Beliefs: Secularisation explanations Flashcards
How does Weber explain what rationalisation refers to?
Rationalisation refers to the process by which rational ways of thinking and acting come to replace religious ones.
What did Weber think the medieval worldview saw the world as.
The Medieval Catholic worldview that dominated Europe saw the world as an ‘enchanted garden’. God and other spiritual beings and forces such as angels, the devil and so on were believed to be present and their supernatural powers and miraculous interventions in it.
What did Weber argue that the protestant reformation began by?
The protestant reformation began by Martin Luther in the West. This process undermined the religious worldview of the middle ages and replaced it with the rational scientific outlook found in modern society.
What does Bruce argue about the technological worldview? Link to the plane crash theory.
Bruce argues that the growth of a technological worldview has largely replaced religious or supernatural explanations of why things happen.
- For example, when a plane crashed with the loss of many lives, we are unlikely to regard it as the work of evil spirits or God’s punishment of the wicked. Instead, we look for scientific and technological explanations.
What does Weber say about the technological worldview leaving little room for religious explanations?
A technological worldview thus leaves little room for religious explanations in everyday life, which only survive in areas where technology is least effective - for example, we may pray for help if we are suffering from an illness for which scientific medicine has no cure.
What does Bruce conclude?
Bruce concludes that although scientific explanations do not challenge religion directly, they have greatly reduced the scope for religious explanations. Scientific knowledge does not in itself make people into atheists, but the worldview it encourages results in people taking religion less seriously.
What does Parsons define structural differentiation as?
A process of specialisation that occurs with the development of industrial society. Separate, specialised institutions develop to carry out functions that were previously performed by a single institution.
What does Parsons say about structural differentiation happening to religion?
Parsons sees this as having happened to religion - it dominated pre-industrial society, but with no industrialisation it has become a smaller and more specialised institution.
Talk about how Parsons relates disengagement to structural differentiation
Structural differentiation leads to the disengagement of religion. Its functions are transferred to other institutions such as the state and it becomes disconnected from wider society. For example, the church loses the influence it once had on education, social welfare and the law.
Explain how privatisation relates to structural differentiation.
Bruce agrees that religion has become separated from wider society and lost many of its former functions. It has become privatised - confined to the private sphere of the home and family.
- Religious beliefs are now largely a matter of personal choice and religious institutions have lost much of their influence on wider society. As a result, traditional rituals and symbols have lost meaning.
