Religion scholars

Durkheim - Totemism is religion in its most basic form. The essence of all religion could be found by studying its most basic form - clan/tribe society. Durkheim studied the Arunta Aboriginal tribe, the totem is the clans emblem. Worshiping the totem reinforces social solidarity - all religions worship sacred objects or totems

Sacred / profane, Sacred items/places are sacred becuase they are a symbol of the group or society. They inspire feelings of awe and wonder and a connection with the divine.

Collective conscience, Sacred symbols represents societies collective sonscience, shared morals, values and beliefs. All sacred items/places perform the same function, uniting believers into a moral community.

Parsons - Religion is a primary source of mesning humans want to find answers and explinations for big questions such as why do people suffer, whats the point of life, why is there a universe. Religions give us these answers and help humans make sense and cope with their issues and life events. This then helps society maintain stability.

Structural differentation - Since the industrial revolution the church has lost so many roles, institutions now specialise in one function as the church is not longer influential in other sectors such as welfare/education. It has become disengaged from society

Malinowski - Religion has a physocological function - it helps people to cope with emotional stress which could undermine social solidarity. Religion reduces stress and anxiety.

When he studied the Trobriand Islanders lagoon fishing their was no anxiety or risk. In contrast when the islanders went ocean fishing he noted that the islanders would undertake ‘canoe magic’ rituals before setting out. This is because ocean fishing is risky and dangerous.

So Malinowski concluded that when the outcome is so important but uncontrollable and uncertain religion serves a function in reducing anxiety and helping strengthen social solidarity.

Lenin - Religion is a form of spiritual gin. Religion is an intoxicant given to the prols by the bourg. The prols consume religion and it creates a mystical fog - their awareness is impaired they are drunk/giddy on religion. It helps to keep prols in a state of false class consciousness.

El-Saadawi - Islamic feminist who suggested that islam is not patriarchal in nature it is purely the arab culture and society. Men held the powerful positions in society and abused this power to interpret the quaranic passages as they saw fit

Helen Watson - Interviewed Islamic women about why they wear the hijab and weather they feel oppressed. She concluded that for many muslim women they choose to wear the hijab and feel empowered by doing so. They argued that modest actually has advantages for women because it helps reduce male power especially the power of men to devalue women as sexual objects. Watson argued that veilling is not a submission to patriarchy and is rather a means of asserting ethnic and gender identity.

Simon De Beauvoir - The second sex - theorized that religion opresses and controls women. Further religion offers a form of comepnsation for their lower status. She argued that historically men have controlled most institutions in society it was men who control religious beliefs and they use god to justify their control of society. However in modern society religion is more of a tool of deception rather than direct control.

Mary Daly - “If god is male then male is god” - men will view themseleves as supirior/ powerful and to be obeyed. She criticised the idea that the role of the christian women is to be a mother and the argument is that women cnnot be ordained becuase jesus was male. She believed that the maleness of god should be removed “God should be castrated” She argued that women need a new female focused spirituality and need to abandon christianity.

Karen Armstrong - Stained glass ceiling, women in religon cannot take up leadership roles or authority positions. Women are limited and excluded in their progression to the top of the heirarchy. It makes them feel marginalised.

Steve Bruce - A sucsessful example of religion causing social change is the american civil rights movement. Aimed to end racial segregation. Dr Martin Luther King used religion as an ideological resouce in the way that he appealed to all christians regardless of ethnicity in order to find a common ground based on their christian beliefs.

NCR movements are an example of a religious group failing to cause political and social change because they werent having much impact on the american landscape as their ideas were not mainstream and they were in small numbers.

Overtime relgious belief has shifted from the public sphere. Religion is not governing the public sphere and is now based in the home or places of worship rather than dominating all society.

Monothestic religions are more likely to be fundementalist than polytheism. This is because religions such as christianity and Islam present their god as the only true god with the potential to be almighty, powerful, vengeful and authorative. Islamic fundementalists feel threatened by external forces outside their own countrues ie human rights organisations.

Bloch - Neo-Marxist religion has a dual charachter, there is two sides to religion. One side: Barrier to social change, legitimises social inequality. The other side: Religious beliefs such as hope and the pursuit of a utopian world will ensure that religions can bring about social change. Religions are the very instituions that can make this world a better place.

Gramsci - Neo-Marxist How do the bourgeois come to dominate society and the prols? Power and control dont just come about by physical means it also happens via cultural domination. Hegemony is the idea that power can be exercised and reinforced through cultural life as well as physical force. Power is being reinforced through the images, norms and values we see in our daily life. The power will represent something as simple as ‘common sensical approach’ on the world ie its common sense that some people are super rich and others have nothing.

Liberation theology - Latin america in 1960s had lots of poverty. Latin american priests and bishops were frustrated thay the catholic church were not properly responding to the poverty and exploitation. They wanted the church to make more action - teaching kindness and love will not suffice. Priests urged communities to fight and rebel, sometimes using violence. The catholic church was not happy that the priests were turning to marxism for inspiration.

Weber - Protestsant (mainly calvinist, beliefs, value and work ethic was a driving factor in the emergance of capitalism in some european societies. Calvinists believe in predestination - the belief that god has already determained who is going to heaven or hell. Calvinists believe in working hard and fuffilling their duty to be an active member of society. Some calvinists may even see a sucsessful buisness/wealth as a sign from god they are going to heaven

The enlightenment era in the 18th century led to the disenchantment of the world. Religion couldnt offer emperical evidence and people started to challenge and abandon religion.

Modern socieities are characterised by rational and scientific thinking and this has replaced religious explanations. Society has been disenchanted.

Niebuhr - Why sects have a short lifespan, 1. the sect loses its momentum when a leader dies 2. The children of the sect members do not have the same intensity of beliefs as their parents and therefore the movement dies out in the second generation. 3. The sect grows and becomes a domination.

Wallis - New religious movements are different donominations, sects and cults that have emerged over recent generations (post 1940s)

Woodhead and Heelas - The kendal project. set to test the spiritual revolution thesis which claims there is a spirtual revolution occuring with a rise in new age spirituality. The researchers identified two trends, there is a decline in traditional christianity and there is a growth in new age spirituality.

Lyons - individuals like to spiritually shop around within a religious marketplace. Religious people are spiritual shoppers

Madood - There is some decline in some ethnic groups who have been in the uk for multiple generations. The more generations that exists within the community the lower the rate of religious participation.

Woodhead - There is 3 types of women in regars to their religious participation in todays society. 1. Home centred - stay at home = more conservatice = more time = high levels of religiosity 2. Work centred - tend to be more secular as they have a full time job and career. 3. Juggler - they balance spirituality and home life

Brireley - Data collected showed that since the 1980s the numbers of under 15s attending the church regularly has halved 50% of all english churches have no one under the age of 20 in their congregation. 87% of youngsters declared the church as boring and old fashioned. They didnt feel the teachings related to their life so they avoided attending church.

Voas and Crockett - Aging effect - as people come closer to death their intrest in religion and spirituality increases. Anxiety about the porcess and/or afterlife. May seek forgiveness for past behaviour and regrets. Generational effect - Current elderly are more relgious due to their upbringing.They were socialised into a christian community from a young age. They also experienced big world events such as world wars and poverty - so religion was a source of comfort for them.

Grace Davies - Argues that child abuse scandals (patricularly in the catholic church) has meant a lack of respect and suspicion for priests. This may deter young chrisitans from becoming priests, they done want the connotations

Believeing without belonging - She argues that religion is changing and not necisarily declining. People may not be beloging or associating themselves with a particular church or religon but they still believe in something.The idea is that belief has become more privatised. There is more evidence to suggest that people maintain religious belief but choose to keep that private rather than join and participate in a traditional religious organisation.

She further suggested that people practise their religion vicariously. Professional figures such as priests practise religion on behalf of believers who remain at home.

Stark and Bainbridge - Religious market theory, religiosity remains constant around the world because humans are naturally religious and it meets a variety of human needs. When people make any decision they make a rational cost/benefit anaylsis. hey further argue that religious organisations act like buisnesses, selling a product. Where there is competition then the churches will try and make themselves attractive whereas there is a monopoly things become stale and unattractive.

They suggest that there is a cycle where as a church declines new products come onto the market (sects/cults/ect) which eventually leads to diversity and a religous “revival”. They use this argument to explain why (compared with europe) religion has remained strong in the USA. No one church has ever beem dominant there and so there has always been a lively competitive market

However, this does not explain the way religion has remained very strong in socieites with one dominnant faith in the developing world, such as in the middle easy and parts of africa.

Giddens - The rapid rise of cosmopolitain and liberal values is undermining and a threat to traditional values. Some religions are undergoing the process of internal secularisation - this means that they are adaptinf religious teachings for modern socieity and becoming more accepting of certain issues, this is angering some very conservative religious people further and they are going to extreme kengths to keep hold of their views against an increasingly liberal society.

Bauman - Postmodernism leads to uncertainity and no truth - religious fundementalism gives them this absolute source of truth that they can build their lives and identifiers around.

Nanda - Studied the rapid economic growth of India over recent years. This has led to the emergance of middle class professionals working in India. It was expected that India would then secularise. However this did not happen. Nanda noted that telegurus were emphasising to Hindus that wealth and prosperity was a sign of divine favour so young Hindus now dont feel guilty to be a part of a globalised world and a hard working and ambitious workforce as this will further help the economy. Many Indians now believe that their Hindu faith has helped the economy so they created a sense of ultranationalism by generating a culture of worship of indian culture. Similar to Bellahs civil religion concept about america.

Huntington - Clash of civilisation, Globalisation will bring civilisations into greater interaction with eachother (media, travel ect) They will clash because they will disagree on important societal and moral issues and they will just misunderstand eachother. A clash/conflict will occur between civilsations. He has been credited with forecasting the cultural and religious context in which a 9/11 type incident could emerge. While he advocates tolerance and mutual understanding he sees the west increasing in conflict with Islam.

Grace Davie - Fundementalism is not confined to religion, non religious or political parties are now exhibiting the same features. Increasing extreme far right political groups in western societies and lone individuals who feel they are protecting conservative values that were once dominant but are no longer respected by the liberal majority.

Berger - Sacred canopy, During the medieval era there was only one religion in europe, catholicsm. Everyone lived under the same belief system therefore there were no doubts and everyone was religious. It was the golden age of religion. Religion protected its believers like a jungle, the canopy protects people beneath it. Religion comforts and unites the people. However bruce notes that this idea is no longer relevant has the canopys broken or are people sheltering under a number of canopies. Religious pluralism means there is more choice and this also means the choice to not believe.

Polyani - Religions will try to protect their beliefs and have a tendancy to respond in one of 3 wats to self sustain their beliefs. 1. Denial of legitimacy, outward denial of a competing view. 2. Subsiduary explination, they offer an alternative explination to explain away the criticms 3. Circularity, they use another idea/ within their belief system to support another idea or to deflect a criticism away.

Herberg - Religion is open to change, some religions have altered their belief systems in order to maintain relevance in modern society. He refers to this procsess as internal secularisation and uses the acceptance of female bishops into the church of england as an example.

Popper - Falisification principle, science is open to continual challenge and is built on the idea of falsification. Science has the means/ ability to prove a hypothesis to be false. If the scientific theory is proven to be wrong it is replaced with a new idea and scientific progress. True scientists should attempt to disprove their theory instead of finding the evidence to confirm it.

Merton - CUDOS

C- communism, scientific knowledge is shared with the whole community, it is not private knowledge

U - universalism, All scientists are regarded as equal and so it should be their work that is challenged not their social characteristics. Never make the criticsm to the person.

D - disintrestedness, scientists should be committed to the truth and publish their findings honestly. There should be no fraud or subject bias in their claims.

OS - organised sceptacism, all knowledge should be challenged and scrutinised. Scepticms is welcome in the scientific community.

Kuhn - Paradigms, Scientists across the world tended to shsre similar assumptions and conducted research on the basis of these assumptions, these are paradigms. Paradigms are the parametres in which scientists work. It shows how the discipline is defined and understood by thoes who operate within it. It then shapes the hypothesis of scientsts and the research methods they choose to undertake. This is deemed as resoutable and ‘normal’ science.