Disappearance thesis

Question 1

What is the disappearance thesis?

Answer 1

• Heelas and Woodhead
  modernity has led to the decline and death of religion
  
  • religion nowadays has less significance for an individual in the modern society and this is seen to continue till religion is lost

Question 2

Why is religion disappearing?

Answer 2

• Decline in commitment towards religion
• Modern world
  -Rationalisation replaces faith

Question 3

Modern world - wilson/berger

Answer 3

Wilson - argues religion was held in high regard so if you believed in anything else you were meant to keep it secret
- this has changed over the years as religion does not have the same status and it does not have the same influence
- because of this people accept more alternatives and look to other beliefs
e.g protestant faith has experienced this

• also argues that seperate institutions carry out the functions that the church used to be in control of e.g politics, education, welfare

Berger - the growth of media, geographical mobility etc has exposed other belief systems and caused people to question what they believe in
- this has led to a “market place’ which is the idea where there are plenty of beliefs to choose from
-this then weakens the monopoly of truth or one big metanarrative

Question 4

Rationalisation replaces faith - Weber

Answer 4

• rationalisation is the idea that there are more logical explanations for things in the world
• science provides an alternative to the supernatural or religious faith people have
• science has proven many things and explains the causes of diseases and also cures them
• people were forced to believe in the same thing but modernity came about and was the age of reason
  -people wanted more answers and wealth became more important to people during the times of calvinism but would use religion to disguise it

Question 5

Decline in commitment

Answer 5

• church was demanding and guided all ways of life
• people may have not liked the structure and stopped attending
• want more freedom and looked for other organisations that did not demand what the church did
• found other beliefs

Question 6

Evaluation

Answer 6

• very difficult to measure the idea of dissapearance as some people may still have strong christian beliefs but not be represented in statistics
  
  • idea of privatisation of religion can influence this as people may be religious but choose not to express it
• comparing religious involvement from the past to present day is not effective as alot of the research was conducted during the golden age of religion
  
  • does not show a good representation as times have changed