Parsons

• • Parsons viewed religion as a guideline for human action, that gives rise to a more specific set of norms that were to govern how people should act
  • an example is how one of the 10 commandments in the Bible ( “thou shalt not kill”) forms the basis of laws pertaining to the condemnation of murder in society
• • He believed that religion was a conservative force that promoted a set of principles that constituted a value consensus
  • the principles were to then be further reinforced in more concrete ways by other institutions in society
• a primary function of religion was to restore order in people’s lives in times of crisis, there are two types of “crisis”;

  • when people are faced with times of stress, like premature deaths, religion helps derive some semblance of logic behind these events, ultimately restoring normal patterns of life, eg. the belief in the afterlife cushions the pain of grief, and acts as a catharsis for the bereaved
  • religious belief can provide consolation when people are faced with unpredictability, i.e situations they cannot control
• a third function is that religious belief helps to elucidate the contradictory, eg. when people profit from immorality, Christianity teaches that sinners will face the consequences of their actions in purgatory or hell
• • parsons also argued that religion gives meaning to life by answering the ultimate, existential questions of life that were deemed beyond the scope of science
  • answers are offered through tests of faith, and reward in the afterlife
  • this deters the viewpoint that our existence is meaningless