Talk:Animism

message: Just checking up on this page (I think I may have done a little editing a while back) and wanted to comment to whom it may concern that it's looking great!
Love the Quinn reference, too — it helps to actually consult an example of a perspective when actually trying to describe the phenomenon of that perspective to others (instead of only presenting scholarly outsiders views of what something is, a sadly common practice here on Wikipedia in my experience. It would be fantastic, for example, if somewhere in that leading paragraphs of the animism article there were a quote or two from an actual indigenous person describing how they experience the world as a spiritual place (or as Quinn translated it, a divine and sacred place).
Now if we could only get away with touching up the antifeminism and men's rights pages...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.11.81.104 (talk) 18:10, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I found the phrase 'All Native American religions are fundamentally animistic' a little unencyclopedic. This may or may not be true, but such a blunt fact could do with even a little more info. To what extent? Any examples? And how do they differ?
:: My Native American ancestors believed in 'The Great Spirit'.  They were (are) spiritualists, not animists.  They see some animals as being more or less on an equivalent spiritual journey as are we humans, but whereas they might revere some animals, they do not worship them as gods.  Consider a Raven, a highly intelligent bird.  It will alert predators as to your whereabouts, when you happen into it's territory, in the interest of picking your bones when the predators are done with you.  However, if you feed it a time or two, and become part of it's surroundings, it will then change tactics and show you where prey (moose) can be found.  It will also sound alarms when wolves, bears, approach.  I do not need to cite these abilities for myself, as I have lived with Ravens for many years.  I'm sure there are many who can concur.  With that in mind, my 'people' , more or less, consider animals as a form of person with a spirit, not a spirit in the form of an animal.  There is absolutely no mystical/metaphysical mumbo jumbo in the relationship.  Hollywood/ Bush Hippies/ Empowerment Marketing Experts try to romanticize such factors into play, but none of that has anything to do with the evolved relationship we have with the Raven.  They are just really smart flying eaters of road-kill and scraps. swampfoot (talk) 02:22, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Americans? 

message: I changed Karen Armstrong's title from "freelance author Karen Armstrong" to "feminist author Karen Armstrong" - now, that isn't totally accurate, either, but she is NOT a "freelance author," by any means. She calls herself a "freelance monotheist" which is something completely different. Perhaps she should just be listed as "author" and leave off the adjective altogether? 
71.110.1.32 (talk) 16:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You have not explained why she is not a freelance author. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  She is feminist and Theist ? I feel such two factors are well cited here as a means to alert the reader of her probable bias.  'Freelance' also implies to me that she is a-political, which of course she would not be as a feminist monotheist.
An author's political ideology (e.g. feminism) has nothing to do with whether a writer is freelance or not. It is also nonsensical to suggest that one ideology (e.g. feminism) is more likely to create "probable bias" than another ideology (e.g. anti-feminism).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.159.200 (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

text: There was no such suggestion that feminism in particular creates bias. I can see reading that into what was actually said, as if the op added the "in particular", which is not actually present in any way, therefor read in mentally and inferred (correctly or not). 73.11.81.104 (talk) 18:27, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animism and the origin of Religion 

message: I have removed a linkfrom suggested reading section, which is no longer active. Please put it back if you can find it in a new web adress. Thanks..Ciup (talk) 16:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested reading section 

message: what is John Maynard Keynes's animal spirits? Jackzhp (talk) 19:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That book is an economics treatise, not a critique of animism one way or another. It's title comes from the fact that economic actors (which are humans, or else groups of them) do not act in a completely non-emotional rational manner, as earlier classical economic models expected. So, it's not really relevant to this Article. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 05:06, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: [[John Maynard Keynes]]

message: I have removed from the Mythology subtopic a sentence which read "For instance, Australian mythology focuses largely on corporeal, non-spiritual beings." because it is incorrect. The Australian Aborigines have ancestral spirits, human, flora or fauna in form Dean, Colin [http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/books/religion/DREAMTIME1.pdf "The Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime (Its History, Cosmogenesis, Cosmology and Ontology)" 1996, Gamahucher Press, West Geelong, Victoria, Australia, at page 2
--AlotToLearn (talk) 02:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of sentence 

message: re , I have actually written much of Wiki page "Asatru"/"Germnic Neopaganism". The article does not present any evidence to support your claim. Of course, all neopagan flavours attempt to revive historical animism, but there is nothing to suggest that Germanic neopaganism does this more than others. 
Re , "Neoshamanism is not a religion": is that so now? In this case, Neopaganism as a whole "is not a religion". This depends entirely of your personal definition of "religion". For narrower definitions, animism and religion are mutually exclusive because religion proper develops out of animism anthropologically. 
Now please stop pushing Neopaganism on this page. It may be mentioned, but it isn't the focus of this page. If you have literature discussing Neopaganism in terms of animism, be sure to discuss it at Neopaganism, and after you did that, we can post a brief summary of your findings here.  --dab (𒁳) 15:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Neopaganism

message: Although the definition "the theory of the universal animation of nature" has been attributed to Tylor in some sources, that phrase does not seem to actually appear in Primitive Culture.  I updated the  quotation to his actual words (which are pretty similar in concept) for the sake of accuracy and added a reference. Numenetics (talk) 21:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tylor Quotation 

message: So, animism assigns spirits to non-living particles (rocks and such). Is there a name for the idea that spirits exist only in biological beings but not exclusively humans? If so, there should be a Link from this Article to an Article on that idea. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 02:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: First off, you're right. The words for "life" and "soul" are the same in the original Hebrew, and God breathed life/soul into the brutes and then into humans. It is only by reading the Bible in English (and other modern languages) that people find what seems to say that souls are solely human. However, Jesus only had to save humans because, due to our conscious relationship with God in this life and our guilt from Original Sin, only humans can go to Perdition (as opposed to being absolutely gaurenteed Paradise or at least a positive state of being). In other words, only humans can go to Hell anyway and that's why he only had to save humans. In the interest of WP: Not a Forum, however, I ask that you reply to this on my own Talk Page if you choose to reply. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 23:37, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rocks and thunder... 

message: This article used to list at least three different definitions of animism. Now the article gives only one explicit definition: the belief that non-human entities have souls. Now, this is by far the best-known definition of animism, but it isn't the only one. As the article itself notes further down, Tylor defined animism as the belief in souls or spirits in general; clearly, by this definition, a religion could be animistic without involving non-human souls. Moreover, Britannica defines animism as "belief in the existence of spirits separable from bodies". This definition is, of course, completely different from the definition given in this article. Is there a reason why only one definition is given in this article? I'd be happy to edit the article to include other definitions, but I don't want to do so and then come back later to find that the other definitions have mysteriously disappeared again. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 03:33, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why only one definition? 

message: Hi editors,
I have linked some African religion articles in particular Serer religion to Animism.  The Serer religion in particular is a great example of true Animism. Every single thing has soul and deserves respect, etc. But is this article written from a European paganistic view point to the exclusion of others? Perhaps I am one of few who believe that the article does not actually deal with the subject. Tamsier (talk) 11:39, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this article written from a European perspective? 

message: From its definition isn't animism a theological philosophy and not a religion. The lead defines it as "Animism (from Latin anima "soul, life")[1] is the religious belief that natural phenomena, including animals, plants, and sometimes even inanimate natural objects, possess a spiritual essence." To my knowledge two major world faiths: Hinduism and Buddhism have such beliefs central to them. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added some information in the opening of the article regarding your inquiry. The fact is, it may be regarded as a belief or a religion. Wolfdog (talk) 05:37, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Dean C. Halverson in "Animism: The Religion of the Tribal World", Animism is a religion that stands alone. http://www.ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/15_2_PDFs/01_Halverson_05.pdf --Amaruca (talk) 00:54, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy and not religion 

message: Under "Examples of animist traditions" at the bottom it says "The Aluk religion in the Toraja society", but Aluk links to an island of Greenland but Toraja links to an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia.  Is it just me, or do these pages seem to be completely unrelated?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.3.229 (talk) 05:58, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples of animist traditions 

message: "Science and Animism" is misleading/suggestive that animism is a scientific principle or validated through scientific theory.  While interesting to cite some scientists who proponents of dualism, there is no scientific theory of dualism--I believe it is merely a philosophy and therefore opinion and not "science."  I am not even sure why this section is here. (It comes off as an agenda by someone to suggest to readers that animism is scientific.  Perhaps,
at the very least, rename the heading to "Scientists who are dualists" or something like that.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.200.131.79 (talk) 23:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Science(???)" and Animism (or Dualism?) 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Many of the references seem out of date and have to additional links to verify the veracity of the content. The information does not seem to have been updated thoroughly in quite some time.
However the information does seem objective in nature, not providing any firm bias and even strives to include various forms and view points of the intended subject.
Pnick ramirez2097 (talk) 04:57, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evaluation of the Article 

message: The very first sentence of this article seems to be constantly under bombardment from new edits. I'm wondering whether some group of users can talk about the lead sentence to make this a little more stable and reinforce on the basis of a consensus against frequent new edits. Terms like "religion" (let alone the recent inclusion of "world's oldest religion") seem too controversial for the very first sentence, compared with less controversial terms like "religious worldview". Such terms can be explained later on in the article anyway. My initial proposal, though I'm very open to suggestions, is, unsurprisingly, the wording I have just changed it back to myself (I'll include here the first two sentences): 
Does this work? Other thoughts or concerns? Wolfdog (talk) 17:37, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I request the editors to start creating and contributing to this new section. 
* Create a new section - capture eco-friendly core essence:' The core essence of the animism is sustainable eco-friendly. Articles touches upon but circuits/dances around this core theme of the animism without truly capturing this essence in the encyclopedic article. 
* Create a new section - Inclusion and comparision of animism into major religions:' We also need a separate section to investigate relationship of animism with majoor religions (asian religion - indian/chinese/japanese) organically grew out of o animistic practices whereas abrahmic religions are based on one-male founder with my way or highway (if hyou dont folow my mesenger then you are all going to hell even if you are a good human) which derogate and shun the snimistic practices as "pagan" though to trick neoconverts into their fold these abrahmic religions initially do adopt animistic pratices as in Christianization as a bait witht he view to later reform the neoconverts into more radicalised elements by perging enimistic (ecofriendly sustainable) elements. 
* 19th century Christian-0colinal term "animism" is derogatory, consider alternatives based on finding supporting citations  The term Animism was coined by the western-juedo-christian 19th century (era of exploitative colonization and Christianization) where the colonial clergy-cum-soldier invaders so-called "civilized" the so-called "heathen savages" (mostly regions of animistic religions in Africa and america as well as the animism based regirions of Asian religions).
* Caution/self-reminder to us all - Avoid subcosncious bias of own religion: I understand editors have written the article in goodfaith but please use self-censorship to avoid any subconscious religoous hangover/bias to portray animism as preimitive derogatory paganism. Modern lifesytyle with flashy clean building with toxic air, water, chemical food is more dirty comapred to the highly cultured (in diferent ways than so-called "modern" us) indigenous animistic societies (aborigines of Australia, India, America, Africa, etc) are lot more cleaner, wiser, sustainable. 
I might start editing later this week. Feel free to start editing beore that. Welcome to enhance/revire/critique my edits. Lets not use this as the "literature review of everything"" but capture the final conclusion in the body of the article by breifly discussing all alternative views in the body of the text and incldue the final verdict in the lede. Thanks. 222.164.212.168 (talk) 10:34, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section on "Sustainable eco-friendliness"needed 

message: If we're interested in really learning something Animism, are we going to learn anything at all by approaching the question from the favored perspective that scientific rationalist "septic skeptic" Wikipedia absolutely ALWAYS promotes? This article is mainly concerned with what the scientific mind should make of Animism. It misses the point entirely that people mostly going to check out animism for inner reasons, not to write a thesis on the gradual evolution of the academic appraisal of animism in western anthropology! Where is the info about common paleolithic beliefs and practices? Where is the info stating the parallels in animism common to all ancient cultures throughout the globe? I'm not advocating that this page turn into some sort of unrestrained tie-dye pro-mushroom soapbox, but how about some unbiased consideration for simple human spirituality once in a while?
So friends, if you came to Wikipedia hoping to increase your spiritual awareness in some fashion, you've evidently made a terrible mistake! It's time to search elsewhere! lol (^o^)/
 - Nonentity  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:6582:8580:C00:C890:E05B:27CF:142C (talk) 05:47, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is a parody of itself... 

message: What are needed are the concepts of "feeling" and "color", from the reliable sources that pertain to animism.
If anyone else is interested or has viable material I would be glad to help / you can ping me.
Best, Altanner1991 (talk) 09:18, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further portions are needed to reflect "animism" 

message: I feel this entry lacks a "Criticism" section. I'm no anthropologist, so I can't even begin to write one myself. I came to this entry after reading some criticism of "Animism" expecting to find out if there are other critics and/or rebuttals of those.
J. D. Unwin claims it to be "unacceptable" and "inadmissible" (in his work Sex and Culture, that specific entry also lacking in the extension of his work and wrongly stating some of his claims). Let me quote some of his criticism (para. 152): "1. In the opinion of zoistic uncivilized men there was a strange, mysterious, dangerous quality in anything unusual [...]. This quality was manifest in outstanding natural features, in stones of unusual shape or uncommon type [...]. 2. The word which denoted this quality is untranslatable. The translations which have been made [rslemos: ghost/s, spirit/s, god/s] are unacceptable and misleading [...]. On these translations Sir. E.B.Tylor founded his theory of animism. [...] Upon the animistic theory also some other unacceptable theories in regard to human culture have been based, uncivilized men being represented as (a) inquiring into the causes of things, the truth being that they accept the 'usual' without question or inquiry; (b) conducting a worship of nature _qua_ nature, whereas they revere only those natural features which possess unusual characteristics; (c) conceiving of a ubiquity of 'spirits', whereas the power in the universe was manifest only in 'unusual' places. 3. It has been suggested that as man evolved from a primeval condition animism was replaced by polytheism and [...] gave way to monotheism. Such evolutionary theories are inadmissible because (a) there is no reason to suppose that the ideas of that hypothetical organism, primeval man, were the same as those of uncivilized societies; (b) the replacement of animism by polytheism is based on the false assumption that 'spiritual beings' were ubiquitous; (c) they are founded on a study of 'beliefs' which cannot be accurately studied apart from the rites which are based upon them [in this regard the author is very critic of many anthropologists of his time]; (d) even if the beliefs have been reported without preconceptions or subjective intrusion on the part of the observer, there is no definite criterion by which we may judge whether an idea is that of a spirit of that of a god; (e) they assume (i) that all uncivilized ideas are primitive and therefore identical, (ii) that our own culture is founded on a different basis from that of uncivilized culture; whereas the truth is that uncivilized ideas vary between wide limits and that our own culture is founded on the same basis as uncivilized culture. [...]" Rslemos (talk) 13:46, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I support including that content, presuming the use of only reliable sources. It would be better to include it in the article itself because Wikipedia:Neutral point of view discourages lumping disagreements into a "divided" portion; instead, things should try to be worked into the article based on the appropriate WP:Balance. Altanner1991 (talk) 01:24, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism