BELIEFS NAMES
Functionalist
Durkheim – The ‘sacred’ evoke powerful emotions of awe, emotion and support in believers
- Totemism – significance in symbols if what represent the collective consciousness In
worshipping societies, worshiping the symbols = worshiping the society
- Without reinforcing collective consciousness, society cannot survive
- Through regular acts of worship/rituals, repeatedly reaffirming support
- Religious belief can provide sense of strength, confidence, serenity and enthusiasm
Malinowski – religion developed as a response to psychological needs in specific situations of
emotional distress
1) Life crises e.g, birth, death and marriage are potentially disruptive, religion
creates valuable mental attributes to ease.
2) Situations of anxiety and uncertainty. Studied Trobiand islanders. When fishing
in calm sea, no religious ritual observed
Open, dangerous sea = fishing followed by ritual
Parsons – Religion is the main source of meaning in society, it provides and legitimises core values in
a culture.
- Furnishes answers to eternal questions about the world such as suffering and death.
- Offering answers gives sense of life meaning and promotes social solidarity.
CIVIL RELIGION
Bellah – America’s civil religion is a faith in Americanism.
- Civil religion generates widespread loyalty to the state despite social inequalities.
- God and Americanism walk hand in hand, coins say ‘in America we trust’
- Presidents swear an Oath of allegiance before God.
- ‘God bless America’ ends speeches, a more general God not tied to any particular religion.
BRITISH CIVIL RELIGION?
Parsons – Remembrance Sunday. Millions wear poppies and 2 minutes of silence at 11am.
Rituals + symbols totemism?
Beckford – doubtful that these occasions compensate for social divisions + high rate of religious
diversity and difference. Civil religion at best occasional and at worst weak.
Marxist
Marx – Religion is the opium of the people
- Religion is a protest against dehumanising social world
- The hopes and ‘solutions’ religion promises are illusory.
- Religion is part of an ideology
- Distorts true nature of reality in ways which benefit the ruling class.
- Little can be done to change the existing social order – divine rights of kings
- Religion lends sacred support to social order – coronation and jubilee
- For exploited, religion has psychological function to cope with the misery of alienation
- Religion acts as consolation for experience which lacks the genuine solidarity people are
capable.
- If alienation and exploitation from capitalism are eradicated and people are free to develop
human potential and find themselves, religion will cease to exist.
, NEO MARXISTS
Gramsci – the hegemonic control of the catholic church isn’t necessarily inevitable
- Rejected that the superculture merely reflected economic base.
- Superculture Is more autonomous and independent than Marx acknowledged.
- Beliefs are no less real or important than economic forces
- Communist coming would require W/C action and must be guided by theoretical knowledge.
- W/C must produce own intellectuals similar to Roman Catholic Church. These would
articulate W/C experience and help shape W/C consciousness.
Maduro – in developing countries, society is where religion is dominant and a conservative force.
- Social liberation can only be achieved if significant change WITHIN churches.
- If oppressed take discontent to churches after central power blocks protests, such as in
Poland before abandonment of communism.
- The clergy must fulfil the functions of Gramsci’s W/C intellectuals.
FEMINISTS
De Beauvoir – Men use religion to control and oppress women. Religion is a way of compensating
women for second class status.
- Religion deceives women into believing they’re equal.
- False belief of compensation for suffering in heaven.
- In some religions, there are taboos about menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth.
These biological states are seen as ‘polluting’ religious rituals
- In Islam, if menstruating, women cannot touch the Qu’ran.
- Religion’s influence on social norms may lead to unequal treatment e.g., FGM or more
severe punishments than men for committing sexual transgression.
- Iran – stoned to death for adultery.
- Jews in morning prayers – ‘Blessed be the Lord our God, and the lord of all worlds that has
not made me a woman’
Daly – Christianity, particularly Roman Catholic Church is a set of patriarchal myths.
- Reduced role of female figures – all Old Testament prophets are male e.g., Moses
- New Testament Apostles are male
- Eve made from Adam’s ribs – dangers of female sexuality.
- Mary shows the virtues of motherhood.
- Wives subject to your Husbands as to the lord’
- Roman Catholic Church’s attempts to control women’s sexuality and reproduction – banning
abortion and artificial contraception.
Saadawi – Religious beliefs are not in themselves patriarchal or responsible for the oppression of
women.
- Cultural power of men – cultures of early Arab societies were patriarchal.
- Therefore, men were able to use their power to occupy positions of influence within Islam.
- Cultural power = domination of writing and interpretation of scriptures, enabling the
imposition of patriarchal ideas.
- E.g., in the Qur’an, men and women could be stoned to death for adultery but in reality, it
was very unlikely for men.
Functionalist
Durkheim – The ‘sacred’ evoke powerful emotions of awe, emotion and support in believers
- Totemism – significance in symbols if what represent the collective consciousness In
worshipping societies, worshiping the symbols = worshiping the society
- Without reinforcing collective consciousness, society cannot survive
- Through regular acts of worship/rituals, repeatedly reaffirming support
- Religious belief can provide sense of strength, confidence, serenity and enthusiasm
Malinowski – religion developed as a response to psychological needs in specific situations of
emotional distress
1) Life crises e.g, birth, death and marriage are potentially disruptive, religion
creates valuable mental attributes to ease.
2) Situations of anxiety and uncertainty. Studied Trobiand islanders. When fishing
in calm sea, no religious ritual observed
Open, dangerous sea = fishing followed by ritual
Parsons – Religion is the main source of meaning in society, it provides and legitimises core values in
a culture.
- Furnishes answers to eternal questions about the world such as suffering and death.
- Offering answers gives sense of life meaning and promotes social solidarity.
CIVIL RELIGION
Bellah – America’s civil religion is a faith in Americanism.
- Civil religion generates widespread loyalty to the state despite social inequalities.
- God and Americanism walk hand in hand, coins say ‘in America we trust’
- Presidents swear an Oath of allegiance before God.
- ‘God bless America’ ends speeches, a more general God not tied to any particular religion.
BRITISH CIVIL RELIGION?
Parsons – Remembrance Sunday. Millions wear poppies and 2 minutes of silence at 11am.
Rituals + symbols totemism?
Beckford – doubtful that these occasions compensate for social divisions + high rate of religious
diversity and difference. Civil religion at best occasional and at worst weak.
Marxist
Marx – Religion is the opium of the people
- Religion is a protest against dehumanising social world
- The hopes and ‘solutions’ religion promises are illusory.
- Religion is part of an ideology
- Distorts true nature of reality in ways which benefit the ruling class.
- Little can be done to change the existing social order – divine rights of kings
- Religion lends sacred support to social order – coronation and jubilee
- For exploited, religion has psychological function to cope with the misery of alienation
- Religion acts as consolation for experience which lacks the genuine solidarity people are
capable.
- If alienation and exploitation from capitalism are eradicated and people are free to develop
human potential and find themselves, religion will cease to exist.
, NEO MARXISTS
Gramsci – the hegemonic control of the catholic church isn’t necessarily inevitable
- Rejected that the superculture merely reflected economic base.
- Superculture Is more autonomous and independent than Marx acknowledged.
- Beliefs are no less real or important than economic forces
- Communist coming would require W/C action and must be guided by theoretical knowledge.
- W/C must produce own intellectuals similar to Roman Catholic Church. These would
articulate W/C experience and help shape W/C consciousness.
Maduro – in developing countries, society is where religion is dominant and a conservative force.
- Social liberation can only be achieved if significant change WITHIN churches.
- If oppressed take discontent to churches after central power blocks protests, such as in
Poland before abandonment of communism.
- The clergy must fulfil the functions of Gramsci’s W/C intellectuals.
FEMINISTS
De Beauvoir – Men use religion to control and oppress women. Religion is a way of compensating
women for second class status.
- Religion deceives women into believing they’re equal.
- False belief of compensation for suffering in heaven.
- In some religions, there are taboos about menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth.
These biological states are seen as ‘polluting’ religious rituals
- In Islam, if menstruating, women cannot touch the Qu’ran.
- Religion’s influence on social norms may lead to unequal treatment e.g., FGM or more
severe punishments than men for committing sexual transgression.
- Iran – stoned to death for adultery.
- Jews in morning prayers – ‘Blessed be the Lord our God, and the lord of all worlds that has
not made me a woman’
Daly – Christianity, particularly Roman Catholic Church is a set of patriarchal myths.
- Reduced role of female figures – all Old Testament prophets are male e.g., Moses
- New Testament Apostles are male
- Eve made from Adam’s ribs – dangers of female sexuality.
- Mary shows the virtues of motherhood.
- Wives subject to your Husbands as to the lord’
- Roman Catholic Church’s attempts to control women’s sexuality and reproduction – banning
abortion and artificial contraception.
Saadawi – Religious beliefs are not in themselves patriarchal or responsible for the oppression of
women.
- Cultural power of men – cultures of early Arab societies were patriarchal.
- Therefore, men were able to use their power to occupy positions of influence within Islam.
- Cultural power = domination of writing and interpretation of scriptures, enabling the
imposition of patriarchal ideas.
- E.g., in the Qur’an, men and women could be stoned to death for adultery but in reality, it
was very unlikely for men.
