Introduction
• Religion can be defined as a set of beliefs and practices through which people seek mental and physical harmony with the powers of the universe, through which they attempt to influence and accommodate the awesome forces of nature, life and death.
• Can be wonderful and can be a source of great conflict.
Two Kinds of Religion
• Proselytic
-- go out and seek new members
– generally want to convert the entire world
– Christianity, Islam
• Ethnic
-do not seek converts, must be born into these religions
– many tribal religions, Hinduism, Judaism
I. Religious Regions (fig)
A. Christianity
-world’s largest faith in area and adherents
Eastern Christians
-Includes Greek and Eastern Orthodox
Western Christians
-Catholics
-Protestants
Other Christians
-Coptics, Maronites, Nestorians
American Christianity
• Bible Belt Baptists
• Mormon West
• Catholic Borderlands
• Lutheran Upper Midwest
• Mixed Midwest
American Religion Regions (fig)
Divergence or Convergence?
• The American West and religious proliferation
• Some suggest a homogenization of American religion
• Roger Stump suggests an increasing regionalization of American religion

B. Islam (fig)
Islam
Monotheistic
Mostly across Northern Africa, Southwest Asia and into Southeast Asia
Shares many commonalties with Judaism and Christianity
Muhammad is the main profit in Islam
The Koran is the Holy Text of Islam
Five Pillars
• Ramadan
• Daily prayer (five times)
• Pilgrimage to Mecca
• Statement of Faith
• Alms giving
Two Major Sects
1. Shiite
-smaller in number of the two groups
-dominate in Iran and southern Iraq
-strong fundamentalist movement during the 1980s
2. Sunni
-Covers much of the Arabic speaking Muslim world
-Also includes Indonesia
-Orthodox
Mosque in Eastern Europe (fig)
C. Judaism
• Also monotheistic, parent faith of Christianity and Islam (?)
• Suffered a Diaspora, therefore has many regional subgroups.
• Sephardim in the Mediterranean lands
• Ashkenazim in Europe (now US)
• 1/3 of Jews worldwide killed during holocaust
• 14 million Jews. Half in USA
D. Hinduism
• Polytheistic and Ethnic (today)
• about 750 million adherents
• tied to the caste system
• believe in reincarnation
• ahisma-veneration of all life forms
• many local forms
Jainism& Sikhism
Jains
-5 million Jains
-strictly ascetic
-reject Hindu scriptures, rituals and priests
Sikhs -Adi Granth
-in the Punjab
-19 million or so
-attempt at reconciling Islam and Hinduism
E. Buddhism
• Broke away from Hinduism 2500 years ago
• founded by Prince Siddhartha (Buddha)
• Widespread in Asia
• Many composite faiths as conversion spread
• Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism
• Lamaism is popular in Tibet and Mongolia
• 500 million adherents?
Monk at the feet of Buddha (fig)
Four Noble Truths
• Life is full of suffering
• Desire is the cause of suffering
• Elimination of suffering requires the quelling of desire
• An eight-fold path can lead one to the quelling of desire
• Nirvana -a state of peace and calm reached by few is attained by those able to successfully navigate the path.
F. Animism
• Thousands of versions
• 100 million adherents
• Most popular in Subsaharan Africa
• Umbanda in Brazil, Santeria in Cuba
• Omnipresent God, often found in nature
• Don’t underestimate the potential complexity and subtlety of animist faiths
Animism in Africa (fig)
Ethnocentric
Americans
• Frequently we fail to take seriously the religious beliefs of others, making them into caricatures of reality.
• This Totem Pole is part of a tacky-tourist attraction in Tennessee
G. Secularization
• A faith? 1 billion secularists worldwide
• Europeans are most secular (American are not even close)
• Why? _ Government and Modernization of cultures
Christian or Secular?
II. Religious Diffusion
• Religions can spread by a variety of plans and actions
• What is the primary way Christianity spread into the US?
• What about other American religions?
Religious Diffusion (map)
A. The Semitic Religious Hearth
The great monotheistic Western religions all evolved in the desert areas of the Middle East
Christianity spread via the Roman Empire and their excellent roads
-exhibited clearly hierarchical diffusion pattern
-later much relocation diffusion
Islamic Diffusion
Much conversion via Jihad
Koran instructs the faithful to convert others
Arabs conquered much of North Africa (bringing along their language)
Turks brought Islam with them during the Ottoman Empire (and before)
Fastest growing religion in the world due to both conversion and high birth rates
B. The Indus-Ganges Hearth
Gave birth to both Hinduism and Buddhism
Hinduism spread far and wide in its earlier incarnation, much of that has been since lost
Buddhism moves out of the Ganges plain 2500 years ago, spread to China, Japan, Korea, Bali, but died out in the Ganges plain.
C. Barriers and Time-Distance Decay
Religion strongest often in hearths
Many converts are only partial in remote areas
Local beliefs are integrated into the new religions
Christianity in China
Religion can act as a barrier to other innovations where taboos are actively in place.
III. Religious Ecology
• Religion, like other cultural elements help people cope with their environment.
• Environmental factors loom large in the basic nature of many religions.
Nature and Religions
• Temples and Volcanoes
• Feng Shui
• Ganges, Jordan and Ohio Rivers
• Mt. Fuji, Mount of Olives, Mt. Sinai
• Mount Shasta in California
• Christmas Trees
• Earthquakes and God’s wrath?
• Drought sermons.
The Environment and Religion
• Is it coincidence that the World’s major monotheistic faiths all were born in the desert?
• Were some polytheistic nomads
• All early adherents were nomadic herders
• Semple- out in the open and the sky is dominant.
Cont.
• Social organization of nomads lends itself to patriarchal, hierarchy.
• most of the female deities are in farming societies
• most of the nomads lived on the edge of established farming cultures, and may have innovated in response to these groups.
Religion and Environmentalism
Religion may heavily influence our interaction with the environment.
Are we part of nature or do we have dominion over nature.
What is the nature of that dominion?
Many Christians subscribe to the teleological view
Found in the post deluge scripture and in Psalms
Cont.
Some Christian thinkers understand man’s role as “finisher” or helper to God in making the earth fully created.
Underwrote the domestication/destruction of forest regions in Europe and America
Is this the fundamental root of the West’s environmental crisis?
Other Religions
Hindus have an excellent record of helping animals, but much of India’s native fauna is endangered.
Hindu’s profess a belief in ahisma, but have nevertheless destroyed millions of acres of India’s forests, much of it for cremation ceremonies
The Buddhists also claim to revere nature, but the Chinese have similar environmental problems.
Environmental Perception
How does religion affect the perception of natural dangers?
-are they natural and unavoidable or a curse from God
Poll Results
-72 % of Spanish American Catholics feel people subject to nature
-55% of Mormons think humans are in harmony with nature
-48% of Texas Protestants think humans control nature and can overcome natural hazards
• Earth Day sermon?
Alabama vs. Illinoisans during Tornadoes
Cultural Integration in Religion
Religion affects a great number of other components of culture, including agriculture, economy, family sociology, politics, etc.
A. Religion and Economy
Food and beverage taboos are common
-viticulture, pork, alcohol, drugs, fish
why no pork?
Trichinosis, pigs are dirty, nomadic sour grapes.
Proscriptions for making loans
Proscriptions for jobs and use of technologies
Gambling, Prostitution, etc.
God and Pork
B. Religious Pilgrimage
Common practice in many religions
Can be a huge economic boost to an economy
miracles, founding myths, holy physical features, where Gods reside, etc.
Mecca and Medina
Rome and Lourdes
Varanasi
US pilgrimage sites?
C. Religion and Political Geography
More common than one generally thinks
Nationalism-Religion intertwined
India-Pakistan / Ireland
Yugoslavia / Cyprus/ Chad
State Churches
Theocracy
Mormonism and Utah- Solid South
Christian Democrats
Texas and Beer (fig)
Religious Landscapes
A. Religious Structures
– Roman Catholic to the Amish
– Islamic and Jewish landscapes
– Bathtub Marys
Wood for Cremation
Burying the Dead in South Louisiana
Religious Place Names
• Many towns, cities and landscape features bear witness to the religious beliefs of the people who named them.
• Can you think of any?
Religious Toponymy-Canada (map)
Sacred Spaces
Areas and sites that inspire sublime devotion, loyalty or fear
Pilgrimage sites, Churches, ritualized spaces, cemeteries
Dome of the Rock and Wailing Wall occupy same general location
Some are ancient, some are otherwise mundane
Any in the US?
Axis Mundi (fig)
Jerusalem (fig)
Bathing in the Ganges (fig)