Culture: Religion

Question 1

Karl Marx:

Class Conflict, False Consciousness & Religion

Answer 1

Religion as a social creation
A means of perpetuating class oppressions (“opiate of the masses”)

Question 2

Emile Durkheim:

Collectivity, Social Cohesion & Religion

Answer 2

Religion as a social creation – positive function
Group consciousness -> ‘collective consciousness’
Notions of ‘the sacred’ and social unity through group experience

Question 3

Max Weber:

Power of Religion in Shaping Capitalism

Answer 3

Key work: “The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism”
Asking: “Why did capitalism only emerge in the West?”
Protestants (Calvinist/Puritans) -> religious ‘ethic’ suited to early capitalism

Question 4

multiculturalism

Answer 4

a perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of Canada and promoting equal standing for all cultural traditions

Question 5

subculture

Answer 5

cultural patterns that set apart some segment of a society’s population

Question 6

Eurocentrism

Answer 6

the dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns

Question 7

counterculture

Answer 7

cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society

Question 8

cultural integration & cultural lag

Answer 8

• the close relationships of various elements of a cultural system
• the fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, disrupting a cultural system

Question 9

Sacred vs Profane

Answer 9

• collective representations that are set apart from society, or that which transcends the humdrum of everyday life( Rituals,)
• The profane, on the other hand, is everything else, all those mundane things

(sacred ritual united the community and integrated individuals and enhanced the sharing of collective sentiments and solidarity in profane areas of social life)

Question 10

Religiosity

Answer 10

strong religious feeling or belief.

Question 11

cultural relativism

Answer 11

the practice of judging a culture by its own standard