Animism and Magic: The Theories on Religion by E.B. Tylor and J.G. Frazer

This is a journal entry I need to do for class. I believe that my thoughts are decently organized on the subject, and I really like the way that this turned out. :)

Callie J. Moline
August 25, 2010

Animism and Magic: E. B. Tylor and J. G. Frazer

I was very interested in what both theorists had to say in regards to the nature of religion, especially with regards to how they came to these conclusions. I found most of their logic to be sound, though there were many arguments that I was very disinclined to agree with.
Tylor’s theory of animism operates on the basis of humankind as being solely logical, with no room for emotion or human error. Through logic, we simply arrive at the idea of souls and spirits, and then use that idea to further arrive at the idea of religion. The disagreement I have with this idea is that logic doesn’t solely drive the need to understand something like death and dreams. I imagine that Tylor’s “savage philosopher” began to think about the nature of the soul and spirits through an original fear borne of ignorance of the nature of death and dreams rather than by completely rational and logical consideration. It is well known in our time that the unknown spawns fear, be it through evolutionary safety mechanisms or a learned fear of that which we do not understand. Because of this, I believe that Tylor’s exclusion of emotion in the evolution of animism is a crucial oversight in a practical understanding of religious theory.
In addition, Tylor discusses evolution of religion and society, which is equally troublesome. For instance, Tylor would view the Aborigines as being inferior as a society because of their “primitive” ways. Yet, in my opinion, if a business man from New York were to venture out into the Australian outback, his “societal evolution” would likely not save him from dying of dehydration before he could find help. It is for this reason that I believe that an evolutionary progression of culture, ranking societies from “civilized” to “primitive” is a pointless and contradictory effort. If we look at the nature of evolution as defined by Charles Darwin, we see that creatures evolve out of necessity. If this idea is applied to humans, then would it not stand to argue that the Aborigines have not “evolved” as a society because there has not been necessity, and therefore they are equal to those who have evolved to live in advanced cities? They meet the needs of their environment, and their environment meets their needs. In as far as evolutionary theory goes, they are just as “perfect” in their ecosystems as city-dwellers are in theirs.
Frazer builds off of Tylor’s theory, adding magic to the mix as any ritualistic behavior that is believed to directly influence nature. He expands upon the idea of an evolutionary progression of religion from polytheism to monotheism and then predicts that monotheism will fall to science as the superior understanding of the world. During the discussion, I said that I believed that science and religion would not battle to the death, with science as the victor, because science does not fulfill the emotional needs of the individuals practicing it as religion does. I still believe this, because science offers only very hard, straight-forward answers to almost any question that humans can pose, but humans are not purely logical. We are also very emotional, and thus need more than just statistics and empirical data to explain disasters such as lightning strikes, earthquakes, plane crashes, etc;.
Thinking about this further, however, has led me to understand that my belief in this future of religion and science is limited by my current understanding of the world. I was raised in a world where religion is of the utmost importance- atheism is often frowned upon. Though I myself am agnostic, religion is a huge part of the world around me, and thus I find it hard to imagine a world where religion is completely railroaded by science. I believe now that the closest to total domination science will achieve will be to become almost religious in nature itself, or remain the same with religion being a major social “survival” from current times. Either way, religion, in my opinion, will not be completely discarded, whether it remains as an adaptation to deal with science on a larger scale, or as a series of social traditions that simply exist to fill the emotional void that science does not.

Traffic Cameras

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. It's almost as ridiculous as people believing that legalizing gay marriage will have homosexuals shagging in their front lawns. I found this group on Facebook today because a few friends had joined it. Link-

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=132243826789493

Taken from the group's page directly:

"An instrument to increase safety - or an instrument to make money?

Petitions such as these have already succeeded in cities in Louisiana, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, and Alaska. If the citizens in a particular city get enough votes on their petition then they could be granted a referendum to ban these cameras. And they’ll probably win too: Photo enforcement has never survived a public vote. How’s that for some good odds?"

First, I was amused, and then concerned. Why would people not like traffic cameras? They target the license plate, not your face- so yes, if you loaned someone your vehicle, you would receive the ticket that they would earn. However, all tickets are also timestamped with the exact time, date, and location of the offense. If you know who was driving your vehicle at that time, you know who to talk to about paying the ticket.

But this isn't the only issue that is discussed on this group's wall. They complain that they should have the right to their privacy. Again, only the plate is targeted. After a while, I realized that what a lot of these people were saying was "I don't want to get a ticket for speeding," meaning that people don't like the tickets because they make them have to pay the consequences of their actions.

There are several reasons why I'm in complete favor of traffic cameras.

First, they make the public more conscious of their driving, making them pay more attention to their speeds. This means that while I'm being more careful as a driver, so is everyone else. I don't have to drive as though every other driver is a complete moron, because there's a little bit more wiggle room.

Second, accidents happen. More precisely, hit and runs happen. I would rather know the license of the car that hit my child or my vehicle and then sped off than I would like to know nothing at all. Justice can begin to take place. I see absolutely nothing wrong with having a way to have an extra lead in a case in which someone may have died.

Therefore, to all of those who would complain about the traffic lights- If you don't like being ticketed for speeding, then drive like an adult and be quiet. Unless you're being completely irresponsible in your vehicle, you will not get ticketed. I'm sorry that the weight of the real world makes you sad, but everyone has to deal with it, you'll be fine.

Also, for those who wonder where the money from tickets goes... it goes into maintaining the roads that you like to speed on.

Friendship

Right now, a friend of mine is going through a very messy break-up. His ex is filing a no contact order because she doesn't want to see him again, and he showed it to us. Everything in it is either exaggerated beyond compare, or a complete lie (there've been witnesses who can attest that these things are not the truth). She doesn't want to see him face to face at the hearing, and I think it's because she knows that if he goes and pushes it, she'll be exposed. One of the things written was that she'd called the police because of him several times, but not once did this friend ever receive contact from the police department, even through phone. Thus, either that entire department is full of idiots who can't do their job, or the more likely thing is true: she lied. If she says the same thing in court, it's perjury, and she ends up in a lot of trouble. She's filing for some order that would request his consent to not be present during the hearing. Gee, I wonder why.

Now, he has every right to be upset by this. Before all of this, she was yo-yoing him for the last month as to whether or not they were together. She would never say that they were over, just that she needed space. And then a week before this happened, while he was staying at our house (their lease was up, so we were helping him move and whatnot, and gave him crash space because he's awesome), she called him saying she wanted him to come home because she missed him.

That doesn't exactly strike me as behavior from someone who's "afraid" of someone else, as she's claiming to be. I'm no where near happy with her, and I can promise that should we ever meet face to face, there will be words.

All of that said, the last big break up that this friend went through was really bad. I wasn't there for it, but I've heard the stories. He was pretty much clinically depressed, he wasn't sleeping, he wasn't eating, it took him months to get back to a schedule resembling anything like normality. With this one, he's handling it a lot better, but it's still been incredibly hard on him. He's never done a violent thing to anyone in the three years that I've known him, and friends who've known him longer can attest to a longer time period of no violence.

Right now, I'm flustered. Not by him in any way, of course, but by some of our other friends. They've decided to "institute a no sympathy ban" for this friend. They've told him to "man up and move on," and that's it. They expect him to heal because they told him to.

I'm incredibly disappointed in them, not the least because one of them has lost a parent in his life, and I would think that he would understand at least from that the fact that loss of any form requires sensitivity and patience. I know that he was no bag of sunshine during that, and so I don't see why he should expect our friend to be now.

Pain is pain. It doesn't care who you are, where you come from, or how you've lived your life. All that pain cares about is causing more pain, and making it hurt as hard as it can.

I don't believe in only being there for my friends when it's a good time for them. My fiance and I have been helping our friend out this entire time because we've always said that we had his back, and we meant it. I have never considered myself to be a fair-weather friend, but I can see that some of the people that I know clearly have no time for the thunder storms in the lives of their friends.

That's why I'm writing right now. I'm awful at keeping up blogs, but this is an incredibly good place for me to express what I need to in an entirely healthy fashion, and for that, I am thankful that blogs exist.

If any of you who are taking part in this ban on sympathy for our friend ever find and read this, I want you to know that I am incredibly disappointed in you. If you keep abandoning your friends when they already feel like they're losing everything, you're going to find yourselves in short supply of friends very quickly.

Arizona Suns wear "Los Suns" Jerseys

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Suns-will-wear-Los-Suns-unis-to-honor-Phoenix-?urn=nba,238682

Since the passing of the law that would allow Arizone police to randomly request proof of citizenship of anyone- regardless of whether they've committed a crime- there have been many outbursts against it. This one is perhaps one of the most well planned and peaceful protests I've seen in a very long time. In the competitive world of sports, it isn't often one sees the players working together to protest something in such a calm, rational manner. One would almost expect rashness from athletes, and I'm glad to have been proven wrong here.

What the Arizona Suns are doing is incredible. I've never seen such a clever protest in my life. Wearing the "Los Suns" jerseys in order to protest the law that supports racial profiling against Latinos is both clever, peaceful, and awe-inspiring. Not only that, but the idea was originally thought of by the team's owner, and then put to a vote with everyone involved with the Suns.

And, even more amazing (I didn't think it could get better, either), is that the executive director of the NBA himself spoke out against this law, and informed the world that "The National Basketball Players Association strongly supports the repeal or immediate modification of this legislation. Any attempt to encourage, tolerate or legalize racial profiling is offensive and incompatible with basic notions of fairness and equal protection."

You keep rocking on, Los Suns. You have my full support.

Self Image and Harrassment

Not that long ago, I made a post about sex and advertising, and how these things can really affect women negatively. I will always tell the women and men in my life to have confidence in themselves and to know that they're beautiful, because it's true. As everyone knows, that's not always easy to keep in mind.

Over a year ago, I was having some problems with a girl I knew who refused to do anything for herself (including getting a job) well into age 23. She'd never been employed before, and was receiving all of her money from her mom. That's all fine and good if you have a parent willing to support you well into your twenties, but remaining completely dependent, to me, is a bad thing. I had to have a job as soon as I was old enough, and it wasn't because my folks made me do it, but because I didn't want to be a burden on my mom (folks are divorced). When I turned 20, I moved out so that I wouldn't strain her resources. This is where a large part of the disagreement stemmed from, but the other part of it was this girl (I say girl because she's the only person I know who acts as old as she looks, which is to say 14) was telling a large number of people lies about me, and I'm not the hypocrite most people are when I say that when I have a problem with someone, I go talk to them about it. She didn't like being called out on it, and she didn't like that I wanted an apology, since she was clearly faultless and could do no wrong whatsoever.

Now, I was on Facebook's 'Social Profile' application(s). Shortly after our falling out, I suddenly had a lot of anonymous posts on my social profile. Most of them were votes against me for just about everything, but some of them had one-word messages attached to them. "ugly" and "fat" (the perpetrator didn't use capitalization) were prevalent throughout anything attached to appearance. Everything else simply didn't have an explanation. All of them were from the same IP Address, and dates were logged between my first contact with this girl about the problems I had with her until the point of my removing her from my friends list and then blocking her completely. Gee, I wonder who could have POSSIBLY been responsible for those.

Not only that, but there were various messages sent to me insulting my appearance, my intelligence, etc;, all sent from the same person.

I don't take kindly to harassment; I never will. Sure enough, the IP Address belonged to her computer at the time, and the account used was hers. I currently have the beginnings of a harassment case built up on screen caps and the various correspondences she's sent me, and should this behavior continue, she has been more or less warned that I will be filing the case with the police. They're already aware of it, but agree that I should have more before filing officially.

I bring this all up because today I went onto Facebook and was going to see if removing the application and rejoining would erase my previous account with them. Nope. I ended up reading every single letter of those insults again even just by scrolling through to see if they were gone. So, now I feel incredibly self-conscious, which is what she wants, which just pisses me off even more. On the plus side, I have my life together, and she doesn't. I'm in school (Dean's List 5/5 semesters so far), and she's a drop out. I'm self-sufficient (most of the time), and she's still suckling on her momma's teat.

At the end of the day, no matter how I feel about myself physically, I just need to remember those kinds of things. Venting here helps a lot.

Nisba Clicker Training Session #2: Targeting and Touching

Nisba and I met in my room for our clicker session this time, so that he would be less prone to distraction. Almost immediately, he went for the targeting, following the spoon all around the bed. I though that since he was more than willing to follow the spoon around the bed, that he might be ready to follow it further.

Sure enough, he followed the spoon onto the bed and off of the bed, and then around the bedroom a bit. I didn't necessarily click every time he touched the spoon with his nose, but rather when he was following it around for different lengths of time. I'm not sure if that will reinforce following the object or if it will undermine touching the object, but following is enough for me.

We took a break, me wanting to keep him interested in the game without pushing too far (I'm new at this, so there's only so much I can come up with for him to do with targeting without planning ahead). When I was sitting down on the couch, he jumped into my lap, and I decided that this would be the perfect time to try getting him used to being touched all over, since he gets finicky about his belly and chest.

I had Mark go get the clicker and treats, and started to work with him. He let me touch his chin and his chest, and I broke up the behaviors with normal petting along the head and back to calm him down (he got to trying to search out the treats, so I needed to calm him down so that he would display the behavior I wanted, rather than making the mistake of reinforcing his searching). Whenever he bit, I would put him down and not have anything to do with him. He waited a bit, and then came back to my lap (this happened twice), and we would start over.

So far, he hasn't tried biting Mark or my other room mates since our session's end. I think this is a good step in the right direction. :) I also finished reading the clicker training book, and reread some of the earlier training things to refresh myself so that I can remember it better. I have high hopes for Nisba; he's already responding very well to it, even if it's just for the treats (he's kind of a pig; we keep him on a feeding schedule at a set amount of food per day for a reason) at this point.

I think he understands the game, though. When I was petting his head and back, he watched me as if trying to figure out what random place I was going to touch next. It was kind of cool. I know he's a smart cat ("smart cat" seems redundant in many ways), and I know he's starting to respond mentally to the training already, but it's hard to explain beyond the way he was watching me. It was the same as when someone watches you while trying to figure out something about you personally.

Next session, should I have time, is tomorrow. :) I'm hoping to work on touching and teaching him to come when called, while also maintaining targeting practice.

Nisba Clicker Training Session #1: Clicker and Targeting

I have decided that the best way for me to reinforce positive behaviors in my cat (Nisba) is to do so through the use of clicker training. I've read nothing but positive things in regards to clicker training, and have been trying to find a way to better train my cat for a while now. Yesterday, my fiance and I picked up a book on it, and I read it today at work (I work in a gallery where few people come in on Saturdays, and I am allowed to do homework).

We just had our first session. The first session is all about getting him to understand what the clicker means, and then trying to teach him targeting (that is, getting him trained to follow an object). Every training session will further unlock his understanding in what is going on; the clicker training method establishes a bargain using something that the cat really likes, such as a favorite treat. You click the behavior you want to see again, and that tells the cat that "if you do that again, you'll get a treat," while simultaneously rewarding the behavior the first time you click it to establish that bargain.

So far, it's been as successful as it can be:

I took him down to the basement to work with him, thinking it would be shut off from distractions (I forgot that my fiance was doing laundry and a friend of ours was using his computer in his room, which is downstairs). That was my mistake. He'd been fed an hour prior, but I know Nisba well enough to know that he won't turn down treats.

Regardless, I followed the instructions to get him to associate the clicker with treats, and then put the pause between the click and the treat, so that he would know that the clicker means a treat will happen, but the clicker itself does not mean "treat."

After that, we started with targeting. I'm using a spoon for the target, since he won't encounter spoons nearly so often as pencils, for instance. I started with the spoon fairly close to his face (not too close as to let him sniff from where he was, though), and he leaned out to sniff it. I clicked, and gave him a treat. After that, I extended the distance by about two inches. He leaned out to sniff- click!- and treat. The third time I extended the distance again by an inch or two, and the same happened. The fourth time, I moved the spoon to the other side of him so that he had to actively come to it, and he did.

At that point, he got incredibly distracted by my fiance and our friend who were talking between rooms, and wandered off. Since forcing the training will not be a good idea, I figured that was a good place to end the session. I think he's going to respond very well to clicker training once he fully understands what it means and what a game it will become.

Now we just need to work on teaching him not to bite. @_@;;; It's hard to clicker train for that, since clicker training is about positive reinforcement. Maybe getting him to a point where I can teach him "stop" would work? Or would that end up translating more to "no"? I don't want to teach him playtime is bad, but I'm not sure if just walking away from him when he starts biting will help or not.

Women, Sexuality, and Media

I'm going to start this off with the comment that I left on a discussion board, and then continue from there, because I feel that I'd like to continue, but I didn't want the originator of the thread to think I was attacking their viewpoint by putting everything that I'd thought of in a comment, since most of it didn't apply to what she'd said.

"Personally, I view sexual confidence as being more a master of your own sexuality. What I mean by that is that it's been common knowledge (with studies confirming it, of course) for years that men masturbate more than women. A large part of that is because young women aren't told about masturbation, and coupled with the typical teaching that sex is bad and masturbation makes you a sexual deviant, they simply don't do it. The sad thing about that is that once they get into a sexual relationship, they rely upon their partner to give them sexual pleasure. They feel that the only way to feel that is with another person, which is a subconscious factor in why many women stay in relationships that are horrible for them, be they with a man or another woman.

Studies have shown that women who are the masters of their sexuality, who can experience sexual pleasure without the need of a partner, tend to be far more confident in themselves and far more independent. These are the women who are more prone to realizing that their existence is not justified by having a partner, but by their own actions and choices.

That said, and on a slightly unrelated note, I prop Queen Latifah as a good role model for women everywhere. She's a bigger gal who's always been "overweight," but she's confident in herself, which is one of the sexiest things I can think of. She supports being healthy, not degrading ones' self by trying to reach impossible standards, and she's very down to earth about it. Not only that, but she's incredibly intelligent. If you ever have the chance to listen to/watch one of her interviews, I highly recommend it. She's very well educated and knows what she's talking about. :)

In regards to pornography, one of the key things to take into account is oral sex. How often do women perform oral sex as opposed to men in pornography? It seems more and more that a pre-intercourse blow-job is becoming the standard, but very rarely is this ever reciprocated. Most pornographies follow the template of seduction, blow-job, intercourse, end. I'm not saying that there are no pornographies in which men perform oral sex on women, but they are by far fewer and farther between.

Also, compare movies played on television. How many times will you see a woman's bare breasts as compared to a man's sexual organs? I've seen all of two movies played on television in which I saw testicles or full penis, but I couldn't count how many bare breasts I've seen on television. Pornography is filmed sex; there will always be penis. However, day-time or even late-night television is a completely different story, and that's what more people are exposed to."

As I was typing the last paragraph, a thought had occurred to me that I'd never thought of before: Why are there so many 'girly mags' but so very few magazines for women in which there are naked men all over the place? There are dozens of magazines like Playboy, Maxim, Penthouse, Hustler, etc;, but the only magazine I can think of of that nature for women is Playgirl, and in the U.S., it seems like that's it (Also, according to a male friend of mine, Hustler has the best spreads).

Not only that, but there are restaurants like Hooters, in which women are further objectified by being made to wear low-cut shirts and short shorts, and yet there's no equivalent for women.

Now, I don't support equal objectification of both sexes as "equality." In fact, quite the opposite. I think that to objectify any human being regardless of sex or race, is to dehumanize them and therefore promote violence against them. However, if full equality can't be reached, then we should at least try to make things a fair playing field.

In regards to our appearances, I find that most advertisements are for women's products, such as make-up. It almost seems to me that our culture wants to keep women busy with their looks just as much as it promotes judgment of their looks. How much time do women spend putting their make-up on? How much time do they waste worrying over their appearance and making themselves "acceptable"-looking so that they can go out of the house?

There was an article in (I believe it was Time Magazine, but I haven't been able to find it online to link it) several years back in which Muslim women were interviewed. During this interview, when asked what they thought of the American opinion that they were oppressed, they asked a very good question. They asked about the oppression of American women, who feel that they can't leave their homes until they've put on all of that make-up. Is that not the American veil?

I'd like to see more women be comfortable with themselves. I sound like a hypocrite when I say this because I know that I'm the first person to feel bad about my appearance, but as a whole women need to become more confident in themselves and more comfortable. Women need to overall be more independent of men, because being too dependent only hurts us in the end.

In the movie 'Hairspray,' (as seen above) Queen Latifah sings "Big, Blonde, and Beautiful," a song about how-

"They say that white has might
And thin is in
Well, that's just bull
'Cause ladies big is back
And as for black
It's beautiful!

All shapes and sizes
Follow me!
Who wants a twig
When you can climb a whole tree?"

This is a very inspirational song sung by a very inspirational woman in my eyes. Queen Latifah has spent her life dealing with her weight, and advocates that you don't have to be thin to be healthy; but you do have to love the body you have, because it's the only one you get.

We don't need to judge ourselves and be judged by our appearances every single day. There are more important things to do in life (like living it).

And on that note, I'd like to leave you with a poem called "Homage to My Hips," by Lucille Clifton:

Illness

As of this Wednesday, I will have been sick for two full weeks. The doctors at the Student Health Center don't know what it is other than that it isn't Mono and it isn't Strep, but apparently my blood is "incredibly viral" and my platelets are low.

I've been to the Student Health Center twice, and they've drawn blood out of both arms now. I'm going to be going to a real hospital soon, and hopefully I'll find out what's going on with me. I've developed several new symptoms (cough, bathroom problems, dizziness) over the last week, and so I hope that they'll give me some kind of medication to fix me.

I've missed a lot of classes this semester, but I've been keeping up relatively well with the homework. I need to get better, though, so hopefully when I go in Tuesday (tomorrow/today depending on your viewpoint of the time in which I'm posting this), they can cure me. That would be awesome.

Yours,

Callie

Big News

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo started a project within the last year or so in which they planned to begin DNA testing on the mummy of King Tutankhamun in order to prove his lineage, as it has been heavily disputed throughout the years. Many Archaeologists believe that Tutankhamun's father was Akhenaten, the pharaoh who attempted to introduce monotheism to Egypt during a period now labeled the Amarna period. However, other experts believe that Tutankhamun is the child of a lesser known Pharaoh who followed Akhenten.

The results of the DNA testing and CAT scans will be announced February 17th by the Egyptian Museum's Chief of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass. Zahi Hawass is the same individual who discovered the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut after archeologists found her tomb, but not her. He is also the individual who has been working relentlessly to have ancient Egyptian artifacts and pieces returned to Egypt after discovering their illegal removal from Egypt. He is currently working on having the famous bust of Nefertiti returned to Egypt from Germany.

In addition to using DNA and CAT scans to determine the true lineage of King Tut, Hawass intends to DNA test every single mummy in the Egyptian Museum, including those who are currently unidentified, in order to learn more about the true identities of each individual. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo has a DNA facility funded by the Discovery Channel, and these tests mark an important step in further understanding the history of our world.

Beginnings

This is my first post in a personal blog, not counting LiveJournal. I had never been aware of Blogger until taking my Visual Literacy course at UNI, in which we have to create a blog for the class in order to do blog-based assignments.

I don't typically 'blog' or post anything on online journals, really, but I think that it will be cool to have a blog of my own to record my thoughts and ideas. It will also give me a chance to test out my Russian as well. :)