is religion more important than science and ideology Flashcards
yes - post modernists - hervieu leger
important for individuals at a private level - people become spiritual shoppers - individualised consumers of religion
hervieu leger criticism
over emphasise importance of individual identity - ignore power of group identities
yes - functionalists - malinowski
function of r - promote social solidarity in response to psychological needs in situations of emotional stress that threaten social solidarity:
life crises - birth, puberty, marriage
important activities that are uncontrollable
method of research - ethnographic study of a tribe:
when tribe fished on safe lagoon = no rituals
ocean = religious ceremonies - fishing in ocean was dangerous and uncontrollable - religious ceremonies acted to give fisherman confidence and sense of control
malinowski criticism
ignores dysfunctional consequences of religion - causes many of world’s conflicts
cultural transition - bruce
religion provides support and sense of community for ethnic groups such as migrants as they adapt to a new culture
bruce criticism
as 2nd and 3rd gen migrants become integrated into new culture, level of religiosity declines
importance of religion for new indian m/c - nanda
examined importance of hinduism in legitimating ultra nationalism and new indian m/c
globalisation created new prosperous, educated wealthy m/c in india - social group expected to abandon religion but still believed in supernatural. increased religiosity in this group was due to increased uncertainty about new found wealth - stems from contradiction of wealth and traditional hindu values of rejecting material goods and worldly desires. uncertainty resolved by telegurus who assure m/c that wealth is manifestation of divinity - allows m/c to adapt to globalised consumer capitalism
hinduism encourages nationalism as india’s economic success is attributed to superiority of ‘hindu values’ where worshipping god is same as worshipping nation - civil religion
no - comte
society passed through 3 stages of development - theological (religious beliefs dominated society), metaphysical and positive (science grew and developed and religion declined)
in theological stage, religion dominated, but science grew through metaphysical and positive stages to eventually replace religion as it is rooted in facts with evidence, whilst religion is based on belief in holy texts.
comte criticism
feminists - science isn’t pure knowledge, it serves interest of men, e.g biological differences between women and men promoted by science isn’t a scientific fact but instead a social construct
no - rationalisation - weber
catholic worldview saw world as enchanted garden with supernatural
protestant worldview started process of rationalisation - using scientific knowledge to explain and understand how the world works
as people became more rationalised, need for religious explanations declined so religiosity declined as science replaced religion - process of disenchantment
weber criticism - gould
science and religion equally important so science can’t replace religion as we need both - they’re NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria) - science gives us factual knowledge whilst religion gives us moral guidelines
no - popper- science as open belief system
every theory is open to scrutiny and criticism through testing by others as scientific knowledge isn’t sacred, unlike religion, or the absolute truth - can be falsified when new evidence emerges. scientific knowledge is cumulative - grows for greater understanding of world so science is replacing religion as it has evidence for its claims
Comte, Popper and Horton - see science as completely different to religion - religious knowledge is fixed and can’t grow while scientific knowledge is provisional, open to challenge and disprovable. religion claims to have special, perfect knowledge of absolute truth and that its knowledge is
sacred so can’t be challenged or replaced
popper criticism - kuhn
science is not open, it rejects challenge and only rewards scientists who work within the paradigm
political ideologies
both religion and science losing significance - being replaced by political ideologies as a way to understand the world
e.g today neo-liberal conservatism is dominant ideology in western world - conservatism as a political ideology sees humans as faulty and favours free market economy policies
