The Anthropological view of Religion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Anthropological view of Religion - Essay Example For example, when an individual is terminally ill, religions perform established practices where they often utter secret words to get rid of the sickness. This is said to be a means which religions resort to in order to meet psychological needs such as alleviating anxiety. Symbolism is another important element in religions because they are used to explain thee intangible such as love, hope and joy or those which are important emphases in the religion. For the Christians, the bread and wine are examples of symbolism of the body and blood of Jesus. Lastly, ritual is done by the different religions to fulfill psychological and social needs just like how the Shamans represent the removal of a disease by taking a feather and acting like it has been taken from the sick person’s body. Religion is an interesting aspect of life because it does not only portray wisdom about observable things but also reflects on the things that are not observable. Indeed, the arguments of science are based from observable facts and could be easily understood. It could also be said that science can easily convince people to believe in it because the proofs can be seen. However, religion delves in to the matters which are difficult to explain and thus, difficult to understand. These things are considered difficult because in comparison to what science can explain through evidence, some of the beliefs in religions are explained through imperceptible thoughts and ideas. For example, a person is infected with a disease which science claims to be hereditary or could be due to environmental conditions. However, the patient is observed to have no familial history of the disease, has healthy eating habits, has a job which allows her to be physically active and lives in a rural area where the re is not much air, water and noise pollution. In other words, science cannot explain how the individual contracted the