I found Evans-Pritchard's philosophy of religion to be complimentary to Amma's Healing Room, especially because it stresses the importance of ethnographic study and fieldwork with religions, rather than writing about them abstractly or dreaming up some fanatical ideas to attribute them to certain religions or peoples. It was interesting to see Evans-Pritchard employ Levy-Bruhl's conception of "primitive" peoples as intellectual equals to the "non-primitive" peoples, only with different modes of thinking and living, rather than regarding them as beings who are inherently intellectually inferior. Pals writes that "Levy-Bruhl sought to show how primitive thought is not weaker or more immature than ours but simply different from it" (p. 268). …show more content…
While Amma's livelihood is built around practices of healing rituals and other supernatural qualms, Flueckiger never attempts to portray Amma as crazy or exotic; rather, Amma is just a religious woman who thinks of her religion and acts on her beliefs in a way that is different than many Westerners do - and that does not mean she is primitive. Of course, Flueckiger's writing is much less problematic in general than Evans-Pritchard's because of the evolution in what language is appropriate and what is not, and she never comes across as condescending when writing about Amma's rituals. Even when she finds mathematical errors in Amma's calculations, she never doubts her authenticity, saying "I never mentioned this problem to Amma, because she had also declared with full confidence that to make these mathematical calculations was the easy part; it was the spiritual power behind the written prescriptions, not the mathematical calculations themselves, that effected healing" (p. 73). What would normally seem like an event that would delegitimize Amma's healing powers is portrayed by Flueckiger as a normal part of the process and an error which doesn't really have an effect one way or another - the power is with Amma, not the math. It is Amma's beliefs and religion that make her prescriptions successful, even if, to a Westerner, it may appear as though the errors
In his conclusion, Chappell admits, “First approaching this story as an atheist, I was surprised and skeptical to hear so many of my subjects – whom I admired from afar – expressing what Bayard Rustin called “fundamentalist” views.” Chappell goes on to describe his reluctance to believe his subject’s testimony of “miracles” had it not been for their frequency and key to the beliefs of his subject’s choices. In a catch-22 situation, perhaps only an atheist could tell this story with an objective mind, but perhaps a religious mind could have given more clarity to certain aspects.
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The place where I feel the most comfortable, and show my personality, is my bedroom. This is the place where I can really be myself and do what I want; it’s the place I come home to, and wake up every day. My room makes me feel comfortable because it is my own space. My house is always crazy, with my dog barking, and my siblings running around making noise, my room is the only place in the house where I can come and relax without caring about everything else, the only place that I can go to clear my mind.
Livingston, James C. Anatomy of the Sacred: An Introduction to Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Print.
When first looking at the relationship between philosophy and religion, I found it easier to explain the differences rather than the similarities. I began this paper the same way I do others. This generally involves a profound amount of research on the topic at hand. However, in contrast to the other papers I have done, the definitions of philosophy and religion only raised more questions for me. It was fascinating how the explanations differed dramatically from author to author.
Warner Bros. Pictures, 2001. DVD. The. Cortez, Marc. A. Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed.
Organ, Troy Wilson. Eerdmans' Handbook to The World Religions. Woodbury, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 1974. Print.