Durkheim on religion

• Durkheim on religion:

  • Society is a system of interrelated parts
  • Society has needs which are met by different institutions - Religion, media etc
• Sacred - things that are set apart, are surrounded by prohibitions and taboos and create feelings of awe
• Profane - things that are mundane and ordinary
• The powerful feelings evoked by the sacred implies that it represents something of great power - society
• Totemism :

  • Believed that the essence of religion could e discovered by studying it in its simplest form in the simplest society
  • The Arunta rituals around the Totem reinforce the group solidarity
  • The totem represents power of the society that the individuals rely on
• The collective conscience:

  • Sacred symbols represent society’s collective conscience
  • Rituals reinforce this and maintain integration
  • Rituals bind people together, reminds them that they are part of something bigger
• Cognitive functions of religion:

  • Religion is the source of our ability to reason and think conceptually
  • Religion is the origin of shared categories - space, time etc - that allow us to think and share ideas
  • The splitting of clans gave the first ideas of classification
• Criticisms of Durkheim:

  • Worsley - There isn’t a clear division between the sacred and the profane
  • Explains integration within communities but not the conflict between them
  • Postmodernists: increasing diversity as fractured the collective conscience