beliefs

exclusive definition of religion

exclusive definition of religion

- refers to the characteristics that makes a religion e.g a belief in god or supernatural

- defines the self through their practices and a belief in a higher power e.g supernatural or mystical beings

- belief in god is essential as there is a difference between the sacred and the profane

- eval: belief in supernatural is too narrow and too western centric

Inclusive definitions

- broad and focuses on the role religion plays in society such as integration

Therefore covers a wide range of beliefs to which people give a religious or sacred quality but which does not necessarily include beliefs in a supernatural being

- from this perspective anything can be defined as a religion especially if it provides a sense of faith.

eval- too broad and anything that promotes social cohesion as a religion

John Yinger

- inclusive definition of religion provides answers to the ultimate questions about life

social constructionist definition

-interpretivist approach that focuses on how memebrs of society define religion in their own way. in this view its not possible to produce a single definition of religion to cover all cases

-focuses on how religion has changed, defined and challenged

Berger and Lukmann

- religion should be centred on how each individual makes sense of the world around them

max weber

exclusive definition

-'a believe in the supernatural'

-a belief in being, beings, powers or forces that can't be verifies by science

Emile Durkheim

- exclusive definition

- 'unified set of beliefs and practices related to sacred things, that is to say, set apart or forbidden

- world is divided into the sacred and profane

- sacred objects in religion are what sets it apart

civil religion- Bellah

- inclusive definition

- belief system that attatches sacred qualities to society itself

- e.g america pledge allegiance which in return creates social solidarity through shared beliefs and values

ultimate questions

- inclusive definition

- religion answers these about life

- maintains social control by encouraging members to follow society's norms and values

Constantine

- social constructionist

- responsible for creating Catholicism and the religion of the HRE

- persecuted non believes of catholiscm

• Increase in Catholicism and wiping out of traditional beliefs e.g. Nordics and Greeks.

Anglicalism

-broke away from catholiscm and founded church of england

- any other religion was denied legitimacyfor 200 years

scientology

- religion banned in Germany finland and Belgium

- it is seen as a political business masquerade

aldridge

-A03 for inclusive definitions

-too broad as science and philosophy are also concerned with explaining the problem of the human condition

-this definition would class devotion to a nation such as Nazism as a religion

giddens

- exclusive A03

- argues that many religions do not refer to a belief in God/supernatural or suggest that they created the world e.g. Buddhism or confucianissm

a03 for social constructionist

- impossible to generalise about the future of religion as people may have differing views about what counts as a religion

- not possible to measure if a religion has grown or declined in popularity

animism

beliefs held in pre industrial and non industrial societies that a spiritual or supernatural force organises and shapes the physical or material world

a02 for animism

- navejo tribe - native americans believe that owls are evil spies on behalf of the evil sprits

- 53,000 pagans in the UK and belief in magical spirits in streams, mountains and rivers

durkeim- totenism

- all forms of religion have their origins in totemism and totems symbolise divine power and this is a centre of worship

- researched australian aboriginals and found that the totem became a symbol for the cremonies and traditions of the religions as a result he argued thaat they were worshippign society itself

- saw totemism as a basic religion and argued that this was reflected in major religions around the world

theistic religions

-focus on belief in sacred and higher and controlling power, that is a god or gods. this power is seen as a source of moral codes of behaviour and is worthy of reverance

-polytheistic-plurality of Gods, some religions may be monotheistic in belief but polytheistic in practice e.g Sikhs celebrate Hindu festivals like Diwali

- monotheistic- one divine power, variations exists

-science and religion

science and religion

Dixon

• The Enlightenment Project’ (2000)- move towards rational thought.

• 2000 years ago science and religion were interconnected e.g. Newton’s Theory of Uniqueness- only one creator can make something so unique

• Science and religion are no longer interconnected- instead religion is privatised while science now holds a monopoly of truth in modern society.

• Science now provides predictions for how natural world works

Weber

- enlightenment introduced the rationalisation of thought and disenchantment of religion

Beck

• Risk society has come about due to the ascension of science. Science has moved beyond the enlightenment period. Humanity is responsible for manufactured risk e.g. WMDs and climate change.

Bruce

-due to enlightenment we have a technological worldview, we can now explain phenomena through tech and science

- religious worldview- explaining phenomena through belief and faith

Popper

- open belief system

- religion is a closed belief system as knowledge is sacred and absolute and therefore cannot be challenged

- science is an open belief system

1) religion proclaims to have absolute truths and therefore cannot grow or change

2) metaphysical: religion is concerned with the metaphysical and cannot be tested

3) falsification - in science every test and theory is open to be proven wrong

4) objective facts0 objective facts can be changed and adapted to the point where a scientific belief system has a grounding of understanding

Galileo

- argued that the earth revolved around the church which led him to be executed by the catholic church as it went against catholic belief

- forced to deny his findings and spent entire life under house arrests

• example of religion being a closed belief system

horton

- religion as a 'self reinforce closed belief system'

- religion makes claims that cannot be overturned

- it has get out clauses that reinforce the system and prevent it being disproved e.g .'God's Plan'

Creationism/Intelligent Design

- the belief that God as creator is responsible for Life's complexities and uniqueness, unable to not be designed by a creator

- this was thought in scienc lessons and claimed to be a science

- Council of Europe banned it from science lessons and argued it was not suitable in 200 7

- reinforces a closwitched belief system

witchcraft among the Azande

the Azande believe that natural events have natural causes. However, unlike most Westerners, the Azande do not believe in coincidence or chance. Therefore, when misfortune befalls the Azande, they may explain it in terms of witchcraft

Polanyi

- religion has 3 devices to sustain itself

1) circularity- i know God exists because i have faith in God, and i have faith because he exists

2) subsidiary explanations- explanations for what happened in the world

3) denial of legitimacy to other viewpoints - creationism is rejecting evolution

Merton

CUDOS norms in science

-C- communist: scientific knowledge must be shared as there is no private property in science

-U- universalism: objective truths are accurate everywhere and every time . objective criteria is consistent

-D- disinterestedness: discovering knowledge for the sake of discovering knowledge

-O-organised sceptism: no truth is sacred and every idea should be tested and is open to criticism and are obejctive

Kuhn

-paradigms

-set of shared assumptions which become the norms and values of the profession and shape the dominant scientific though

- socially constructed and restricts scientific imagination and those who follow are rewarded and thosewho dont follow are rejected

- anyone that falls outside the paradigm is rejected, its not tested

- every once in a while the paradigm changes in science revolution

velikovsky

-science as a closed beleif system

- catastrophist- argued that the world today is a result of many catastorphies which has changed the nature of the world. the world many years ago worked completely different to the world today

- science community completely rejects this idea and boycotted his book. they did this with no testing as the theory fell outside the paradigm

Knorr-Cetina

-CAGE of researcher defines the paradigms so those who have resources can reinforce those paradigms

- shows that science is socially constructed

- predicts results that should be expected

Woolgar

- wrote book on the construction of scientific fact

-said that LGM1 and LGM2 use pulse stats

cambridge uni in 1967 discovered radio pulses from space

- the findings were not published for 10 years

- scientist were threatned of their job

A03 for science is a closed belief system

-lyotard - science and religion are both metanarratives that falsely claim to possess the truth

- people are now disillusioned with metanarratives that tell them how to live their lives so people are losing faith in religion and science

- people pick and mix aspects of belief systems e.g Holistic medicine and western medicine

-Bruce- science is still seen as superior as its tested against evidence

Marxism and science

- science and tech widening the gap and foundation stones of capitalist production therefore its easier to exploit the w/c

-rise of tech has led to more advertisements and so more products people nee d

-tech has led to the speed of the industrial rev

-GMO- create profit all year round for the bourgeoise

feminism and science

-Crasner - scientific institutions have history of tradition of excluding women

- sceince as a patriachal ideology and has adjusted to appear gender neutral but research has shown predjudice and discrimination and has directly led to gender inequalities in science

marks- patriachal ideology was used to justiy the excllusion of women from education until the 1930s

anderson

- we identify with other members of our nations but we dont know them - thus bonds millions of people together

marx

-'workers of all countries unite and you have nothing to lose but your chains.'

-proles believe that they have more in common with r/c of their own nations than proles around the world with prevents revolution

Bellah

-a belief sustem to consulting nations

-nationhood

Gellner

- argues that nationalism is a false consciousness

- in pre industrial times, community was more important

marks

- argues that science is a male vocation

- science is used to justify women's positions

difference feminists

Poc need the church as a shelter from racism and poverty

Mannheim

free floating intelligentsia

- all belief systems are one sided and offer a partial worldview

- argues we should create a free floating intelligentsia that floats above the conflict

- argues that this should be counteracted with a worldview by pluralist ideolgies that takes into account many ideologies of the world