Role Of Religion Flashcards
Functionalist a defining religion
Functionalist define religion in terms of performing psychological or social functions for individuals or for society.
Tell me about FUNCTIONALIST and ROLE OF RELIGION
The functionalist perspective is concerned with analysing the role of religion in meeting the functional prerequisites or basic needs that society has to survive.–> shared norms and values needed for society to survive
What did Parsons do?
VALUES CONSEN AND MEANINGS and is a PRIMARY SOUCE OF MEANING.
Provides a sense of shared values –>studied the USA Protestantism sacralised the core American valves of individualism, meritocracy and discipline. CREATES SOCIETIES CENTRAL VALUES.
Explains Answers ultimate questions such as suffering is a test of faith that will be rewarded in heaven. By doing so religion enables people to adjust to adverse situations and help maintain stability. PRIMARY SOURCE OF MEANING.
Malinowski
- religion provides social solidarity
- provides psychological function for people –> stress relief
Comfort provided from ideas like immortality .
(Sideman to parsons)
Evaluation of Durkheim
Religion can only fulfil some of the functions that functionalist so claim if people practice their religion.
Diminishing religiosity and growing secularisation. In western countries. Religion is becoming less important.
E.g 6% go to church attendance decreases
1650, churches closed between 1970 and 2002.
Malinowski
- religion provides social solidarity
- provides psychological function for people –> stress relief
Comfort provided from ideas like immortality .
Durkheim
Studied the aboriginal tribe the Arunta. Who came together periodically to worship a totem.
-totemism
Studied the Arunta tribe of aborigines.
Totem created by society was sacred
Religious beliefs and rituals act as a social glue –> create solidarity
Develop moral ties –> religion act as conservative force. –> promoting social cohesion.
The collective conscience
Is the shared norms and values and beliefs of individualism a society to make co-operation easier in social life.
Prevents negative social change. Rituals reinforce the collective conscience and maintain social integration.
Evaluation of Durkheim
Religion can only fulfil some of the functions that functionalist so claim if people practice their religion.
Diminishing religiosity and growing secularisation. In western countries. Religion is becoming less important.
E.g 6% go to church attendance decreases
1650, churches closed between 1970 and 2002.
EVALUATE functionalist.
Functionalist sees religion as a conservative force promoting social harmony.
However
It downplays the role that religion can play in social change.
Examples of social change. - Islamic republic in 1979. And the talibanisation of Afghanistan.
Gramsci
Counter hegemony - showing how oppressed people organise society
Historically, religion seem to have played a far greater role in dividing society than uniting them.
- q
Evaluation functionalists religion causing conflicts
Conflicts within the same religion
Shia and Sunni Muslims in Iraq or Pakistan
Anglican Church disputes homosexuality
Conflicts between religions
Division of a once United India into Pakistan and India due to religious conflicts going on between Sikhs and Muslims.
The Marxist perspective
See religion as part of the dominant ideology. Ideology and beliefs system of the ruling class which shape people’s view of the world and reproduce and reinforce the false class consciousness by the working class of the fact they are exploited.
Religion operates as an ideological weapon used by the ruling class to legitimate the suffering of the poor as something inevitable and God given.
Two reasons :
Opium of the people
Legitimises and maintained the power of the ruling class.
Religion as the opium of the people
- Eventual promises an eventual escape from suffering
- Offers supernatural intervention
- Religion provides a religious explanation and justification for inequality. E.g Indian caste system.
Religion maintaining the power of the ruling class.
(Conservative force)
Marxist see religion as an instrument of social control and oppression.
Inequalities of wealth, income and power are presented as God given and therefore legitimise and inevitable.
The inequalities between rich and poor can’t be challenged or changed without questioning the authority of the religion or God itself.
EVALUATION feminist approach.
Woodhead –> “religious forms of feminism”
Women wearing hijab is a symbol of liberation - public sphere.
Watson –> Veiling can be beneficial for women to Muslim women.
Express their individual identity. –> however only based on 3 Muslim women. No attempt made to see if Muslim women were forced to wear a hijab
Women also use religion to gain status and respect for their roles within private spheres of their home and family. E.g evangelical group can be empowering for some women.
Calvinism - Weber (Protestant beliefs)
Specifically Protestant belie fiefs had initiated economic and social conditions in which capitalism emerged.
Weber noted that while similar economic conditions prevailed in china, India and Europe, capitalism only developed in the progression of the countries.
Capitalism had developed in those parts of Europe where a particular set of Protestant beliefs known as Calvinism were dominant. Calvinism had brought about right cultural climate for capitalist ideas.there were two ways:
