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Hi. This is Dr. Paris This week we are discussing religions of Africa. Last week we briefly talked about an Anansi the spider
trickster from African lore, and this week will look more closely at religion on the continent,
focusing a great deal of our attention on ancient Egyptian religion.
Animportant question asking studying religion is "How important is setting to religion. When I think about setting and religion, I consider
my ownlocation in Nashville, Tennessee, which is known as the "buckle of the bible belt."
A number of people who live in the south consider the Bible the inspired word of god
Near downtown Nashville there's a statue the Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
So it's important to think about our own setting
will we think about religion. But when I think about setting, I'm not just talking about my own
location and what people in my area think about religion.
I need to take a look at how geography affects religion,
factors like climate, land formations, and weather because the physical world often
shapes our understanding of the spiritual world.
So let's review something that we didn't cover in the last video on "Religions of the Americas" Huacas are part of Incan religion.
They are defined as "natural phenomenon that providing usual manifestations of a holy.
Unusual rocks for example could symbolize the presence of the holy.
In other cultures trees or rivers may be considered sacred.
And in the modern world we tend to think that buildings were people worship or practice religion are sacred places.
But nature can be considered sacred. Something like hiking through the woods and sitting on a rock can give you a time to rest
and reflect on life. The ancients probably felt the same way, and some trees and rocks came they have special meanings for them
Examples of huacas include unusual appearances in stones, plants, animals, or
people . . . stars and constellations. The Incasfound evidence of the spiritual world
in the natural world. When they saw these rock formations, it made them think of a
different world. When they looked up in the sky at night and made them think of the spirit world.
Now for ancient Egyptians in Northern Africa the Nile was sacred.
we can see that the Egyptians live in a desert climate, but the Nile brought life to the region
and the setting of the Egyptians affected not all other views of this world but their views about the next world
something they referred to as the afterlife
in Egypt it is possible to have 1 foot on fertile land enriched by the Nile and another foot on dry, parched desert earth that seems devoid
of life. The Egyptians depended on the Nile to flood each year so they could grow crops. If the
did not flood or less water flowed into the region,
the Egyptians could suffer. They were literally a step between life and death.
So let's think about how some of their beliefs about the afterlife arose because of the desert climate in which they lived.
Let's imagine a traveler going to the desert on a camel. He spies something up ahead is
the desert deceiving him with a mirage or is something else going on?
as he approaches the object and it doesn't disappear into the sands, he sees a dead body that the desert has preserved by
removing all the moisture from the corpse and perhaps it gives him some ideas about the afterlife.
If the desert preserves the body, perhaps there's something beyond this life.
The desert climate probably gave Egyptians ideas about mummification. Once they realized that bodies could be preserved they
felt a responsibility to prepare for the afterlife. And Egyptians spent a great deal of time making preparations
for the afterlife, not just becoming mummified but preparing
things to be with them in the next life.
The Egyptians even had a concept of a soul that they called a "Ba." They do good as a kind of human consciousness.
Because of their concerns about the afterlife Egyptians feared dying outside of Egypt. An ancient Egyptian tory about a man named
Sinuhe tells of the main character fleeing Egypt in the midst of fear and pandemonium Sinuhe makes a good life outside of Egypt but
He has to return home before he dies because no good Egyptian wants to die outside of Egypt.
because he or she won't be ready for the afterlife
while people like Sinuhe fear dying outside of Egypt and make plans for the afterlife, others were not so sure. There's a text
entitled a "Dispute between a man and his Ba." (Remember here that Ba means "soul")
In this text, the man expresses religious skepticism.
He wonders of all the funeral preparations really matter.
We see a lot of religious skepticism in our day, so it's interesting to see that even the ancients wrestled with their beliefs and this
issue brings us back to two terms that we covered in the introduction "agnosticism."
An agnostic says, "I do not know whether god exists."
Then there's atheism. Atheism is the
belief that there is no person-like god.
Now the man disputing with his Ba is expressing agnostic thoughts. In the end he decides to prepare for the afterlife, but he still
struggles with a question. Atheism, however, is more of a modern day phenomenon. Atheism is virtually
unheard of in the ancient world. In the ancient world, everyone believes in a god and most likely everyone believes in multiple gods.
Throughout the history of Egypt, most people practice polytheism: "the belief in two or more person like-gods."
However there is a monotheistic revolution in Egypt. King Amehotep champions the worship of the one that Aton during the
Amarna Age. He moved Egypt's capital and changed his named to Akhenaton to honor his god.
But his monotheistic ideas didn't last long because his successor king Tut returned Egyp to polytheism, and we can
imagine here is we talk in future lectures about religion and economics
that many of the priests of the other gods were all the sudden out of favor and were losing money and gifts that people brought
when they came to sacrifice and make offerings to the other gods. So probably that's why polytheism came back.
Since we've talked about monotheism and poytheism, let's review henotheism as well as the term trickster. Remember that
henotheism is the belief that multiple gods exist, but one supreme deity rules over them all.
For example, in Yoruba religion, Olorun is the supreme deity of the sky.
Other gods existed, but Olorun is the top god.
so
we'd kind of got the best part of polytheism and the best part of monotheism. Henotheism takes monotheism's one god
and puts that one god as the supreme god over the many gods which polytheism would prefer
In continuing to talk about Yorua religion, another Yoruba god is Esu. He's a trickster. Notice that Matthews says he's amoral. That
means he's not good or evil. We've discovered the tricksters often deceive others and try to outwit
them, but their seemingly negative actions often accomplish great purposes.
But can anyone know the will of the gods? Well's that where diviners come in. Diviners were spirit possessed individuals often
women who knew how to discover people's destinies. So we can refer to them as liminal figures since they live in this world,
but they know how to walk in the spirit world
And if you want to know your destiny for this class, I can't tell your future
but I can let you know that studying these terms will help you be better prepared for this this week's quiz and the midterm. So we've
reviewed some terms we already discussed such as henotheism and monotheism and we've
added some terms of like Ba and diviners and huacas
and you may be interested in studying the additional topics on the slide. For example as you read Matthews, it might not be a bad idea
to make a list of rites of passage in different religions
You may even find that rites of passage could be a good topic for your paper that's due in November. You might want to focus in on one
particular rite of passage in a particular religion
and you might want to review several of them or do some combination of that where you mention a bunch of them, but you focus on
one. So keep those things in mind as you read the chapters and as always please
contact me if you have any questions. Take care!