Summary Of Tweed's Definition Of Religion

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While petty, one of my main inquiries of Tweed’s book comes from his definition of religion. In chapter 3, Tweed says that he wanted to use the term suprahuman for his definition in order to “avoid narrower alternatives-such as God, gods, or spiritual beings-and to respect the multiple ways that those forces are imagined” (Tweed 73). One question that could possibly be raised is why did Tweed decide to use the term suprahuman instead of a term such as transcendent. Transcendent is a more common term than suprahuman when it comes to religion. Additionally, the term transcendent does not have the same limitations as terms such as gods, or spiritual beings. Transcendent deals with things that a considered to be higher than what can be attained or accessed on a normal, natural level, whether it be with an object, concept, phenomena, entity, etc. Nevertheless, Tweed should be acknowledged for recognizing these limitations and subsequently avoiding them in the creation of …show more content…

He also wanted to use interpretation as “a positioned sighting of the shifting terrain, a situated account of the complex ways that women and men have negotiated meaning and power through religions” (Tweed 165). Considering, Tweed’s overarching argument, I can understand why opting for explanation would be problematic. An interpretation’s main focus is on what something means. However, the emphasis of an explanation is on how to understand something. Therefore, an explanation would require some concrete, substantial evidence to aid in that understanding. For a term as ambiguous as religion, this would be a rather vexed proposition. Even if it were not problematic, an explanation would limit how religion is defined and make the term more static. As a result, attempting to make theory an explanation would make it discordant with Tweed’s

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