Transcript Chapter 18 Religion

Religion
Chapter18
Henslin’s Sociology: A Down To
Earth Approach
What Is Religion?
Durkheim identified three essential
characteristics of religion:
 Beliefs
that set the sacred apart from the
profane
 Rituals
A
moral community (a church)
What are the functions and
dysfunctions of religion?
Among the functions of religion are;
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Answering questions about ultimate meaning
Providing emotional comfort
Social solidarity
Guidelines for everyday life
Social control
Adaptation
Support for the government
Fostering social change.
Groups or activities that provide these same functions are
called functional equivalents of religion.
Among the dysfunctions of religion are war, terrorism, and
religious persecution.
What aspects of religion do
symbolic Interactionists study?
A Symbolic Interactionalists focuses on the
meanings of religion for its followers.
They examine religious symbols, rituals,
beliefs, religious experiences, and the
sense of community provided by religion.
What aspects of religion do
conflict theorists study?
Conflict theorists examine the relationship
of religion to social inequalities,
especially how religion reinforces a
society’s stratification system
What does the spirit of capitalism
have to do with religion?
Max Weber disagreed with Marx’s
conclusion that religion impedes social
change.
In contrast, Weber saw religion as a
primary source of social change. He
analyzed how Protestantism gave rise to
the Protestant ethic, which stimulated
what he called the spirit of capitalism. The
result was capitalism, which transformed
society.
What are the world’s major
religions?
Judaism
Christianity
Islam
Buddhism
Hinduism
Confucianism
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Old Testament Roots…
All monotheistic religions, can be traced to the same Old
Testament roots.
Hinduism, the chief religion of India, has no specific
founder, as do Judaism (Abraham), Christianity (Jesus),
Islam (Muhammad), Buddhism (Gautama), and
Confucianism (K’ung Fu-tsu).
Specific teachings and history of these six religions are
given in the text.
What types of religious
groups are there?
Sociologists divide religious groups into cults, sects,
churches, and ecclesias.
All religions began as cults. Those that survive tend to
develop into sects and eventually into churches.
Sects, often led by charismatic leaders, are unstable.
Some are perceived as threats and are persecuted by
the state.
Ecclesias, or state religions, are rare
What are the main characteristics of
religion in the United States?
Membership varies by region, social class,
age, and race-ethnicity.
The major characteristics are diversity,
pluralism and freedom, competition,
commitment, toleration, a fundamentalist
revival, and the electronic church.
What is the connection between
secularization of religion and the splintering
of churches?
Secularization of religion, a change in a religion’s focus from
spiritual matters to concerns of "this world," is the key to
understanding why churches divide.
Basically, as a cult or sect changes to accommodate its
members’ upward social class mobility, it changes into a
church.
Left dissatisfied are members who are not upwardly mobile.
They tend to splinter off and form a new cult or sect, and
the cycle repeats itself.
Cultures permeated by religion also secularize. This, too,
leaves many members dissatisfied and promotes social
change
Religion in the Future…
Although industrialization led to the secularization of
culture, this did not spell the end of religion, as many
social analysts assumed it would.
Because science cannot answer questions about ultimate
meaning, the existence of God or an afterlife, or provide
guidelines for morality, the need for religion will remain.
In any foreseeable future, religion—or its functional
equivalents—will prosper. The Internet is likely to have
far-reaching consequences on religion.