Religious beliefs and social change and stability Flashcards
Who theorised the concept of the ‘sacred and profane’?
Emile Durkheim (1912)
Who identified that religion was used to comfort anxiety and tension from life crises such as birth, puberty, marriage and death?
Malinowski (1954)
Who believed that religion provided a ‘value consensus’ within society?
Talcott Parsons
Who believed that religion was an ‘opium of the masses’?
Karl Marx (1842): false-class consciousness
Who believed that religion was a form of alienation?
Karl Marx
Who identified religion as a form of social control?
Karl Marx
Criticisms of Marxism and religion
- Functionalist criticism (positive views)
- Secularisation
- Religion under communism
- Feminist criticism
- Religion as a radical force
Who identified religion as a ‘radical force’? And why?
Friedrich Engels - he believed that religion usually started off amongst oppressed groups in society as a way of coping with their oppression
Who theorised around the ‘liberation theory’?
Maduro: the relative autonomy of religion
Who argued that religion has not always been patriarchal (Greek Goddesses)?
Karen Armstrong (1993)
Who argues that religion operates differently with public and private sphere?
Jean Holm (1994)
Who believed that religion is an instrument of male domination?
Simone de Beauvior (1949)
Who argues that women are seriously oppressed in Islamic states, through burkas?
El Saadawi (1980)
Who believes that religions can be misinterpreted as being patriarchal?
Helen Watson (1994)
Who argued that Pentecostalism in Latin America as being feminists in nature?
Linda Woodhead (2002
