Nationalism and Social Thought (2002), Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice (2003), and The New Durkheim: Essays on Philosophy, Religious Identity and the Politics of Knowledge (2006).

"This is an extremely useful collection of readings which in combination with Strenski's companion volume would be recommended reading to undergraduate students in religious studies requiring access to 'bitesize' pieces of the formative works in their discipline."Theological Book Review

• Preface viiiAcknowledgments xiChapter 1: The Quest for Natural Religion 1 Edward’s Prayer 1Edward, Lord Herbert of CherburyCommon Notions Concerning Religion 2Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherburyfrom The Natural History of Religion 8David HumeHume’s Natural History of Religion and the Beginning of the Social Scientific Study of Religion 13Robert A. SegalChapter 2: The Critique of Religion Also Begins with the Critique of the Bible 23from The History of the Origins of Christianity, Book I: Life of Jesus 23Ernest RenanThe Historical System of Ernest Renan 27Georges Sorelfrom A Theologico-Political Treatise and a Political Treatise 31Baruch de SpinozaThe Bible and Religion in the Century of Genius, Part III: The Hidden vDialogue in Spinoza’s Tractatus 34J. Samuel PreusChapter 3: The Shock of the Old: Max Müller’s Search for the Soul of Europe 49Preface to Chips from a German Woodshop 49Friedrich Max MüllerOn the Philosophy of Mythology 53Friedrich Max MüllerForgotten Bibles 57Friedrich Max MüllerMu¨ller on the Science of Religion 61William Dwight WhitneyChapter 4: The Shock of the ‘Savage’: Edward Burnett Tylor, Evolution, and Spirits 65from Anahuac: Or Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern 65Edward Burnett TylorThe Religion of Savages 68Edward Burnett Tylorfrom Primitive Culture 71Edward Burnett TylorEdward Burnett Tylor and the Mission of Primitive Man 74George W. Stocking, Jr.Chapter 5: Evolution in the Religion of the Bible: William Robertson Smith 83 from Lectures on the Religion of the Semites 83William Robertson SmithRenan’s Histoire du peuple d’Israel 88William Robertson SmithWilliam Robertson Smith 91James FrazerChapter 6: Setting the Eternal Templates of Salvation: James Frazer 97 from The Golden Bough 97James FrazerOutcast from the Islands: Frazer, The Golden Bough, and Modern Anthropology 106George W. Stocking, Jr.Chapter 7: From Evolution to Religious Experience: Phenomenology of Religion 115from The Meaning of Religion: Lectures in the Phenomenology of Religion 115William Brede Kristensenfrom Argonauts of the Western Pacific 119Bronislaw Malinowskifrom The Idea of the Holy 121Rudolf OttoTowards a Theory of the Configurations of Religion 126Ninian SmartChapter 8: Religious Experience Creates the World of the Modern Economy: Max Weber 135from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 135Max WeberCapitalism and Protestantism 144Sidney HookReligion and Development: Weber and the East Asian Experience 146Winston DavisChapter 9: Tales from the Underground: Freud and the Psychoanalytic Origins of Religion 155from The Future of an Illusion 155Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud 163Karl MenningerThe Neurosis of Civilization 166Henry Hazlittfrom Freud: The Mind of the Moralist 168Philip RieffChapter 10: Bronislaw Malinowski, Bipolarity, and the ‘‘Sublime Folly’’ of Religion 177from Magic, Science and Religion 177Bronislaw MalinowskiSouvenir of Malinowsky 182Claude Le´vi-StraussAnthropology and the Science of the Irrational: Malinowski’s Encounter with Freudian Psychoanalysis 184George W. Stocking, Jr.Chapter 11: Seeing the Sacred with the Social Eye: Émile Durkheim’s ‘‘Religious Sociology’’ 195from The Elementary Forms of Religious Life 195Émile DurkheimConcerning the Definition of Religious Phenomena 199Émile DurkheimContribution to Discussion ‘‘Religious Sentiment at the Present Time’’ 207Émile DurkheimIndividualism and Intellectuals 212Émile DurkheimPragmatism and Protestantism in the Development of Durkheim’s Sociology of Religion 217Robert Alun JonesChapter 12: Mircea Eliade: Turning the ‘Worm of Doubt’ 223from Patterns in Comparative Religion 223Mircea EliadeCrisis and Renewal 226Mircea EliadeCosmogonic Myth and ‘‘Sacred History’’ 236Mircea EliadeMircea Eliade: Apologia Pro Opere Suo 241Bryan RennieIndex 248