Beliefs in society

• Substantive

  • Belief in God or a superior being
• Functional

  • What function religion performs
  • Answering of 'ultimate questions' such as the meaning of life and what happens when we die
• Constructionist

  • How members of society define religion
  • There is no single universal definiton
• Durkheim - Scared and the Profane

  Key features of religion-

  Sacred

  • Things set apart/forbidden and inspire feelings of awe, fear and wonder
  • Surrounded around taboos - evoke powerful feelings

  Profane:

  • No special significance
  • Ordinary and mundane
• Durkheim - Totemism

  • Worship of the sacred totem
  • The shared totem rituals reinforces group solidarity and a sense of belonging
  • When worshiping the totem they are also worshiping society
• Durkheim - Collective conscience

  • Shared values, norms, belief and knowledge
  • He says religious rituals reinforce the collective conscience
  • Binds individuals together
• Durkheim - Evaluation

  Postmodernists:

  • His ideas cannot be applied to contemporary society because increasing diversity has fragmented the collective conscience
  • There is no longer a single shared value system for religion to reinforce
• Bellah - Civil Religion

  • A belief system attaches sacred qualities to society
  • America - loyalty to the nation and God is expressed through the pledge of allegiance to the flag and the national anthem
  • Binds Americans from many ethnic and religious backgrounds
• Parsons - purpose of religion

  • Helps those to cope with unforeseen events and uncontrollable outcomes

  Legitimates society's central values - makes them seem scared

  Primary source of meaning - answers 'ultimate questions' about humans (why some die young, why good suffer)
• Functionalism - Evaluation

  • Ignores religion as a source of division and conflict
  • Neglects negative aspects (oppression of the poor or women)
• Marxists - religion as an ideology (a belief that distorts perception of reality)

  • Religion operates as an ideological weapon used by the ruling class to legitimate the suffering of the poor as something inevitable
  • Misleading the poor to believe their suffering is virtuous
• Lenin - Religion (Marxism)

  • Religion is 'spiritual gin'
  • It intoxicates the masses to confuse them to put them in their place
  • Creates a 'mystical fog'
• Marx - religion as a product of alienation

  • Workers are alienated as they don't own what they produce or have control over the production process
  • Religion is the 'opium of the people'
  • It provides a distorted view of the world with no offer of solution to earthly misery
  • Only promises an afterlife to create an illusory happiness to distract their attention
• Marxism - Evaluation

  Abercrombie et al

  • In a pre capitalist society, Christianity only had a limited impact on the peasantry
  • Ignores positive function of religion
• Feminist - religion as evidence of the patriarchy

  • Religious organisations: male dominated (Catholicism forbids women to become priests)
  • Places of worship: segregates the sexes and marginalises women (women seated behind men in prayer)
  • Scared texts: features male Gods and prophets, written by men with stories reflecting on anti-female stereotypes (Eve caused humanity's fall from grace)
  • Religious laws: women given fewer rights than men (access to divorce)
• Feminism - Evaluation

  Armstrong

  • Early religion places women at the centre (fertility cults and mother earth goddesses)
• Feminism - religion as a form of oppression

  Woodhead

  • Hijab/veil - Western feminists view as a form of oppression

  Gilliat Ray

  • Some young women wear it as a symbol of liberation
  • Worn to gain parental approval for further education