History
Prescientific theories have been proposed since presocratic times. Herodotus (484 – 425 BCE) stated that the gods of Greece were the same as the gods of Egypt. Euhemerus (appr. 330– 264 BCE) wrote that gods were excellent historical persons who eventually became worshiped.
Theorizing beyond mere speculation became possible after data from tribes and peoples all over the world became available in Europe and the United States in the 18th and 19th century. The founder of the scientific study of religion is generally considered to be Max Müller (1823–1900), who advocated comparative religion. Later, serious doubts were raised by Geertz among others, about the question of whether it is possible to provide a general theory of all religions.
Read more about this topic: Theories Of Religion
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
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“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)