defining religion

Question 1

substantive definition

Answer 1

• focuses on what a religion is.
• weber defines religion as belief in a superior or supernatural power that is above nature and cannot be explained scientifically.
• substantive definitions are exclusive-they draw a clear line between religious and non-religious beliefs.
• to be a religion, a set of beliefs must include belief in God or the supernatural

Question 2

evaluating substantive definition

Answer 2

• conforms to a widespread view of religion as belief in God.
• defining religion in this way leaves no room for beliefs and practices that perform similar functions to religion but do not involve belief in God.
• western bias, excludes religions such as Buddhism, which do not have the Western idea of a God.

Question 3

functional definition

Answer 3

• stress how religions contribute to societies in terms of it’s social and psychological function.
• according to durkheim the key function of religion is to strengthen social solidarity and integration.
• yinger: religion performs functions for individuals such as answering questions about the meaning of life and what happens when we die.

Question 4

evaluating functional definition

Answer 4

• advantage of functional definitions is that they are inclusive. it allows us to include a wide range of beliefs and practices that perform functions such as integration.
• also, do not specify a belief in God so there is no bias against non-Western religions such as Buddhism.
• however, just because an institution helps integrate individuals into groups, this does not make it a religion

Question 5

social constructionist definition

Answer 5

• take an interpretivist approach
• not possible to produce a single universal definition of religion to cover all cases, since in reality different individuals and groups mean very different things by ‘religion.’
• interested in how definitions are constructed, challenged and fought over.
• aldridge shows how, for its followers, scientology is a religion, whereas several governments have denied it legal status as a religion and sought to ban it. this shows that definitions of religion can be contested and are influenced by who has power to define the situation.

Question 6

evaluating social constructionist definition

Answer 6

• do not assume that religion always involves a belief in god or the supernatural, or that it performs similar functions for everyone in all societies.
• allows them to get close to the meanings people themselves give to religion.
• however, this makes it impossible to generalise about the nature of religion, since people may have widely differing views about what counts as a religion.