Profane (religion)

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Profane, or profanity in religious use may refer to a lack of respect for things that are held to be sacred, which implies anything inspiring or deserving of reverence, as well as behaviour showing similar disrespect or causing religious offense. [1] The word is also used in a neutral sense for things or people not related to the sacred; for example profane history, profane literature, etc. [2] In this sense it is contrasted with "sacred", with meaning similar to "secular".

Contents

The distinction between the sacred and the profane was considered by Émile Durkheim to be central to the social reality of human religion. [3]

Etymology

The term profane originates from classical Latin profanus, literally "before (outside) the temple", "pro" being outside and "fanum" being temple or sanctuary. It carried the meaning of either "desecrating what is holy" or "with a secular purpose" as early as the 1450s. [2] [4] Profanity represented secular indifference to religion or religious figures, while blasphemy was a more offensive attack on religion and religious figures, considered sinful, and a direct violation of The Ten Commandments. Moreover, many Bible verses speak against swearing. [5] In some countries, profanity words often have pagan roots that after Christian influence were turned from names of deities and spirits to profanity and used as such, like famous Finnish profanity word perkele , which was believed to be an original name of the thunder god Ukko, the chief god of the Finnish pagan pantheon. [6] [7] [8] [9]

Profanities, in the original meaning of blasphemous profanity, are part of the ancient tradition of the comic cults which laughed and scoffed at the deity or deities: an example of this would be Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods satire. [10]

Sacred–profane dichotomy

The sacred–profane dichotomy is a concept posited by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim in 1912, who considered it to be the central characteristic of religion: "religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden." [11] In Durkheim's theory, the sacred represents the interests of the group, especially unity, which were embodied in sacred group symbols, or totems. The profane, however, involves mundane individual concerns. Durkheim explicitly stated that the sacred–profane dichotomy is not equivalent to good–evil, as the sacred could be either good or evil, and the profane could be either as well. [12]

The profane world consists of all that people can know through their senses; it is the natural world of everyday life that people experience as either comprehensible or at least ultimately knowable — the Lebenswelt or lifeworld. [13]

In contrast, the sacred, or sacrum in Latin, encompasses all that exists beyond the everyday, natural world that people experience with their senses. As such, the sacred or numinous can inspire feelings of awe, because it is regarded as ultimately unknowable and beyond limited human abilities to perceive and comprehend. Durkheim pointed out however that there are degrees of sacredness, so that an amulet for example may be sacred yet little respected. [14]

Transitions

Rites of passage represent movements from one state—the profane—to the other, the sacred; or back again to the profanum. [15]

Religion is organized primarily around the sacred elements of human life and provides a collective attempt to bridge the gap between the sacred and the profane.[ citation needed ]

Profane progress

Modernization and the Enlightenment project have led to a secularisation of culture over the past few centuries – an extension of the profanum at the (often explicit) expense of the sacred. [16] The predominant 21st-century global worldview is as a result empirical, sensate, contractual, this-worldly – in short profane. [17]

Carl Jung expressed the same thought more subjectively when he wrote that "I know – and here I am expressing what countless other people know – that the present time is the time of God's disappearance and death". [18]

Counter reaction

The advance of the profane has led to several countermovements, attempting to limit the scope of the profanum. Modernism set out to bring myth and a sense of the sacred back into secular reality [19] Wallace Stevens speaking for much of the movement when he wrote that "if nothing was divine then all things were, the world itself". [20]

Fundamentalism – Christian, Muslim, or other – set its face against the profanum with a return to sacred writ. [21]

Psychology too has set out to protect the boundaries of the individual self from profane intrusion, [22] establishing ritual places for inward work [23] in opposition to the postmodern loss of privacy. [24]

Cultural examples

Seamus Heaney considered that "the desacralizing of space is something that my generation experienced in all kinds of ways". [25]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Profanity</span> Socially offensive form of language

Profanity involves the use of notionally offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion, as a grammatical intensifier or emphasis, or to express informality or conversational intimacy. In many formal or polite social situations, it is considered impolite, and in some religious groups it is considered a sin. Profanity includes slurs, but there are many insults that do not use swear words.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion</span> Social-cultural system

Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.

Religion and mythology differ in scope but have overlapping aspects. Both are systems of concepts that are of high importance to a certain community, making statements concerning the supernatural or sacred. Generally, mythology is considered one component or aspect of religion. Religion is the broader term: besides mythological aspects, it includes aspects of ritual, morality, theology, and mystical experience. A given mythology is almost always associated with a certain religion such as Greek mythology with Ancient Greek religion. Disconnected from its religious system, a myth may lose its immediate relevance to the community and evolve—away from sacred importance—into a legend or folktale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of religion</span> Branch of sociology

Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology. This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods and of qualitative approaches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Émile Durkheim</span> French sociologist (1858–1916)

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, along with both Karl Marx and Max Weber.

Perkele is a Finnish word meaning 'evil spirit' and a popular Finnish profanity, used similarly to the English phrase god damn, although it is considered much more profane. It is most likely the most internationally known Finnish curse word.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mircea Eliade</span> Romanian historian of religion, writer and philosopher (1907–1986)

Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and interpreter of religious experience, he established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but actually participate in them.

Anthropology of religion is the study of religion in relation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures. The anthropology of religion, as a field, overlaps with but is distinct from the field of Religious Studies. The history of anthropology of religion is a history of striving to understand how other people view and navigate the world. This history involves deciding what religion is, what it does, and how it functions. Today, one of the main concerns of anthropologists of religion is defining religion, which is a theoretical undertaking in and of itself. Scholars such as Edward Tylor, Emile Durkheim, E.E. Evans Pritchard, Mary Douglas, Victor Turner, Clifford Geertz, and Talal Asad have all grappled with defining and characterizing religion anthropologically.

Secularity, also the secular or secularness, is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself and fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era. In the medieval period there were even secular clergy. Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. The word "secular" has a meaning very similar to profane as used in a religious context.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacrilege</span> Violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, site or person

Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, site or person. This can take the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things. When the sacrilegious offence is verbal, it is called blasphemy, and when physical, it is often called desecration. In a more general sense, any transgression against what is seen as the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege, and so is coming near a sacred site without permission.

Profanity in Finnish is used in the form of intensifiers, adjectives, adverbs and particles. There is also an aggressive mood that involves omission of the negative verb ei while implying its meaning with a swear word.

Numinous means "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring"; also "supernatural" or "appealing to the aesthetic sensibility." The term was given its present sense by the German theologian and philosopher Rudolf Otto in his influential 1917 German book The Idea of the Holy. He also used the phrase mysterium tremendum as another description for the phenomenon. Otto's concept of the numinous influenced thinkers including Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, and C. S. Lewis. It has been applied to theology, psychology, religious studies, literary analysis, and descriptions of psychedelic experiences.

Collective effervescence (CE) is a sociological concept coined by Émile Durkheim. According to Durkheim, a community or society may at times come together and simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same action. Such an event then causes collective effervescence which excites individuals and serves to unify the group.

The "eternal return" is an idea for interpreting religious behavior proposed by the historian Mircea Eliade; it is a belief expressed through behavior that one is able to become contemporary with or return to the "mythical age"—the time when the events described in one's myths occurred. It should be distinguished from the philosophical concept of eternal return.

A hierophany is a manifestation of the sacred. The word is a formation of the Greek adjective hieros and the verb phainein.

Ultimate reality is "the supreme, final, and fundamental power in all reality". This may overlap with the concept of the Absolute in certain philosophies.

Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects, or places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theories about religion</span> Theories of religion in the social sciences

Sociological, psychological, and anthropological theories about religion generally attempt to explain the origin and function of religion. These theories define what they present as universal characteristics of religious belief and practice.

The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, published by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim in 1912, is a book that analyzes religion as a social phenomenon. Durkheim attributes the development of religion to the emotional security attained through communal living. His study of totemic societies in Australia led to a conclusion that the animal or plant that each clan worshipped as a sacred power was in fact that society itself. Halfway through the text, Durkheim asks, "So if [the totem animal] is at once the symbol of the god and of the society, is that not because the god and the society are only one?"

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Definition of religion</span> Debated subject in religious studies

The definition of religion is a controversial and complicated subject in religious studies with scholars failing to agree on any one definition. Oxford Dictionaries defines religion as the belief in and/or worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. Others, such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith, have tried to correct a perceived Western bias in the definition and study of religion. Thinkers such as Daniel Dubuisson have doubted that the term religion has any meaning outside of Western cultures, while others, such as Ernst Feil doubt that it has any specific, universal meaning even there.

References

  1. "Definition of profanity". Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English – online. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
  2. 1 2 "profane" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/3577715803.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.) Adjective, 2
  3. Durkheim, Émile (1976). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, p. 37. London: George Allen & Unwin (originally published 1915, English translation 1915).
  4. Harper, Douglas. "profane". Online Etymology Dictionary .
  5. "Bad Words [in the Bible]". OpenBible.info. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  6. Siikala, Anna-Leena (2013). Itämerensuomalaisten mytologia. Helsinki: SKS.
  7. Salo, Unto (1990). Agricola's Ukko in the light of archeology. A chronological and interpretative study of ancient Finnish religion: Old Norse and Finnish religions and cultic place-names. Turku. ISBN   951-649-695-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. "Miten suomalaiset kiroilivat ennen kristinuskoa?" . Retrieved 2015-12-25.
  9. Suomen kielen etymologinen sanakirja. 3. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilainen seura. 1976. ISBN   951-9019-16-2.
  10. Meletinsky, Eleazar Moiseevich The Poetics of Myth (Translated by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky) 2000 Routledge ISBN   0-415-92898-2 p.110
  11. Emile Durkheim. [1912] 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life , edited and translated by K. E. Fields. New York: The Free Press. p. 35.
  12. Pals, Daniel. 1996. Seven Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. US ISBN   0-19-508725-9 (pbk). p. 99.
  13. Peter Berger, A Rumour of Angels (1973) p. 15
  14. Durkheim, p. 38
  15. Durkheim, pp. 39–40
  16. Fredric Jameson, The Jameson Reader (2005) p. 180-1
  17. Berger, pp. 13–14
  18. C. G. Jung, Man and his Symbols (1978) p. 295
  19. Jameson, p. 180-2
  20. Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems (1984) p. 412
  21. Umberto Eco. Turning Back the Clock (2007) pp. 218–20
  22. Eric Berne, The Psychology of Human Destiny (1974) p. 130
  23. Robert Bly, Iron John (1991) p. 194 and p. 128
  24. Eco, p. 77-88
  25. Denis O'Driscoll, Stepping Stones (2008) p. 309

Further reading