Modern World

Question 1

Definition of Religion 1

Answer 1

Linda Woodhead has defined a religion as “social forms which use practices, symbols and belief, visually in collectives to orient people to a higher level of reality; thereby providing them with a template for ordering, social and personal relationships in this life”

Question 2

Why is do religions become hard to define

Answer 2

Kim Knott suggests that “as religions move around ‘cross-culturally’ or economically it shifts and become harder to define”

Question 3

What does it mean if something is Sacred

Answer 3

of the Highest value

Question 4

Define Modernity

Answer 4

Refers to a ‘distinctive era which breaks that which came before’

Question 5

What does an ‘-ism’ refer to?

Answer 5

An ideology e.g. Capitalism, Individualism

Question 6

What does the 1950’s (late-modernity) suggest about religion?

Answer 6

Negatively is suggests that religion is a legitimating Authority with a hierarchical structure that is often oppressive towards women, marx suggests it as an ‘opiate of the people’. Contraversially the positive veiw of religion in the 1950’s bit brings together communities and was a large driving force for the introduction of the NHS.

Question 7

How does Globalisation effect religion?

Answer 7

Pizza effect - K.Knott

Question 8

How has Urbanisation effected religion

Answer 8

Legitimating authority has become more state dependant rather than religion being at the heart. Becomes more impersonal, communities at large are more diverse and spread out leading to the seperation of church and state, The individual becomes more central to being their own legitimating authority.

Question 9

What is a typology?

Answer 9

a definition of religion/classification.

Question 10

What is a substantive definition of religion?

Answer 10

Bruce 2002 suggests relligion can be defined by “beliefs, actions and institutes that assumes the existence of supernatural enitities”

Question 11

What is a function definition of religion?

Answer 11

Durkheim 1912 rejects substantive definitions of religion and rather suggests that ‘religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices to sacred things’

Question 12

Geertz 1965 provides us with a conceptual definition of religion, what is it?

Answer 12

a system of symbols that acts to establish long lasting moods formulating conceptions of existence.

Question 13

What are the 5 concepts of religion?

Answer 13

Culture. Identity. Relationship. Practice. Power.

Question 14

Heelas and Woodhead in 2004 described 3 types of religion, what are they?

Answer 14

Religions of difference. Religions of Humanism and Spiritualities of Life

Question 15

What are the characteristics of Religions of Difference?

Answer 15

Fundementalist, Hard-boundries, they draw differences between the religious and the secular. Often patriarchal and claim exlusivity to being the true religion. Highly differentiated

Question 16

What are the characteristics of Religions of Humanism?

Answer 16

Often more liberal, claiming freedom of choice of religion. Lower authority and more egalitarian, humanitarian aleviation of sufferring rather than just prayer. differentiated.

Question 17

What are the characteristics of Spiritualities of Life?

Answer 17

Often seen as mystical, de-differentiation between the world and the divine; the world in itself is sacred. High individual focus. Autonomy.

Question 18

What is Sacralisation

Answer 18

To make sacred.

Question 19

According to Bruce 2002 secularisation theory means what

Answer 19

religion loses its social significance as a direct and inevitable result of three processes involved in modernisation :- Rationalisation, differentiation and societalisation

Question 20

Criticisms of Secularisation theory?

Answer 20

• america has been modernised but religion still holds a place of authority
• resurgence of new religious movements e.g. spiritualities of life suggests otherwise

Question 21

What does Bell 1997 say about the Sacred?

Answer 21

The more that religion is unable to control the sacred, the more the sacred may thrive in a wide range of ritualized forms and activities. Bell (1997: 201) is very clear that ritualized forms of the sacred may flourish in a society that is secular, in the sense that the sacred is no longer dominated, defined, or integrated by any particular set of religious beliefs or practices

Question 22

The Dalai Llama suggested Secularisation as a new form of religious tolerance, what does he mean by this?

Answer 22

Secularisation, in this sense allows for religious freedom and practice as well as sectors of state (education, economy and politics) being dominated by non-religion but rather democratically elected. (Religious dominance perhaps does not allow for personal freedom (alt beliefs) whereas secularisation does allow for religious freedom) perhaps this is why we have become more secular.

Question 23

An interesting point on secular v religious

Answer 23

both should be aware of the other or otherwise totalitarianism of either reduces the freedom of both

Question 24

Secularisation as a response to religion being legitimating authority, totalitarian… then secularisation being totalitarian to religious freedom… moving again towards spiritualities of life as a form of de-differentiation and balance between the secular and the religious

Answer 24

….

Question 25

Modernity is one reason for Secularization, why?

Answer 25

Evidence suggests as a nation becomes more affluent as seen in the west in a post-industrious era, we have become more secular. Urbanisation, Modernization, transition of legitimating authorities and promotion of religious tolerance due to religious diasporas.

Question 26

The idea that the rise of a rational worldview has undermined the foundations of faith in
the supernatural, the mysterious, and the magical…

Answer 26

Max Weber

Question 27

“Industralization brought with it a series of social changes and the fragmentation of the life-world, the decline of community, the rise of bureaucracy, technological
consciousness – that together made religion less arresting and less plausible than it had been in
pre-modern societies. That is the conclusion of most social scientists, historians, and church
leaders in the Western world.”

Answer 27

Steve Bruce 2002