Doktorand i religionssociologi vid Uppsala universitet skriver om ufo

 

"For instance, Bader, Mencken and Baker (2011: 195) found that subsets of paranormal beliefs appeal more to relatively marginalized people, such as psychic powers or ghosts, while elites are more prone to experience certain purportedly paranormal phenomena, such as out-of-body experiences or witnessing UFOs."

"’ Investigating and analysing claims of UFO phenomena or hauntings could further, from a strategical viewpoint, demonstrate the instrumental value of religious studies or, as Laycock (p. 13) himself puts it: ‘Can we be trusted to speak on the historical, cultural and political signifcance of religion if we cannot even talk about UFOs?´"

"A good example of the conceptual use of family resemblance comes from anthropologist of religion Benson Saler (Saler et al. 1997), and his analysis of a particular mythic narrative within contemporary ufology; namely that of a UFO-crash 1947 at Roswell, New Mexico. Te occurrence of a mythic (albeit not supernatural) narrative, non-hypothetical (i.e. practicably unfalsifable) truth-claims, superhuman beings (the extraterrestrials) and the evocation of powerful emotions are the shared features of a particular ufological narrative and religion, making the Roswell myth ‘an efort at enchantment in an increasingly postmodern world’ (p. 149). Saler elsewhere (2000: 213) suggests that the scholar of religion employs what he calls a prototypical approach, that is, to view the category of religion as a ‘pool of elements’: phenomena are compared to ‘prototypical examples’ (such as Christianity or Islam), that the phenomena may resemble to a lesser or greater degree. Religion thus becomes an ‘unbounded category’ (p. 25). Accordingly, phenomena could be classifed as ‘more or less’ religious. Te main point here is, through analogy, that referents within the category of ‘the paranormal’ might be brought together through common traits, or family resemblance, rather than any set and strict criteria." 

Källa Cristoffer Tidelius 2020. Han är doktorand i religionssociologi vid Uppsala universitet och forskar bland annat om UFO-Sverige:

Scripta_29_online.pdf (doria.fi)

https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/178020/Scripta_29_online.pdf