Functionalist View of Religion

Question 1

What are the two categories that society divide the world into?
(Durkheim)

Answer 1

• The Sacred (special and set apart)
• The Profane (ordinary)

Question 2

What does Durkheim say about religion?

Answer 2

• Religion is a ‘unified system of belief and practices relating to sacred thing, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden’
• ‘Sacred things are simply ideas that have fixed themselves on material objects’
• Each scared item is a ‘representation’ and what constitutes as ‘sacred’ varies from society to society and is therefore socially determined

Question 3

What did Durkheim find about the Arunta Society?

Answer 3

It was a simple society with an element form of religion ‘totemism’. It was part of clans with 2 basic characteristics:
- All members of the clan regard themselves as members of a family
- The name of the clan is its totem and the totem of the clan is also that of each of its members

Question 4

What Durkheim say about Totemism?

Answer 4

If the totem is a symbol of God and of society does that not mean God and Society are one?
- In worshipping God men are really worshipping society, Society is the real object of religious reference
Argued ‘its easier for him to visual and direct this of awe towards a symbol than towards something as complex as a clan’

Question 5

How are Durkheims ideas relevant to modern society?

Answer 5

Christianity’s totem is the cross, Arunta’s totem may be a tree, both serve general needs of the social organisation of which they are a part.
- Social order is therefore maintained, since people are worshipping society through religious symbols, legitimising the purpose and procedure of society itself.
- Religion reinforced the ‘collective conscience’
Through group worshipping, group members express their faith in common values and beliefs. The communicate and comprehend the moral bonds which unite them, thereby contributing to integration of society.

Question 6

Criticisms of Durkheim?

Answer 6

• His ideas overstate the case. Yes, religion is important for social solidarity but is religion really the worship of society?
• His ideas are more relevant to pre-literate societies where integration is strong. In modern society there are many different groups and interests and religion is not such a prevalent force
• Religion is not always associated with community and collective but conflict

Question 7

What were Malinowski’s views on religion?

Answer 7

• Sees religion as reinforcing social norms, values and promoting social solidarity. The function of religion is seen in terms of the needs of individuals
• Religion functions to help cope with emotional stress, problems and anxieties of societies’ members. If anxiety and stress develop it can be potentially ‘dysfunctional’ to society and disrupt social order.
• Religious ceremonies deal with emotional crises of life and in all these societies these crises are surrounded by religious ritual, ceremonies also express hope of mortality.
• Funerals check the emotions which can potentially upset social harmony and order.
• Confidence and control are reasserted through religious ritual

Question 8

What were Parson’s views on religion?

Answer 8

• Believed human action was directed and controlled by norms provided by the social system. Cultural system provided guidelines for action in the form of beliefs and values - creating secondary socialisation.
• Religion is on part of the cultural system and religious beliefs provide guidelines for human action and standards against which a persons conduct can be evaluated

‘Though shalt not kill’ ‘Though shalt not steal’
- Religions serves to solve certain problems in life:
->unforeseen events
->uncertainty

Question 9

What did Shils and Young argue about religion?

Answer 9

• Reaffirming effects of the coronation (civil religion) which brought the nation together; the coronation much like Christmas, was at time for drawing closer bonds of the family and reasserting its solidarity and values (generosity, loyalty and love)

Question 10

Criticisms of the functionalism approach of religion

Answer 10

• Ignores the dysfunctional aspects of religion. Hence religion may not be an integrative force but a divisible one
• Birnbaum don’t see the coronation as significant as shils and young do. It is merely a holiday and has no relevance to daily routines. As a Marxist he sees it as hiding the real problem of society. The media pay an important part in maintaining false class consciousness
• It can’t explain social change. Religion can at times resist the social order (Iran) rather than conform to it

Question 11

How does Bellah view religion

Answer 11

‘Civil religion’
- A faith in Americanism united the Americans despite religion
- Generates widespread loyalty to the nation state
- American civil religion involve supernatural beliefs
- God and Americanism walk hand in hand
- Oath of allegiance ‘God Bless America’
- This is not a particular god from a religious community but rather the ‘American God’