Relevance:
SOCIOLOGY PAPER –I
Unit: Religion and Society
RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF ONE SORT OR ANOTHER ARE PRESENT IN EVERY KNOWN SOCIETY,BUT THERE VARIETY SEEMS TO BE ENDLESS. ANY DEFINITION OF RELIGION MUST ENCOMPASS THIS VARIETY.
1. ONE WAY OF DEFINING RELIGION IS TO SEE IT IN TERMS OF FUNCTION IT PERFORMS FOR SOCIETY OR INDIVIDUALS.
The approach is provided by ‘Yinger’, who defined religion as ‘a system of beliefs and practices by means of which group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life’
Hamilton notes two main problems with such definition.
- a) it allows the inclusion of a wide variety of belief systems in category ‘religion’
- b) it is based upon assumptions about the roles and purpose of religion.
- other approaches are based on substantive definitions; that is, they are concerned with the content of religion rather rather than its function or purpose .
DURKHEIM defined religion in terms of a distinction between the sacred and the profane.
Sacred objects- for example, the cross in Christianity-produces a sense of awe, veneration and respect, whereas profane object do not.
A common approach to a substantive definition of religion is to define it in terms of supernatural beliefs. Thus Roland Robertson states that religion ‘refers to existence of supernatural beings that have a governing effect on life’.
James G Frazer in his The Golden Bough considered religion a belief in powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life. Maclver and Page have defined religion as we understand the term, implies a relationship not merely between man and man but also between man and some higher power. According to Ogburn religion is an attitude towards superhuman powers. Max Muller defines religion as a mental faculty or disposition which enables man to apprehend the infinite.
To answer the question how did religion begin – two main theories animism and naturism were advanced. The early sociologists, adhering to evolutionary framework, advocated that societies passed through different stages of development and from simplicity to complexity is the nature of social progress.
Animism
Animism means the belief in spirits. E.B. Taylor in his famous book Primitive Culture developed the thesis of animism and subsequently he developed the distinction between magic, religion and science.
In his thesis of animism he advocated that anima means spirit. Animism refers to a given form of religion in which man finds the presence of spirit in every object that surrounds him.
According to him, any type of spiritual phenomenon– May that is souls, divinities– which are animated and interpreted by man, explain the stage of animism. Man’s ideas of spirits primarily originated from his dreams. In his dreams man, for the first time, encountered with his double. He realized that his double or duplicate is more dynamic and elastic than his own self. He further considered that his double, though resembled his body, it is far more superior in terms of quality from his body. He generalized further that the presence of soul in human body is responsible for the elasticity of images in dreams.
Naturism
Naturism means the belief that the forces of nature have supernatural power. Andrew Lang and Max Muller develop the theory of naturism.
Max Muller, a great Sanskrit scholar, strongly advocates that the most ancient form of religious practice is naturism. Naturism, according to him, is primarily based on man’s sensory experience out of which logical deductions are primarily made.
It is through sensory organism that man obtains the surfaced experience of reality on the basis of which he makes logical deductions. The sensory experience further helps man to distinguish animate from the inanimate objects. Therefore, religion is primarily a derivative of sensory experience. To them religious embodiments are seen yet unseen, observable yet unobservable.
THEORIES OF RELIGION
Marx and Religion
From Marx’s point of view, religion is a form of mystification– a distortion of the weak relationships between people and inanimated objects(Dawson) .Through religion, human project personal characteristics onto the impersonal forces of nature– they create gods whom they believe to have control over nature. This renders nature potentially open to manipulation by human, for example through prayers or sacrifices.
Ludwig Feuerbach, who wrote “The Essence of Christianity”, says, religion consists of ideas and values produced by human beings in the course of their cultural development but mistakenly projected on to divine forces or gods. Feuerbach uses the term alienation to refer to the establishment of Gods or divine forces as distinct from human beings.
Marx accepts the view that religion represents human self-alienation. He declared in a famous phrase that religion has been the opium of the people. Religion defers happiness and rewards to the after life, teaching the resigned acceptance of existing conditions in this life. Attention is thus diverted from inequalities and injustices in this world by the promise of what is to come in the next. Religion has a strong ideological element, religious beliefs and values often provide justifications for inequalities of wealth and power. In Marx’s view religion in its traditional form will and should disappear.
Durkheim and Religion
In contrast to Marx Durkheim studied religion in a different way, concentrating particularly on religion in small scale traditional societies. His Elementary Forms of Religious Life first published in 1912 what is probably the most influential interpretation of religion from functionalist perspective.
He based his work upon a study of totemism as practiced by Australian aboriginal societies and urged that totemism represents religion in its most elementary or simple form. A totem was originally an animal or plant considered to have a particular symbolic significance for a group. It is a sacred object regarded with veneration and surrounded by various ritual activities. Durkheim defines religion in terms of a distinction between the sacred and the profane.
Sacred : According to Durkheim sacred is ideal and transcends everyday existence; it is extra-ordinary potentially dangerous, awe-inspiring, fear inducing. The sacred refers to things set apart by man including religious beliefs, rites, duties or anything socially defined as requiring special religious treatment. The sacred has extra-ordinary, supernatural and often dangerous qualities and can usually be approached only through some form of ritual such as prayer, incantation or ceremonial cleansing. Almost anything can be sacred: a god, a rock, a cross, the moon, the earth, a king, a tree, an animal or bird. These are sacred only because some community has marked them a sacred. Once established as sacred however they become symbols of religious beliefs, sentiments and practices. Sacred objects are symbols and are treated apart from the routine aspects if existence or the realm of profane. Eating the totemic animal or plant is usually forbidden and as a sacred object the totem is believed to have divine properties which separate it completely from other animals that might be hunted or those crops that can be gathered and consumed.
Profane : The profane is the realm of routine experience which coincides greatly with what Pareto called logico-experimental experience. The profane or ordinary or unholy, embraces those ideas, persons, practices and things that are related with everyday attitude of commonness, utility and familiarity. It is that which is not supposed to come into contact with or take precedence over the sacred. The unholy or the profane is also believed to contaminate the holy or sacred. It is the denial or subordination of the holy in some way. The attitudes and behavior toward it are charged with negative emotions and hedged about by strong taboos.
The sacred and profane are closely related because of the highly emotional attitude towards them. The distinction between the two is not very clear but ambiguous. As Durkheim pointed out the circle of sacred objects cannot be determined then once and for all. Its extent varies indefinitely according to different religions. The significance of the sacred lies in the fact of its distinction from the profane. The sacred thing is par excellence that which profane should not touch and cannot touch with impurity. Man always draws this distinction of two orders in different times and places. According to Durkheim totem is sacred because it is the symbol of the group itself, it stands for the values central to the group or community. The reverence which people feel for the totem actually derives from the respect they hold for central social values. In religion the object of worship is the society itself.
Durkheim strongly emphasizes the fact that religions are never just a matter of belief. All religions involve regular ceremonial and ritual activities in which a group of believers meet together. Ceremony and ritual in Durkheim’s view are essential to binding the members or groups together.
Durkheim believes that scientific thinking increasingly replaces religious explanation and ceremonial and ritual activities gradually come to occupy only a small part of an individual’s lives. Yet he says there is a sense in which religion in an altered from is likely to continue. Even modern societies depend for their cohesion upon rituals that reaffirm their values; new ceremonial activities thus may be expected to emerge to replace the old.
Max Weber and World Religion
Functionalists and Marxists emphasis the role of religion in promoting social integration and impeding social change .IN contrast Weber argued that in some circumstances religion can lead to social change: although shared religious belief might integrate a social group; those same beliefs may have repercussions which in long term may produce change in society.
Weber made detailed studies of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and ancient Judaism and in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism wrote extensively about the impact of Christianity on the history of the west. Weber concentrated on a connection between religion and social change something to which Durkheim gave little attention. Unlike Marx Weber argues that religion is not necessarily a conservative force on the contrary religiously inspired movements have produced dramatic social transformation. Protestantism particularly Puritanism was the source of capitalist outlook found in the modern west.
The early entrepreneurs were mostly Calvinists. Their drive to succeed which helped initiate western economic development was originally prompted by a desire to serve God. Material success was for them a sign of divine favour. Analyzing the eastern religions Weber concludes that they provided inseparable barriers to the development of industrial capitalism of the kind that took place in the west. For example Hinduism is what Weber calls an ‘other-worldly’ religion that is its highest value stress escape from the toils of the material world to a higher plane of spiritual existence.
Social functions and dysfunctions of religion
Social scientists have analyzed religion in terms of what it does for the individual, community or society through its functions and dysfunctions. Many of these social scientists are known to belong to the tradition of functionalist thought. A famous social anthropologist of early twentieth century, Malinowski, saw religion and magic as assisting the individual to cope with situations of stress or anxiety.
Religious ritual, according to him, may enable the bereaved to reassert their collective solidarity, to express their common norms and values upon which the proper functioning of the community depends. Religion can also supplement practical, empirical knowledge, offering some sense of understanding and control in areas to which such knowledge does not extent.
A more influential tradition of functionalist thought on religion derives from Durkheim, whose Elementary Forms of the Religious Life presents a theory of religion identifying religion with social cohesion: religious beliefs and rituals are understood in terms of the role they play in promoting and maintaining social solidarity. Radcliffe-Brown argues that religious ceremonies, for example in the form of communal dancing, promoted unity and harmony and functioned to enhance social solidarity and the survival of the society. Religious beliefs contained in myths and legends, he observes, express the social values of the different objects which have a major influence on social life such as food, weapons, day and night etc. They form the value consensus around which society is integrated.
Recent functionalism while retaining his notion that religion has a central role in maintaining social solidarity has rejected Durkheim’s view that religious beliefs are merely symbolic representations of society. Kingsley Davis argues that religious beliefs form the basis for socially valued goals and a justification of them. Religion provides a common focus for identity and an unlimited source of rewards and punishments for behaviour. Functionalist theories of religion face a problem in the apparent decline in religious belief and participation. What is viewed as secularization in other theories is seen as simply religious change in functionalist terms.
Functionalist theorists argue that religion takes different forms in apparently secular societies: it is more individualized, less tied to religious institutions. The character of modern industrial capitalist society, particularly its rampant individualism, is thus seen to be expressed in the differentiated character of religion in a society like the USA. Although seemingly having little basis for integration, the celebration of individualism is itself an integrating feature of such diverse religious forms. Moreover, new and distinctive forms of religion may perform latent functions for the system by deflecting adherents from critical appraisal of their society and its distribution of rewards.
In anti-religious societies such as some communist States this argument cannot hold, but here it is claimed that functional alternatives to traditional religion operate. Other systems of belief such as communism itself fulfill the same role as religion elsewhere. National ceremonial, ritual celebration of communist victories, heroes, etc., meets the same need for collective rites, which reaffirm common sentiments and promote enhanced commitment to common goals. Finally, even in highly secularized Western societies civil religion exists. This consists in abstract beliefs and rituals, which relate society to ultimate things and provide a rationale for national history, a transcendental basis for national goals and purposes. Robert King Merton, a twentieth century functionalist, introduced the concept of dysfunction. Talking about religion, for instance, he pointed out the dysfunctional features of religion in a multi-religious society. In such a society religion, instead of bringing about solidarity, could become the cause of disorganization and disunity.
Apart from Merton, many other social thinkers have highlighted the dysfunctions of religion. Marx regarded religion as a source of false consciousness among the proletariat, which prevents the ‘class for itself’ from developing. It prevents them from developing their real powers and potentialities.
Sect and Cult
The classification of churches or religious groups into cults, sects, denominations and ecclesia indicates different methods of relating to the society. The chief feature of a religious sect is that it is a voluntary association. A sect is a small religious group that has branched off of a larger established religion.
Sects have many beliefs and practices in common with the religion that they have broken off from, but are differentiated by a number of doctrinal differences.
The word sect comes from the latin secta, meaning an organized religious body or organization, from Latin, meaning a course of action or way of life. Sociologists use the word sect to refer to a religious group with a high degree of tension with the surrounding society, but whose beliefs are (within the context of that society) largely traditional. A sect seeks to impose a rigid pattern of ideal conduct on its members but seeks toleration rather than change from the larger society.
Sects are concerned with purity of doctrine and with the depth of genuineness of religions feeling. As a result, demands are made upon the member to be an active participant, even a leader or missionary, as a warrant of his faith. The emphasis on purity of belief tends to create intolerance toward other groups and moves the sect toward critical assessment of the secular world in accordance with the ideals of the gospel. A cult, by contrast, also has a high degree of tension with the surrounding society, but its beliefs are (within the context of that society) new and innovative. It may seek to transform society but more often concentrate upon creating satisfying group experience.
The denomination is a major religious group which hopes that a separation of church and state will enable it to be influential even though not dominant. The ecclesia is a church claiming to be the spiritual expression of the total society.
Pluralistic Religion
Religious pluralism, broadly construed, is a response to the diversity of religious beliefs, practices, and traditions that exist both in the contemporary world and throughout history. The terms “pluralism” and “pluralist” can, depending on context or intended use, signify anything from the mere fact of religious diversity to a particular kind of philosophical or theological approach to such diversity, one usually characterized by humility regarding the level of truth and effectiveness of one’s own religion, as well as the goals of respectful dialogue and mutual understanding with other traditions. The term “diversity” refers here to the phenomenal fact of the variety of religious beliefs, practices, and traditions. The terms “pluralism” and “pluralist” refer to one form of response to such diversity.
Religious pluralism is the belief that one can overcome religious differences between different religions and denominational conflicts within the same religion. For most religious traditions, religious pluralism is essentially based on a non-literal view of one’s religious traditions, hence allowing for respect to be engendered between different traditions on core principles rather than more marginal issues. It is perhaps summarized as an attitude, which rejects focus on immaterial differences, and instead gives respect to those beliefs held in common.
The existence of religious pluralism depends on the existence of freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is when different religions of a particular region possess the same rights of worship and public expression. Freedom of religion is consequently weakened when one religion is given rights or privileges denied to others, as in certain European countries where Roman Catholicism or regional forms of Protestantism have special status. Religious freedom has not existed at all in some communist countries where the state restricts or prevents the public expression of religious belief and may even actively persecute individual religions.
Religious pluralism has existed in the Indian Subcontinent since the rise of Buddhism around 500 BC and has widened in the course of several Muslim settlements (Delhi Sultanate1276-1526 AD and the Mughal Empire 1526-1857 AD). In the 8th century, Zoroastrianism established in India as Zoroastrians fled from Persia to India in large numbers, where they were given refuge. The colonial phase ushered in by the British lasted until 1947 and furthered conversions to Christianity among low caste Hindus. The rise of religious pluralism in the modern West is closely associated with the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
Religions like Judaism and Islam had existed alongside Christianity in many parts of Europe, but they were not allowed the same freedoms as the established form of Christianity. Freedom of religion encompasses all religions acting within the law in a particular region, whether or not an individual religion accepts that other religions are legitimate or that freedom of religious choice and religious plurality in general are good things.
Monistic Religion
Monism is the metaphysical view that all is of one essential essence, substance or energy. Monism is to be distinguished from dualism, which holds that ultimately there are two kinds of substance, and from pluralism, which holds that ultimately there are many kinds of substance.
Monism is often seen in relation to pantheism, panentheism, and an immanent God. Monism is often seen as partitioned into three different kinds:
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Functionalism, like materialism, holds that the mental can ultimately be reduced to the physical, but also holds that all critical aspects of the mind are also reducible to some substrate-neutral “functional” level. Thus something need not be made out of neurons to have mental states. This is a popular stance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Eliminativism, which holds that talk of the mental will eventually be proved as unscientific and completely discarded.
Just as we no longer follow the ancient Greeks in saying that all matter is composed of earth, air, water, and fire, people of the future will no longer speak of “beliefs”, “desires”, and other mental states. A subcategory of eliminativism is radical behaviourism, a view held by B. F. Skinner.) Anomalous monism, a position proposed by Donald Davidson in the 1970s as a way to resolve the Mind-body problem. It could be considered (by the above definitions) either physicalism or neutral monism.
Davidson holds that here is only physical matter, but that all mental objects and events are perfectly real and are identical with (some) physical matter. But physicalism retains a certain priority, inasmuch as
- All mental things are physical, but not all physical things are mental
- (As John Haugeland puts it) Once you take away all the atoms, there’s nothing left.
This monism was widely considered an advance over previous identity theories of mind and body, because it does not entail that one must be able to provide an actual method for redescribing any particular kind of mental entity in purely physical terms.
For some, monism may also have religious/spiritual implications. Recognizing this, some inveigh against the ‘dangers of monism,’ asserting that in order to resolve all things to a single substrate, one dissolves God in the process. Others say that the “single substrate is God. Theological arguments can be made for this within Christianity for example the Roman Catholic doctrine of “divine simplicity“, as well as in many other religions (Hinduism, Ayyavazhi and Judaism in particular).Historically, monism has been promoted in spiritual terms on several occasions, notably by Ernst Haeckel. To the dismay of most modern observers, Haeckel’s various ideas often had components of social darwinism and scientific racism.
UPSC previous year question:
a) “Religious pluralism is the order of present-day societies.” Explain by giving suitable examples. (2016)
b) Elaborate the views of Durkheim on “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life”. (2015)
Probable questions:
- “According to Durkheim, the essence of religion in modern society is the same as religion in primitive society”, Comment. (250 words)
- “According to Weber, the religion was not just an opinion but a social reality which had clear logic of its own”, comment. (250 words)
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