Final answer:
The gap between what people say and what they do concerning their religious beliefs is an issue within cultural anthropology that tries to reconcile emic (insider) and etic (outsider) perspectives. It involves the interpretation of religious symbols and practices, as highlighted by the work of anthropologists like Clifford Geertz and Émile Durkheim.
Step-by-step explanation:
In his discussion of religious symbolism, Firsth highlights the anthropological approach to religion, which tries to empirically examine the difference between what people say they do and their actual actions. This discrepancy is referred to as the gap between 'stated' and 'enacted' beliefs and practices. Such a gap is often acknowledged within the field of cultural anthropology when discussing the contrast between emic (insider) and etic (outsider) perspectives on religious beliefs and practices. This gap can be quite vast, and bridging it requires careful and sensitive interpretation of religious symbols and practices.
Anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz and Émile Durkheim emphasized the importance of understanding the symbols and social functions that religion fulfills within a community. Religion is not just about belief in supernatural beings; it is about practices and institutions that unite people and embody cultural ideas and values. The study of religion becomes a study of how these beliefs and practices are represented and enacted within a society and the symbolic meanings attached to them.