THE religion it is one of the most important phenomena among those belonging exclusively to the human being. Every culture or civilization, without exception, has developed a religious system, were it more elementary, like the religions of the native peoples of America and Oceania, were it more complex, like the religionsAbrahamic (derived from patriarch Abraham) Middle Easterners: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
After the advent of specialized human sciences, such as anthropology, sociology, history and psychology, many researchers have been trying to explain the religious phenomenon and, roughly, define what the religion. Some of them, like the 19th century German philosophers FriedrichNietzsche and KarlMarx and the french AugusteComte, manifested themselves as absolutely averse to the idea of religion and the existence of a realitytranscendent, that is, a reality that is beyond this world, the physical, material, corporeal world. They concentrated on emphasizing what they believed to be the essential in the religious, that is, its supposedly harmful character for humanity.
On the other hand, other thinkers, such as the sociologist emileDurkheim and the mythology and symbology scholar MirceaEliade sought to understand religion more objectively, trying to understand the functioning of notions such as sacred, profane, myth, images, religious symbols, as well as ritual practices, such as the sacrifice. in your book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim seeks to define religion as a system of beliefs and practices (such as rituals, prayers, etc.) relating to the sacred. Let's see:
“[...] a religion is a solidary system of beliefs and practices related to sacred things, that is, separated, prohibited, beliefs and practices that bring together in the same moral community, called the church, all those who belong to it. adhere. The second element that thus participates in our definition is no less essential than the first, since, in showing that The idea of religion is inseparable from the idea of church, it makes one feel that religion must be an eminently thing collective.” [1]
In addition to the sacred category, we can see that Durkheim also highlights the collective character of religion. The idea of "church" (ekklesia, in Greek) is here put by the sociologist in the sense of community, of gregarious social structure. In primitive societies and also in the great ancient civilizations, the manifestation of the sacred, that is, the action of the gods or a single God (depending on the religion) in the world, is what causes the meeting, the aggregation of individuals, who seek transcendence and answers to fundamental problems, such as death. From this basically derives the entire social structure.
the sacred and the profane
If the sacred is so important for the definition of religion and if the social structure derives from it, it is important to emphasize that it too it requires a special space for the practices of religious rituals, which aim to put men in contact with reality transcendent. the notion of spacesacred, that is, from places that are separate from the worldprofane (thus understanding the mere natural, physical world) is well delimited in every religion. The altar, the temple, the sanctuary, etc., all these constitute the sacred space. Mircea Eliade clearly defines the importance of the temple as a sacred space in his work. the sacred and the profane:
“In the great eastern civilizations – from Mesopotamia and Egypt to China and India – the Temple received a new and important value: it is not just one imagoworld (image of the world), but also the terrestrial reproduction of a transcendent model...”. […] If the Temple constitutes a imagoworld, it is because the World, as the work of the gods, is sacred: a holy place par excellence, the house of the Gods, the Temple re-sanctifies the world, since it represents and contains it at the same time. Definitely, it is thanks to the Temple that the World is re-sanctified in its entirety. Whatever its degree of impurity, the World is continually purified by the sanctity of sanctuaries.” [2]
Main religions in the world and in Brazil
As we said a little above, each and every culture or civilization has developed a religious system or, rather, has developed along with that system. Among the main religions in the world, there are those with the greatest complexity of organization and the greatest theological reach. It is the case, as we have already mentioned, of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and Asian religions, such as Hinduism, O Buddhism, O Confucianism, O Shinto it's the Taoism. On the African continent, the Voodoo it's the Candomblé.
Brazil, due to Portuguese colonization, is predominantly ChristianCatholic. However, the number of Christiansprotestants has been growing a lot in the country. In addition, there are other religious variants, such as the spiritism, a Umbanda (which was born from syncretism between popular Catholicism and Candomblé) and the Candomblé, inherited from Africa.
GRADES
[1] DURKHEIM, E. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Trans. Paulo Neves. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1996. P. 32.
[2] ELIADE, Mircea. the sacred and the profane. Mircea Eliade; [Rogério Fernandes translation]. – São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1992. P. 34.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes