Theories of Religion - Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer

Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer

The anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) defined religion as belief in supernatural beings and stated that this belief originated as explanations to the world. Belief in supernatural being grew out of attempts to explain life and death. Primitive people used human dreams in which spirits seemed to appear as an indication that the human mind could exist independent of a body. They used this by extension to explain life and death, and belief in the after life. Myths and deities to explain natural phenomena originated out of an analogy and an extension of these explanations. His theory assumed that the psyche of all peoples of all times are more or less the same and that explanations in cultures and religions tend to grow more sophisticated via monotheist religions, like Christianity and eventually to science. Tylor saw backwards practices and beliefs in modern societies as survivals, but he did not explain why they survived.

James George Frazer (1854–1941) followed Tylor's theories to a great extent in his book The Golden Bough, but he distinguished between magic and religion. Magic is used to influence the natural world in the primitive man's struggle for survival. He asserted that magic relied on an uncritical belief of primitive people in contact and imitation. For example, precipitation may be invoked by the primitive man by sprinkling water on the ground. He asserted that according to them magic worked through laws. In contrast religion is faith that the natural world is ruled by one or more deities with personal characteristics with whom can be pleaded, not by laws.

The method that Tylor and Frazer used was seeking similar beliefs and practices in all societies, especially the more primitive ones, more or less regardless of time and place. They relied heavily on reports made by missionaries, discoverers, and colonial civil servants.

Their theory has been criticized as one-sided for focusing on mere intellectual aspects of religions, while neglecting social aspects of religion, among others by the anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard. Tylor's anthropological method has been criticized as out-of-context comparisons of practices in different cultures and times. Tylor's and Frazer's view on the origin of religion has been classified as unverifiable speculation. The view that monotheism is a more evolved than polytheism has been disconfirmed by evidence: monotheism is more prevalent in hunter societies than in agricultural societies. The view that societies' views and practices grow more evolved over time in a uniform way has been criticized as unverifiable and contradicted by data from anthropological studies, among others by the writer Andrew Lang (1844–1912) and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. The individualist, intellectual view of religion, as proposed by Tylor and Frazer, is still considered worthwhile by many contemporary experts of the field, among others by the anthropologist Robin Horton.