RELIGION AND SOCIETY

• The essence of religion consists of man's never-ceasing attempt to discover a road to spiritual serenity across the perplexities and dangers of daily life.
• Religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden.
• Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
• A belief is a conviction in the truth of a proposition.
• Beliefs are held without recourse to truth or evidence.
• Belief systems often deal with issues that cannot be explained by reason or logic - creation, meaning of life, afterlife etc.
• A ritual is a formalised, predetermined set of symbolic actions performed in a particular environment in a regular, recurring interval.
• Chanting hymns, reading namaz, baptism and any puja are examples of rituals.
• A taboo is an implicit prohibition on something based on the cultural sense that it is excessively repulsive or, perhaps, too sacred for ordinary people
• Superstitions are beliefs or notions, not based on knowledge in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, preceding or the like.
• A superstition is an irrational belief arising from suspicion and fear.
• Superstitions are rituals and ceremonies as per the urban legend to avoid bad luck.
• A superstition is a belief based on fear, ignorance, trust in magic, coincidence, or prior experience with a similar situation.
• Ritualism, religious fundamentalism and fanaticism resorted in religion.
• Science opposed ritualism, religious fundamentalism and fanaticism.
• Belief in the soul (anima) led to the religious theory of animism put forth by E. B. Tylor.
• According to the theories of animism, the soul leaves the body temporarily while sleeping and permanently after death.
• According to E. B. Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871), although the origin appears to be multiple, there is only one idea underlying it- belief in the soul (anima); hence the term "animism".
• Tylor said that primitive humans must have thought that there must be 2 souls in a human being: a free soul which could go out of oneself and have experiences, represented by breath and shadows; and a body soul which when leaves the body, results in death.
• Rituals play an important role in creating and maintaining group solidarity.
• In totemic societies, each descent group has an animal, plant or geographical feature from which they claim descent.
• Totems were thought to be the apical ancestors of clans.
• Totemism is a religion in which elements of nature act as sacred templates for society by means of symbolic association.
• According to Goldenweiser, descent is traced from the totemic plant or animal as there is a certain form of supernaturalism associated with that plant or animal.
• According to Frazer's Australian Evidence, primitives, not being aware of the role of intercourse in pregnancy, thought that the nearest plant or animal was the cause of conception.
• Hopkins said that cattle supplying food may be looked upon with reverence, as in the case of Toda buffaloes.
• Totemism is a system of beliefs whereby people believe themselves to have descended from animals, plants, or other objects found in their environment.
• Naturism is the belief that forces of nature have supernatural power.
• Andrew Lang and Max Muller developed the theory of naturism.
• An attitude of love or reverence for objects of nature is born as a result of a 'diseased' mind, which invests lifeless things with life.
• Evidence of naturism being the earliest form of religion is not too convincing.
• According to the theory of naturism, the error of mind is born out of defective language. For example: the sun rises and sets, thunder brings rain, trees bear fruits and flowers.
• Malinowski pointed out, with reference to the Trobriand Islanders, that religion is intimately connected with various emotional states, which are states of tension.
• According to Malinowski, religion is made use of as a tool of adaptation; its purpose being to purge the human mind of stress and strain.
• According to Malinowski, religion has a function of bringing about a readjustment between man and the supernatural in an upset state of existence.
• According to Malinowski, religion is a device to secure mental and psychical stability in an individual's life.
• According to Radcliffe-Brown, the function of religion is not to purge fear and other emotional strains, but to instil a sense of dependency on it.
• According to Radcliffe-Brown's functional theory of religion, the survival of the group is more important than the survival of the individual; and if the latter has to make some sacrifices it is in his own interest to do so, because without social survival, individual survival is not possible.
• The function of religion, according to Radcliffe-Brown, was to provide a twofold dependence on society and thereby obtain an individual's concurrence with the social norms, the ultimate aim being social survival.
• According to Durkheim, religious notions are formed when people gather for festivals or social gatherings.