Economic Theory:
According to the economic theory of religion by Ogundo Co
2003, when the religious population of a country out numbers the population of
the irreligious people, there will occur massive spending on religious activities.
Hence, when spending on religious activities exceeds the total government
budget spending of a country, it indicates mass poverty and the religious
population are compelled to worship God in order to achieve financial success.
Animist theory; the theory from Edwin Tylor and James Frazer
who wrote ‘The Golden Bough’ detailing the practice of Totteism, that is, snake
or tortoise being the personal god of a family, which to man’s believe in the
eminence of spiritual powers in natural objects. That is, the evolving man
conceived the idea that there is something spiritual or metaphysical about natural
objects which consistently kept them in awe of the orderliness in existence
which means that the ancient man observed that existence is well ordered and
functioning according to unseen natural laws which made him believe that there
must be spiritual elements eminent in the ojects.
Psychological theory;
Sigmund Freud and Carl John brought up the issue of Psycho
analysis under what we call the human sub-consciousness whereby superficially,
people claim to be one thing, while sub-consciously, they are someting else. It
takes difficult situations in life to bring out the real human being from you.
The sociological theory;
The real meaning of sociology is that man can exist and
survive without religion and God. For
hundred years, Protestants and Catholics fought series of battles in Europe
from 1529 to 1700 after which religion got shattered in Europe, the consequence
being that Europe rejected religion and God. August Comte and other sociologist
propounded the positive theory which means that we need scientific reasoning
rather than religious reasoning because religion shattered Europe. Europe then
moved into capitalism, socialism, e.t.c
However,before this socialist theory came, the man called
James Fraza wrote a book called ‘The Golden Bough’ which detailed traditional
theories on Torteism. Torteism means that in the evolution of man, survival of
societies depended on the adoption of tortems
which means personal family god or community deities which serve as
guides and survival e.g a particular family can have the monkey as her family
tortem which means that they see in that monkey the spirits of their dead
ancestors. Therefore, the monkey becomes the family god or tortem.A very
classical example is among the Abakeleke people whereby the snake is the
personal tortem of the Izee people.
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