Papers by Veikko Anttonen
In the article the issue of sacrality is explored from the points of view of cultural anthropolog... more In the article the issue of sacrality is explored from the points of view of cultural anthropology and cognitive science of religion. Culture-specific contents of meaning bestowed on the notion of “sacred ” are not approached as religious representations in which some theo-logically defined agent, metaphysical entity or otherworldly level of existence is believed to manifest itself to human beings. Instead, various attributions of sacrality are explored as representations of the general mental capacity of human beings to set apart places and sites in specific locations and points of terrain in local topography in order to mark ritual spaces and establish rules of conduct for their maintenance as well as for specific social values and categorizations on which the inviolability of behavioral norms is based.
continuum oLLLoNDoN. Nbw yoRKuu^.{-I s,8urx puE proJplrnC.pt-I selpplg dq urulr.rg lBarg ur punoq... more continuum oLLLoNDoN. Nbw yoRKuu^.{-I s,8urx puE proJplrnC.pt-I selpplg dq urulr.rg lBarg ur punoq pue paturrcl xassg (uep1e/( \ uo{Jes.pl1 a,ua5erlueC dq rasad.{;
Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion
Pascal Boyer - why do gods and spirits matter at all? supernatural gadgets and social mind adapta... more Pascal Boyer - why do gods and spirits matter at all? supernatural gadgets and social mind adaptations Ilkka Pyysiainen - religion and the counter-intuitive Justin L. Barrett - dumb gods, petitionary prayer, and the cognitive science of religion Stewart Guthrie - animal animism: evolutionary roots of religious cognition Pertti Saariluoma - does classification explicate the contents of concepts? E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley - cognitive constraints on religious ritual form - a theory of participants' competence with religious systems Harvey Whitehouse - implicit and explicit knowledge in the domain of ritual Jeppe Sinding Jensen - the complex worlds of religion - connecting cultural and cognitive analysis Veikko Anttonen - identifying the generative mechanisms of religion - the issue of origin revisited Jesper Sorensen - "the morphology and function of magic" revisited Matti Kamppinen - explaining religion - cognitive and evolutionary mechanisms.
The Sacred and its Scholars
Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion
No abstract available
Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion
Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion
The article discusses methodological similarities and differences between Uno Harva and Mircea El... more The article discusses methodological similarities and differences between Uno Harva and Mircea Eliade, with the objective of reassessing the value of their comparativist programs for the study of religion in general and of 'religious' cognition in particular. The Finnish scholar Uno Holmberg-Harva (1882-1949) was a predecessor to Eliade as a scholar of Asian and European religious history. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, when the academic study of religion was still maturing in Europe, Harva expanded considerably the field of the ethnological study of religion with his religio-phenomenological monographs Der Baum des Lebens (1922), Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology (1927) and Die Religiösen Vorstellungen der Altaischen Völker (1938). Harva was a towering figure in Finnish scholarship. Originally a Protestant theologian and Lutheran minister, he resigned from his ecclesiastical position to become a historian of religion, field ethnographer, ethnosociolo...
Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion
In the article the issue of sacrality is explored from the points of view of cultural anthropolog... more In the article the issue of sacrality is explored from the points of view of cultural anthropology and cognitive science of religion. Culture-specific contents of meaning bestowed on the notion of "sacred" are not approached as religious representations in which some theologically defined agent, metaphysical entity or otherworldly level of existence is believed to manifest itself to human beings. Instead, various attributions of sacrality are explored as representations of the general mental capacity of human beings to set apart places and sites in specific locations and points of terrain in local topography in order to mark ritual spaces and establish rules of conduct for their maintenance as well as for specific social valus and categorizations on which the inviolability of behavioral norms is based.
Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion
her fifty years' work in academia can best be seen not only in her outstanding scholarly books an... more her fifty years' work in academia can best be seen not only in her outstanding scholarly books and publications but also in the contributions of her colleagues, disciples, and students and in their dedication to share and continue her intellectual heritage. In serving the scholarly community through her positions in national and international academic institutions, Professor Siikala was a formative figure in the organisation of graduate schools for doctoral training in the anthropological and ethnological sciences. She
Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion
Along with the Lutheran world the Nordic countries celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of t... more Along with the Lutheran world the Nordic countries celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation on 31st October 2017. In this article I shall examine the impact of Luther’s reform on the formation of mentality and the moral landscape in the Nordic countries. Special reference is made to the impact of Lutheranism on the indigenous Sámi culture, a topic which has been explored extensively by Håkan Rydving, the expert in Sámi language and religion.
Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis
When taken at face value, the sacred seems to be an unproblematic concept. Times, places, persons... more When taken at face value, the sacred seems to be an unproblematic concept. Times, places, persons, animals and objects are classified as `sacred', because they have or have had a religious or spiritual significance for people in specific historical and social contexts. Religious traditions and their systems of signification are taken to explain why people have set aside specific things and considered them qualitatively different from other things. Deeming something as sacred means that it is disconnected from the category in social life in which similar things are classified and bestowed with special meaning and value. Sacredness of an object means that it stands in direct relationship to specific power-laden super-human entity by which members in a given culture mirror their self-consciousness or some aspects of it. A sanctuary for instance is a place that is set apart from the rest of the social space, because it is valued as a point of contact between man and the super-human ...
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Papers by Veikko Anttonen