beliefs in society

• Durkheim


  • The key feature of religion is the distinction between the sacred and the profane
  • Religion involves definite rituals or practices in relation to the sacred and these rituals are collective (performed by social groups)
  • Sacred symbols represent society's collective conscience
  • Studied Arunta, an Australian Aboriginal tribe with a clan system where kin come together to perform rituals with a totem that symbolises the clan's origins and identity
• Giddens


  • Argues that fundamentalists are traditionalists who seek to return to the basics or fundamentals of their faith
  • Notes that the term fundamentalism is a relatively new one, and he sees its growth as a product of and reaction to globalisation, which undermines traditional social norms concerning the nuclear family, gender, and sexuality
  • Fundamentalism contrasts with cosmopolitanism which is tolerant of the views of others and open to new ideas
• Berger


  • The order imposed upon the world is, however, under constant threat from unexplained phenomena - natural disasters, death and suffering
  • In an effort to explain such things and give then meaning, humans place them in a category we might describe as mysterious or awesome, and develop a body of knowledge that Berger calls a cosmology
• Weber


  • Defines religion as a belief in a superior or supernatural power that is above nature and cannot be explained scientifically
  • To be a religion, a set of beliefs must include belief in God or supernatural
• Durkheim


  • Defined religion as a 'unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things'
  • For Durkheim, sharing something as sacred unites people and creates a collective conscience
• Parsons


  • Sees religion helping individuals to cope with unforeseen events and uncontrollable outcomes
  • Religion creates and legitimates society's central values
  • Religion is the primary source of meaning
  • It creates and legitimates society's basic norms and values by sacralising them
• Marx


  • Argued that religion is the 'opium of the people' providing relief and comfort
  • It prevents people from seeing their problem and fighting their oppressors
  • It helps to prevent social change by maintaining the structure of society
• Durkheim


  • Religion acts as a conservative force
  • Religion builds and maintains social solidarity and social stability
  • Protects traditional values and the existing state of affairs in society
  • Changes society to restore traditional values that may be at risk of disappearing or have already disappeared
• Marx


  • Religion is part of the ruling class ideology and used by the bourgeoisie to control the proletariat
  • It helps to prevent social change by maintaining the structure of society
• Weber


  • Religion is not always a conservative force and can promote change and revolution
  • A particular form of Protestantism, called Calvinism, helped capitalism to flourish as it promoted working hard and living simple lives
• Wilson


  • Periods of rapid change disrupt and undermine established norms and values, producing anomie or normlessness
  • Those affected may turn to a sect as a solution
  • Disruption of the industrial revolution in Britain caused the rise in people turning to Methodism
• Bruce


  • Religion is not as prominent as it was in the past
  • The popularity of the World Cup shows that other events have greater social significance than religion
• Troeltsch


  • Distinguished two main types of organisation – the church and the sect
  • Churches are larger, lots of members, hierarchical, and claim a monopoly of the truth
  • Sects are small exclusive groups that are hostile to wider society and expect high levels of commitment
  • They are led by a charismatic leader and believe that they have a monopoly of religious truth
• Wallis


  • Devised a classification system for looking at NRMs
  • Organisations can be categorised into one of three groups – world-rejecting, world-affirming and world-accommodating
• Wilson


  • Defined the characteristics of a sect being: voluntary, exclusive, a source of identity, expulsion being possible and based on individual conscience
• Wallis


  • World-rejecting NRMs have increased due to social changes from the 1960s
  • Increased time in education gave them freedom from adult responsibilities and enabled counter-culture to develop
  • The increase in world-affirming NRMs can be attributed to the rise in disillusioned former members of world-rejecting movements wanting a halfway house back to a more conventional lifestyle
• Weber


  • Explained the appeal of sects to marginalised groups
  • Marginalisation can be experienced by people of a particularly class, gender, ethnicity and age and could be in the form of poverty
• El Sadaawi


  • Due to society being largely patriarchal, men has misinterpreted religious texts and abused their positions of power
  • As monolithic religions grew, so too did the religious oppression of women
• Davie


  • The working class are less likely to go to church than the middle class, but still believe in God
  • Women make up the majority of Christians in England, Northern Ireland and especially Scotland
  • However with religious organisations men hold more positions of power and authority
  • Women also saw God differently. They associated God with love, comfort and forgiveness, whereas for men God is more about power and control
• Modood et al


  • Found some decline in the importance of religion for all ethnic groups and that fewer were observant, especially among the second generation
• Woodhead


  • The exclusion of women from the Catholic priesthood is evidence of the Church's deep unease about the emancipation of women generally
• Bruce


  • Explains the growth in religion of ethnic minorities in terms of notions of cultural transition and cultural defence
• Wilson


  • Religion has lost its influence on people's values and has become less engaged
  • Religion no longer unifies people in society
  • The growth in NRMs is evidence of secularisation because he regards them as a response to a society that has no prominent religious values
• Stark


  • We are now more religious than before
  • Historical evidence shows that people were generally indifferent to religion
  • When they went to church they were there unwillingly and behaved disrespectfully
• Stark and Bainbridge


  • There was no 'golden age' of religion in the past, as secularisation theory implies, nor is it realistic to predict a future end point for religion when everyone will be an atheist
  • People are naturally religious and religion meets human needs
  • It is human nature to seek rewards and avoid costs, so people make choices based on weighing up the costs and benefits of the different options available
• Davie


  • There has been a shift in religion to 'believing without belonging' meaning that religion is not disappearing but is retreating from the public sphere to the private
  • The presence of the New Age movement is a sign of the continuing significance of the sacred but in a new form
• Bruce


  • The Church does not have the power that it used to have in relation to society as a whole
  • The Church and State are no longer closely interlinked and has less political influence
  • Modern society is also more geographically mobile and so communities are more fragmented making it harder to sustain religious values as people are introduced to new ways of thinking
• Berger


  • Religious ideas alone are not enough to produce economic development
  • Natural resources are also needed
  • For example Pentecostalism has grown in Northern Brazil but the region lacks resources and remains poor, compared with the South where there is both Pentecostalism and resources and is growing
• Norris and Inglehart


  • The reason for variations in religiosity between societies is not different degrees of religious choice, but different degrees of existential security
  • Existential security means the feeling that survival is secure enough that it can be taken for granted
• Heelas and Woodhead


  People prefer to call themselves 'spiritual' rather than 'religious' in contemporary times
• Bellah


  • Coined the term 'civil religion' to refer to the way that people are brought together in a secular society
  • He give the example of the USA where he found arguably religious qualities in rituals such as singing the national anthem and waving the national flag at events