Sociology unit 2

• Functionalism:

  • Durkheim examines how religion helps socialise people into believing and doing the same things (value consensus and social solidarity)
  • Durkheim calls this a ‘collective conscience’, shared norms, values and beliefs
  • Religious rituals help society to come together and share values through harmony and integration
  • Religion uses sacred objects to bring people together, while non-sacred, profane objects do not have this effect
  • An example is the Aboriginal Arunta worshipping the clan totem, unifying the Arunta bands and society
• Malinowski:

  • Religion strengthens social solidarity in society
  • Religious rituals help control the stress and anxiety of 'crises of life' (e.g. birth, puberty, marriage, and death)
  • Religious rituals also address unpredictable events and times that produce tension and anxiety (e.g. fishing in the Trobriand Islands)
• Talcott Parsons:

  • Society needs certain beliefs and values for order and stability
  • Religion is part of the cultural system providing clear values (e.g. Thou shalt not Kill)
  • Religion soothes anxiety in society, especially for unforeseen events and uncertainty
  • Religion gives answers to deeper questions, providing meaning and a sense of justice
• Marxism:

  • Religion is a form of social control and ideology used to socialize poor people into accepting their place in society
  • Religion justifies the position of the rich and their exploitation of the poor
  • Poor people accept this due to the promise of an after-life in paradise, leading to false consciousness
  • Religion maintains existing exploitation and class relationships, justifying and legitimizing oppression
• Neo-Marxists (Maduro):

  • Agree that religion is used to control lower classes but do not see this control as inevitable
  • Religion can act as liberation theology, freeing and liberating people from exploitation
  • Examples include the Catholic Church helping lower classes in South and Central America as well as the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979
• Neo-Marxism (CCCS Stuart Hall):

  • Rastafarians use religion to free themselves from slavery and oppression
  • Rastafarian beliefs and reggae music unite against existing white hegemony
  • Rastafarianism is used as a form of cultural resistance
• Max Weber:

  • Individuals and their religious beliefs help shape society
  • For example, Calvinists' belief in Asceticism has led to the development of capitalism and bureaucracies
• Phenomenology:

  • Religion is socially constructed by human beings
  • All forms of knowledge, including religion, are socially constructed to provide shared meaning of the world around us
• Examples of Patriarchy in Religion:

  • Religious organizations are mainly male-oriented, with women often marginalized
  • Places of worship often segregate the sexes and marginalize women
  • Sacred texts feature male gods and prophets, reflecting anti-female stereotypes
  • Religious laws and customs often give women fewer rights than men, leading to unequal treatment
• Religious Feminism:

  • Some religious forms of feminism empower women to gain freedom and respect
  • Women may use religion to gain status and respect for their roles within the family
  • The position of women in religion has changed over time, with some religions now allowing women priests
• Anderson and Gordon:

  • Witch hunting by the Christian Church in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries aimed to control female sexuality
  • Women with significant sexual desires or power were seen as threats and labelled as witches
• Bryan Turner:

  • Religion has been used to exclude women from medical practice
  • The Christian church scapegoated wise women who practiced herbal medicine and midwifery, associating them with satanic temptation
• Simone de Beauvoir:

  • Religious ideology presents the family structure and women's subordinate place as normal and natural
  • Through patriarchal content of religion, the female body and its desires are regulated to aid capitalist production and efficiency
• Anthony Giddens:

  • We are living in 'late modernity' affected by capitalism, surveillance, and industrialism
  • Lack of religion leads to ontological insecurity, prompting people to turn to science and reflexivity for certainty
• Jean-Francois Lyotard:

  • Meta-narratives have collapsed, replaced by a plurality of narratives in post-modernity
  • Religion, science, and other knowledge coexist, allowing individuals to choose explanations of the world
• Jean Baudrillard:

  • We are living in a 'hyper-reality' where virtual images blur with reality
  • Religious and commercial signs and images can be used to play with identity and change it
• Belief System and Ideology:

  • Belief systems include religions, philosophies, and ideologies
  • Sociologists study belief systems neutrally, focusing on how individuals make sense of them
• Ideology:

  • Ideologies are a type of belief system often associated with power and false ideas
  • They can be religious or secular, shaping political and economic beliefs
• Richard Dawkins:

  • Religion is considered an inferior type of knowledge compared to science
  • Science can be proven empirically and is seen as the only valid type of knowledge
• Ernest Gellner:

  • Scientific knowledge based on objectivity is more accurate than religious beliefs
  • Social science also needs objectivity to avoid relativism
• Stephen J. Gould:

  • Different realms of knowledge, including religion and science, are equally useful for addressing different issues
  • Religion teaches moral guidance while science explains how the world works
• Karl Popper:

  • Science is an 'open belief system' open to testing and criticism
  • Scientists use falsificationism to disprove theories rather than confirmationism
• Thomas Kuhn:

  • Science operates within competing paradigms, organized sets of ideas
  • Knowledge is shaped by successful paradigms, not necessarily reality
• Little Green Men:

  • Pulsars
• Is Science Socially constructed?:

  • Interpretivist sociologists have argued about the social construction of science
• Sociologists argue that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is socially constructed
• Scientists engage in sense-making interpretations of the world
• Scientists have to decide what 'evidence' means and persuade others to accept their interpretation
• Example: Scientists initially interpreted pulsating neutron stars as Little Green Men (LGM) before settling on the notion that the pattern represented signals from an unknown pulsar
• Durkheim sees religion as a 'social fact', something real and measurable
• Researchers come up with a hypothesis and try to prove it using empirical evidence
• Positivist methods produce and analyze quantitative data
• Religion, like all forms of knowledge, is socially constructed
• Humans use knowledge to make sense of their lives
• As Interpretivists, we should analyze the interpretations and accounts of individuals and groups using qualitative data
• Glock and Stark combine quantitative and qualitative methods in defining and measuring religion
• Quantitative approaches include levels of belief and amount of involvement
• Qualitative techniques include feelings of the supernatural and how religion influences day-to-day interactions
• The book "The Making of a Moonie" describes the religious conversion process to the Unification Church
• The Unification Church is a new religious movement started by Sun Myung Moon in Korea in the 1940s