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Roy Wood Sellars. The Next Step in Religion
The Next Step in Religion
Table of Contents
TO. HELEN STALKER SELLARS. THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
FOREWORD
THE NEXT STEP IN RELIGION
CHAPTER I. SUGGESTIONS
CHAPTER II. THE AGE OF MYTH
CHAPTER III. STORIES OF CREATION
CHAPTER IV. MAGIC AND RITUAL
CHAPTER V. THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY
CHAPTER VI. THE PROPHET OF NAZARETH
CHAPTER VII. THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY
CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
CHAPTER IX. THE LIMITS OF PERSONAL AGENCY
CHAPTER X. DO MIRACLES HAPPEN?
CHAPTER XI. THE SOUL AND IMMORTALITY
CHAPTER XII. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
CHAPTER XIII. RELIGION AND ETHICS
CHAPTER XIV. THE CHURCH AS AN INSTITUTION—THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
CHAPTER XV. THE CHURCH AS AN INSTITUTION—PROTESTANTISM
CHAPTER XVI. THE HUMANIST'S RELIGION
Отрывок из книги
Roy Wood Sellars
An Essay toward the Coming Renaissance
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While primitive religion and mythology are not identical, they are closely bound up with one another. Both rest upon animism, totemism and magic as these are brought into relation with man's needs and fears. Religion is chiefly an affair of sentiment and cult, actively guided by belief in superhuman powers capable of helping and hurting man. Mythology, on the other hand, consists of the stories told about these dynamic powers as they are more and more personified and given a history and a name. And such stories are naturally built up around acts whose significance has been forgotten, or around dramatized interpretations of processes in nature. Myths are explanations of acts and events and names which aroused curiosity and therefore demanded some explanation. It was only after modern anthropology had unearthed the characteristic beliefs of primitive man that many myths became intelligible. A few examples will make this relationship clearer.
Totemism is a sort of cult rendered to animals and plants which are regarded as akin to the tribe. It must be remembered that primitive man was not nearly so convinced of his superiority as is modern man. Wolves and bears and foxes are strong and cunning, and seem to him to have a power and knowledge even superior to his own. Strange as it appears to us to-day, savages quite often assign their origin to some animal and regard that animal as the possessor of a force which is valuable to his kin. This cult of totemistic animals and plants is at the base of the tales of metamorphosis which we read in Classic literature or in our own fairy tales. "Beauty and the Beast" is an example of this transformation, which our ancestors looked upon as quite natural; while the savage tales of the werewolf go back to the same outlook. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is another instance of the same cycle of ideas. The application of our present knowledge of totemism to mythology has been very enlightening. Students of Greek literature used to wonder why all the gods had birds and animals as companions. As a matter of fact, these animals were once sacred totems. The eagle and the swan were gradually displaced by Zeus, the sky deity. But so gradual was this displacement that the animals became attributes of the younger deity, while he was thought to change himself at times back into the totem animal. The story of Leda and the swan can, in this way, be easily understood.
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