Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Beliefs in Society
- Theories of religion
- Functionalism
- Religion promotes social solidarity
- Religion represents a collective conscience
that makes social order possible
- Religion Unifies society
- Religion is the source of our ability to think clearly
- Marxism
- Religion is an Ideology that hides capitalism
- A product of alienation 'opium of the people'
- Feminism
- Religion is patriarchal
- Organisations are male dominated
- Teachings focus on men
- Forms of religious femimism
- Women using religion to gain freedom and respect
- Religion and Social change
- Conservative force
- Aims to preserve things as they are, or impose traditional values
- Maintains social stability and prevents disintegration
- Legitimises capitalism and patriarchy, promoting consensus
- Religion as a force for change
- Calvinism
- Predestination, Divine transcendence, Asceticism,
the call to serve good through work everyday
- Considered to be the start of capitalism
- Hinduism
- An ascetic religion hat was other-worldy,
directing followers to the spiritual world
- Confucianism
- A this worldly religion that directed its followers
towards the material world, not ascetic
- Religion as social protest
- American civil rights movement
- Took moral high
ground and mobalised
public opinion
- Aimed to end racial
segregation by shaming
whites into changing the
law
- New christian right
- Aims to take america back to a time
before liberalisation, believes in the
traditional family and gender roles
- Never had more than 15% of
american population in support
- Marxism
- Liberation Theology
- Movement within the
catholic church that
opposed dictatorships
and helped to being
about democracy in latin
america
- Millenarian movements
- The desire to change things
here and now, they expect total
and immediate transformation
of the world by supernatural
means, appeal to the poor
because of the immediate
improvement that they offer.
- Secularisation
- Explanations
- Rationalisation; a change in the
way that people think, away from
religion and towards rational ones
- Structural differentiation; Religions functions
have transfered to other institutions, it has lost
its power. Such as education, welfare and laws.
Relgion must now confom to these rules
- Social and Cultural diversity; Industrialisation
means that religion has now become more
diverse and overall belief has fallen
- Religious diversity; The protestant refomation caused a
number of sects to appear from the catholic church.
these beleifs caused overall confidence inrelgion to fall as
people saw many versions of the truth.
- Cultural defence and transition; Secularisation
isnt occuring because religion provides a focus
for the defence of national/ethnic group
identity in a struggle against an external force.
It also provides a sense of community of ethnic
groups
- Spritual revolution
- Traditional religion giving way to
New Age sprituality that
emphasises personal development
- Traditional relgion was in decline becuase it demanded high
disapline and objectivity which does not fit into a postmodern
society that emphasises personal development and individualism
- In the UK
- Decline in church
attendance
- More people hold
beliefs than go to
chuch
- State has taken
over functions of
the church
- In the USA
- Decline in
church
attendance
- Secularisation from within; religion
has become a form of therapy, it
has become less religious
- Practical relativism
- The acceptance that others can
hold beliefs different to yours
- Religion, Renewal and Choice
- Postmodernity and religion
- Believing without belonging
- Religion is becoming privatised, so
people don't feel the need to go to
church, people are choosing to be
religious but not go to church
- Spiritual shopping
- There has been 'cultural amnesia', a
loss of beliefs handed down through
generations. Religion is now based on
DIY beliefs not collective worship
- Lyon: Jesus in Disneyland
- Religion has been 'deinstitutionalised' by
globalisation, relocated to a different
place and time
- We are spritual shoppers, pick and
mixing different parts of different
relgions to meet our needs,
attendance falls but belief doesn't
- Re-enchantment of the world; a growth
of unconventionalbeliefs and practises
- Religious market theory
- Provides supernatural compensators for
unobtainable and real-world goals. Only
religion has the power to do such things.
- There is a constant cycle of
decline, renewal and revival,
leading to an improvement in the
quality of religious goods on offer
- Existential security theory
- Different degrees in how
secure people feel causes
different degrees in religiosity
- MEDC: High security = Low religiosity
- USA is an exception because high
inequality = high religious belief
- LEDC: Low security = highly religious
- Religion in global context
- Nanda
- Hinduism promotes diversity and wealth, leading to the M/C becoming
richer, increasing their religiosity and legitimising their position
- Pentecostalism
- Demands a self denying way of life that promotes personal development
- Promotes economic development, helping to raise societies
out of poverty leading to the development of capitalism
- Christianity globalised itself by expanding into S.America, spread
because of easy to follow beliefs and its ability to follow loose culture.
- Fundamentalism
- Returning to the basics of a faith, a reaction to globalisation which threatens norms
- Monothesism - belief in one god
- Causes fundamentalism because globalisation
brings diversity, so is a threat to their religion.
- Two fundamentalisms
- In The West; due to increased diversity from within
- In the third world; due to increased diversity from 'outside'
- Cultural defence
- Religion symbolises a groups
collective identity and unites them
against an external threat
- clash of civilisations
- There are multiple different civilisations with
different backgrounds, this often leads to conflict
because these backgrounds are not compatible.
- Organisations,
Movements and Members
- Organisations
- Sects
- Small, exclusive groups that are
hostile to wider society. Breakaways
from existing organisation often
offering otherworldly benefits
- Cults
- Highly individualistic, no defining
belief system, world affirming
offering this worldly benefits
- Denominations
- Midway between churches and sects,
accept societies views, not linked to
the state, tolerant of other views
- Churches
- Large, few demands,
monopoly of the truth,
linked to the state
- NRMs
- Grown because of:
- Marginality
- Relative deprivation
- Social change
undermining norms
producing anomie
- World-rejecting
- Critical of the outside
world, expect radical
change
- World-accomodating
- Focus on religious
rather than worldly
matters
- World-affirming
- Offer followers access to
spiritual or supernatural
powers and accept the
world as it is
- Religiosity and social groups
- More women believe in god.
- Due to marginalisation,
deprivation and socialisation
- Minority ethnic groups are more religious
- The older a person is the more
likely they are to be religious
- Older people may be
too ill to attend
- Under 15's may be made to attend
- The New Age
- New, diverse
belief systems
- People look inside themselves to find spirituality
- Values personal
experience
- Ideology and Science
- Science as a belief system
- Science is an open belief system
Open beliefs: open to criticism and
testing, ideas are open to
falsificationism, they can be
disproved by evidence
- Religion is a closed belief
system; its knowledge claims
cannot be overturned
- It has get out clauses
that prevent it being
disproved
- Marxists and Feminists see
science as serving the needs of
the dominant classes.
- Postmodernists reject sciences
claims that they hold the truth,
as they argue that science now
simply serves the interests of
capitalism
- Ideology
- capitalist ideology exploits workers for
profit, the ruling class hegemony prevents
a class consciousness from developing by
legitimising capitalism
- gender inequality is
legitimated by
patriarchal ideology