Anthropology Is Used to Study

¶ … Anthropology is used to study religion. And the importance of the process of initiations in rituals. Pamela Moro and Claude Stipe both discuss in regard to the relationship between religion and anthropology, but while the former adopts a more oriental perspective concerning the matter, the latter relates to it using a western point-of-view.

Moro emphasizes the fact that religion has an essential role in assisting anthropologists because they are enabled to gain a better understanding of their field of work as a result of studying people's religious attitudes through time and by focusing on how religion shaped their thinking. She also makes it possible for her readers to understand that anthropologists have a long history of using religion as a principal tool in trying to comprehend more about human behaviors.

Stipe does not hesitate to acknowledge that anthropology has been heavily influenced by religion, especially in its early days. However, he also relates to how contemporary anthropologists have a tendency to discard religion when trying to learn more about certain communities. Many anthropologists apparently think that religion place a small and insignificant role in comparison to other cultural values.

Even with the fact that Stipe highlights the fact that there is a continuous conflict between religion and anthropology, he fails to provide a more complex explanation regarding the role that religion played in assisting ethnographers through the ages. In contrast, Moro employs a more peaceful attitude in discussing the influence that religion has on society as a whole. She provides a thorough account concerning how Buddhism is one of the religions that came to have a strong influence on people's understanding of their culture.

Thailand is a location where Buddhism is an active part of people's lives and this means that religion can actually be considered an important tool for ethnographers wanting to find out more about the country's culture. 2. Victor Turner provides a complex account regarding how rituals are important when considering religion as a whole and about how particular rites are actually He relates to how social life needs social dramas where people are provided with the opportunity to introduce luminal experiences into their lives.

The masses generally need to contain individuals who put across anti-social behavior and to actually encourage these people in doing so by promoting eccentric behaviors. Michael Atwood.