Theories of Religion Flashcards
Three ways sociologists define religion:
- Substantive
- Functional
- Social constructionist
Substantive definition
- Defining religion as what it is
- For example, Weber said religion is the belief in a superior power. However, this outlook excludes religions such as Buddhism.
Functional definition
- Looks at what religion does
- Durkheim says that religion is social glue
- Marx describes religion as an opiut
Social constructionist definition
- The definition of religion is up to the person
- Aldridge is curious how something becomes accepted as religious
Polythetic definitions
- A number of overlapping factors that most religions share.
Southwold
- Polythetic definitions
- Catholicism possesses all the features except one, whereas Paganism only possesses half. This does not make Catholicism any more religious than Paganism.
- Polythetic definitions does not say how many we need to be religious.
Durkheim’s definition of religion
Religion is social glue
Marx’s definition of religion
Religion is a painkiller
Weber’s definition of religion
To understand religion, we need to put ourselves in that person’s shoes
Durkheim
- Religion plays an important role in creating and maintaining a value consensus.
- The key feature of religion is that there is a difference between the sacred and the profane
- Sacred is special, sacred things inspire feelings of awe, fear and wonder
- Profane things have no special significance, they are normal/mundane
Totemism
A symbol that represents the community that worships it.
All religion represents the worship of society, not God.
Durkheim - cognitive functions of religion
- Religion provides categories and concepts for understanding the world, e.g. time, space, causation. e.g. God creating the world.
The collective conscience - Durkheim
- The shared beliefs and values
- Rituals, e.g. mass, reinforce the cc as they remind us we are all apart of one community.
Mestrovic - postmodernism
- We don’t have one shared religion, diversity has fragmented the collective conscience.
Malinowski
- Religion promotes social solidarity by performing psychological functions for its followers.
- It helps people to cope with emotional stress.
1. Outcome is important but uncertain - A Levels, etc…
2. Life crisis - births, deaths, marriages, divorces…
Parson’s two functions of religion:
- It creates and legitimates society’s central values. Religion sacralises society’s rules.
- It is the primary source of meaning. This means it gives us a sense of why are we here? - copying Durkheim
Bellah
- Civil religion
- Americanism is the religion for Americans, it binds them together as one community. E.g. “In God we trust”
- In the UK an example of a civil religion would be the royal family or football.
Marxists and hymns
“The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate”
- Legitimises rich and poor, God created us like this therefore it should be.
Marx - religion as an ideology
- Ideology is ideas that legitimate inequality.
- Religion is an ideology as it justifies the suffering - prevents us to do anything about it.
- Jesus said it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven.
It is theorised that religion used to be…
- Matriarchal
- 92% of religious artifacts were female.
Criticism of Marx’s claim that religion is an ideology:
- Hindu’s caste system -> reincarnation
- It teaches to be a good citizen, then in the next life you may be reincarnated as a Brahmin.
- Dalit - outside the caste system and treated horrifically in India.
Cause of religion - Marx
- Religion is the ‘heart of a heartless world’.
- Religion helps to explain suffering.
Bettany Hughes ‘God used to be a girl’
Mesopotamia (religion in Iraq) - some of their most powerful figures are Goddesses, e.g. Ishtar - goddess of love, sex, war and death.
El Saddawi
- While religion can be used to oppress women, religion is not the cause of women’s oppression.
- Religion is used as an excuse.
- Men interpret religion in a way that benefits them, e.g. female genital mutilation - in the Qur’an Mohammed doesn’t say to do it, men interpret it as this.
Woodhead
- Traditional religion is patriarchal, but not true of all religions.
- ‘Religious forms of feminism’ - women will use religion to their advantage
- Gilliat-Ray interviewed British Muslim women and found that dads let them go to university if they wore the hijab, so they did this because of that.
Brusco
- Studied pentecostialism in South America. Brusco found that pentecostal women can use these ideas to challenge a widespread culture of machismo in Latin America.
Religious organisations
- Catholic church, only men can be priests.
- In Buddhism, female nuns are always given less status than male monks.
Places of worship
- In Islam, menstruating women cannot touch the Qur’an - Mohammed suggests men are more educated as a result.
- Leviticus states women are unclean on their period.
- Period huts in Nepal.
Religious texts
- Gensis 3:16 - women will have pain during childbirth
- Eve is created from Adam’s rib
- Majority of biblical figures are men
Religious practises - Mary Daley
- Sati in Hinduism = If your husband died before you, you were encouraged to jump on the fire in which he burned.
- FGM = practised mainly in Africa, by both Christians and Muslims.
Woodhead - Catholic church
- The Catholic church is uncomfortable with women having freedom.
