Define religion according to sociology.
Read 1) Sociological Perspectives on Religion PP slides. After reviewing the slides, answer the following in 400 words:
Define religion according to sociology. Describe the three major sociological paradigms and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, discuss which of the three perspectives/paradigms you find most convincing or persuasive.
Religion
The Power of Society
Can a person’s religious affiliation (or lack of it) give us any clues about that person’s attitudes on family life?
- In a recent survey of U.S adults (a survey that was limited to white people, to control for race), 90 percent of those who described themselves as evangelical Protestants also said they had “old-fashioned” values about family and marriage.
- The share of self-described Catholics or mainline Protestants who said the same was lower.
- And less than half of those who claimed to have no religious affiliation shared these traditional values.
- Clearly, people’s values—whether “old-fashioned” or progressive—are not just a matter of personal choice; they also reflect people’s social background, including their religious affiliation.
*
Religion: Concepts and Theories
LO 19.1 Apply sociology’s major theories to religion.
*
Religion: Concepts and Theories: What Is…?
LO 19.1 Apply sociology’s major theories to religion.
*
Religion and Sociology
- Faith
- Belief-based conviction rather than scientific evidence
Although rituals take countless forms, all religion deals with what surpasses ordinary or everyday understanding. In Venezuela, “devil dancers” take part in the annual Corpus Christi Day celebration.
*
Religion and Sociology
*
Functions of Religion: Structural-Functional Theory
- Religion has 3 major functions (Durkheim)
- Establishing social cohesion
- Promoting social control
- Providing meaning and purpose
Religion is founded on the concept of the sacred—aspects of our existence that are set apart as extraordinary and demand our submission.
- Totem–An object in the natural world collectively defined as sacred
- According to Durkheim (1965, orig. 1915), society has a life and power of its own beyond the life of any individual.
- In other words, society itself is godlike, shaping the lives of its members and living on beyond them.
- Bowing, kneeling, or prostrating oneself are all ways of symbolically surrendering to a higher power
- These Filipino Christians seek atonement for their sins in an annual Lenten ritual.
*
Functions of Religion: Structural-Functional Theory
Constructing the Sacred: Symbolic-Interaction Theory
*
Constructing the Sacred: Symbolic-Interaction Analysis
*
Inequality and Religion: Social-Conflict Theory
*
Gender and Religion: Feminist Theory
- Patriarchal structure of major religions linked gender and social inequality to religion.
- Patriarchy is a characteristic of all the world’s major religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Male dominance can be seen in restrictions that limit religious leadership to men and women from worshiping alongside men.
Social-Conflict and Feminist Theories
Applying Theory
Religion and Social Change
LO 19.2 Analyze how religion encourages social change.
*
Types of Religious Organizations
LO 19.3 Distinguish among church, sect, and cult.
Church—Sect Continuum
Churches and sects are two opposing ideal types of religious organization. Any real-life religious organization will fall somewhere on the continuum between these two concepts.
Religious Organizations
*
Religious Organizations: What Is…?
*
Religious Organizations: Leadership and Membership
- Charisma–Extraordinary personal qualities that can turn people into followers
*
In global perspective, the range of religious activity is truly astonishing. This woman in Ghana, celebrating the Kokuzahn voodoo festival, throws sand into her open eyes and is not harmed. What religious practices common in the United States might seem astonishing to people living in other countries?
Religion in History
- Pre-industrial societies
- Animism: Elements of the natural world are conscious life forms that affect humanity
- Pastoral and horticultural societies
- Belief in a single divine power: Responsible for creating the world
LO 19.4 Contrast religious patterns in preindustrial and industrial societies.
Animists see a divine presence not just in themselves but also in everything around them. Their example has inspired New Age” spirituality.
- Animism is widespread in traditional societies, whose members live respectfully within the natural world on which they depend for their survival.
- Religion becomes more important in agrarian societies, which develop a specialized priesthood in charge of religious rituals and organizations.
- The huge cathedrals that dominated the towns of medieval Europe—many of which remain standing today—are evidence of the central role of religion in the social life of medieval agrarian society.
*
Religion in History
*
World Religions
- Christianity
- Built on the personal charisma of a leader, Jesus of Nazareth
- Began as a cult, drawing elements from Judaism
- Most practiced by Christians in Europe or the Americas
- Monotheistic
LO19.5 Contrast six major world religions.
Although it began as a cult, Christianity’s 2.3 billion followers make it now the most widespread of the world’s religions.
- Christianity is the most widespread religion with 2.3 billion followers, one-third of the world’s people.
- Monotheism–Belief in single divine power
- Polytheism belief in many gods
- Toward the end of the Middle Ages, the Protestant Reformation in Europe gave rise to hundreds of new denominations. In the United States, dozens of these denominations—the Baptists and Methodists are the two largest—command sizable followings
*
Christianity is the dominant religion of Western Europe and became the dominant religion of the Americas and much of southern Africa and Oceania.
Can you explain this pattern?
Source: Association of Religion Data Archives (2012).
*
World Religions
- Islam
- Islam is the word of God as revealed to Muhammad (prophet).
- Followers of Islam are called Muslims who accept the Five Pillars of Faith.
- Muslim population is large and diverse.
As part of their upbringing, most Muslim parents teach their children lessons from the Qur’an; later, the children will do the same for a new generation of believers.
- Many religions promote literacy because they demand that followers study sacred texts.
- To Muslims, Muhammad is a prophet, not a divine being as Jesus is to Christians. The text of the Qur’an.
- In Arabic, the word “islam” means both “submission” and “peace.
- Although divisions arose among Muslims, all accept the Five Pillars of Islam: (1) recognizing Allah as the one, true God and Muhammad as God’s messenger; (2) ritual prayer; (3) giving alms to the poor; (4) fasting during the month of Ramadan; and (5) making a pilgrimage at least once in one’s life to the Sacred House of Allah in Mecca.
- A majority of people in the Middle East are Muslims.
- Most of the world’s Muslims live elsewhere.
- Muslim population is large and diverse.
*
Islam is the dominant religion of the Middle East, but most of the world’s Muslims live in North Africa and Southeast Asia.
Source: Pew Research Center (2011) and Association of Religion Data Archives (2012).
*
World Religions
- Jews make up a majority of the population in only one country—Israel.
- But Judaism has special importance to the United States because the largest concentration of Jews (5.2 million) is found in this country.
- Importance to the US because the largest concentration is found in North America.
- Judaism has deep historical roots that extends to Mesopotamia.
- Jews comprise a majority of the population only in Israel.
*
World Religions
- Today, there are about 950 million Hindus, which is almost 14 percent of world’s people.
- Another Hindu principle, karma, involves a belief in the spiritual progress of the
- human soul.
- To a Hindu, each action has spiritual consequences, and proper living results in moral development. Karma works through reincarnation.
*
Hinduism is closely linked to the culture of India.
Source: Association of Religion Data Archives (2012).
*
World Religions
- Today, some 463 million people, or 7 percent of humanity, are Buddhists, and almost all live in Asia.
- Almost all Buddhists live in Asia.
*
Buddhists represent a large part of the populations of most Asian nations.
Source: Association of Religion Data Archives (2012)
*
World Religions
- Confucius, whose Chinese name was K’ung Fu-tzu, lived between 551 and 479 b.c.e.
- Like the Buddha, Confucius was deeply moved by people’s suffering.
- From about 200 B.C.E. until the beginning of the 20th century Confucianism was China’s official religion.
- Until the beginning of the 20th century Confucianism was China’s official religion.
- After 1949, the communist government repressed all religious expression.
*
Religious Affiliation
LO 19.6 Analyze patterns of religiosity in the United States.
- Religiosity–The importance of religion in a person’s life.
- Religious affiliation is related to social class, ethnicity, and race.
- More than 70% of U.S. adults claim that religion is important in their life.
*
Religious Membership across the United States
- In general, people in the United States are more religious than people in other high-income nations.
- Yet membership in a religious organization is more common in some parts of the country than in others.
What pattern do you see in the map? Can you explain the pattern?
Source: Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (2012).
*
Religiosity
- Although most people in the United States say they are at least somewhat religious, probably no more than about one-third actually are.
*
Religiosity in Global Perspective
- Religion is stronger in the United States than in many other nations.
- In general, people in higher-income countries are less religious than those in
- lower-income nations.
- The U.S. population is an important exception to this pattern.
- Source: World Values Survey (2010).
Religious Diversity: Class, Ethnicity, and Race
- High achievers: 10% = Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and United Church of Christ members represent 33 percent of all listings in Who’s Who. Jews = 12%.
- Moderate social standing: Congregationalists, Methodists, and Catholics
- Lower social standing: Southern Baptists, Lutherans, and especially Jehovah’s Witnesses and other members of sects
*
Changing Affiliation
In the last fifty years, traditional “mainstream” religious organizations have lost about half their membership.
But during this same period, fundamentalist and new spiritual movements have increased their membership.
From another angle, almost half of our people change their religious affiliation over their lifetimes.
Religion in a Changing Society
LO 19.7 Discuss recent trends in religious life.
- Two major aspects of change: changing affiliations over time and the process of secularization.
*
Science and Religion
- Science and religion are two different ways of understanding, and they answer different questions.
Do you know what these different questions are?
- Both Galileo and Darwin devoted their lives to investigating how the natural world works.
- Yet only religion can address why we and the natural world exist in the first place.
*
Religion in a Changing Society
- Core values of New Age movement
- New Age
- Seekers believe in higher power.
- Seekers believe everything is connected.
- Seekers believe in a spirit world.
- Seekers want to experience the spirit world.
- Seekers pursue transcendence.
- Some seekers pursue political change.
- Fundamentalism
- Take words of sacred texts literally.
- Reject religious pluralism.
- Pursue the personal experience of God’s presence.
- Oppose secular humanism.
*
- In a recent survey of U.S adults (a survey that was limited to white people, to control for race), 90 percent of those who described themselves as evangelical Protestants also said they had “old-fashioned” values about family and marriage.
- The share of self-described Catholics or mainline Protestants who said the same was lower.
- And less than half of those who claimed to have no religious affiliation shared these traditional values.
- Clearly, people’s values—whether “old-fashioned” or progressive—are not just a matter of personal choice; they also reflect people’s social background, including their religious affiliation.
*
*
*
*
*
- Totem–An object in the natural world collectively defined as sacred
- According to Durkheim (1965, orig. 1915), society has a life and power of its own beyond the life of any individual.
- In other words, society itself is godlike, shaping the lives of its members and living on beyond them.
- Bowing, kneeling, or prostrating oneself are all ways of symbolically surrendering to a higher power
- These Filipino Christians seek atonement for their sins in an annual Lenten ritual.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
- Charisma–Extraordinary personal qualities that can turn people into followers
*
- Animism is widespread in traditional societies, whose members live respectfully within the natural world on which they depend for their survival.
- Religion becomes more important in agrarian societies, which develop a specialized priesthood in charge of religious rituals and organizations.
- The huge cathedrals that dominated the towns of medieval Europe—many of which remain standing today—are evidence of the central role of religion in the social life of medieval agrarian society.
*
*
- Christianity is the most widespread religion with 2.3 billion followers, one-third of the world’s people.
- Monotheism–Belief in single divine power
- Polytheism belief in many gods
- Toward the end of the Middle Ages, the Protestant Reformation in Europe gave rise to hundreds of new denominations. In the United States, dozens of these denominations—the Baptists and Methodists are the two largest—command sizable followings
*
Christianity is the dominant religion of Western Europe and became the dominant religion of the Americas and much of southern Africa and Oceania.
Can you explain this pattern?
Source: Association of Religion Data Archives (2012).
*
- Many religions promote literacy because they demand that followers study sacred texts.
- To Muslims, Muhammad is a prophet, not a divine being as Jesus is to Christians. The text of the Qur’an.
- In Arabic, the word “islam” means both “submission” and “peace.
- Although divisions arose among Muslims, all accept the Five Pillars of Islam: (1) recognizing Allah as the one, true God and Muhammad as God’s messenger; (2) ritual prayer; (3) giving alms to the poor; (4) fasting during the month of Ramadan; and (5) making a pilgrimage at least once in one’s life to the Sacred House of Allah in Mecca.
- A majority of people in the Middle East are Muslims.
- Most of the world’s Muslims live elsewhere.
- Muslim population is large and diverse.
*
Islam is the dominant religion of the Middle East, but most of the world’s Muslims live in North Africa and Southeast Asia.
Source: Pew Research Center (2011) and Association of Religion Data Archives (2012).
*
- Jews make up a majority of the population in only one country—Israel.
- But Judaism has special importance to the United States because the largest concentration of Jews (5.2 million) is found in this country.
- Importance to the US because the largest concentration is found in North America.
- Judaism has deep historical roots that extends to Mesopotamia.
- Jews comprise a majority of the population only in Israel.
*
- Today, there are about 950 million Hindus, which is almost 14 percent of world’s people.
- Another Hindu principle, karma, involves a belief in the spiritual progress of the
- human soul.
- To a Hindu, each action has spiritual consequences, and proper living results in moral development. Karma works through reincarnation.
*
Hinduism is closely linked to the culture of India.
Source: Association of Religion Data Archives (2012).
*
- Today, some 463 million people, or 7 percent of humanity, are Buddhists, and almost all live in Asia.
- Almost all Buddhists live in Asia.
*
Buddhists represent a large part of the populations of most Asian nations.
Source: Association of Religion Data Archives (2012)
*
- Confucius, whose Chinese name was K’ung Fu-tzu, lived between 551 and 479 b.c.e.
- Like the Buddha, Confucius was deeply moved by people’s suffering.
- From about 200 B.C.E. until the beginning of the 20th century Confucianism was China’s official religion.
- Until the beginning of the 20th century Confucianism was China’s official religion.
- After 1949, the communist government repressed all religious expression.
*
- Religiosity–The importance of religion in a person’s life.
- Religious affiliation is related to social class, ethnicity, and race.
- More than 70% of U.S. adults claim that religion is important in their life.
*
- In general, people in the United States are more religious than people in other high-income nations.
- Yet membership in a religious organization is more common in some parts of the country than in others.
What pattern do you see in the map? Can you explain the pattern?
Source: Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (2012).
*
- Although most people in the United States say they are at least somewhat religious, probably no more than about one-third actually are.
*
- High achievers: 10% = Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and United Church of Christ members represent 33 percent of all listings in Who’s Who. Jews = 12%.
- Moderate social standing: Congregationalists, Methodists, and Catholics
- Lower social standing: Southern Baptists, Lutherans, and especially Jehovah’s Witnesses and other members of sects
*
- Two major aspects of change: changing affiliations over time and the process of secularization.
*
- Both Galileo and Darwin devoted their lives to investigating how the natural world works.
- Yet only religion can address why we and the natural world exist in the first place.
*
- Core values of New Age movement
- New Age
- Seekers believe in higher power.
- Seekers believe everything is connected.
- Seekers believe in a spirit world.
- Seekers want to experience the spirit world.
- Seekers pursue transcendence.
- Some seekers pursue political change.
- Fundamentalism
- Take words of sacred texts literally.
- Reject religious pluralism.
- Pursue the personal experience of God’s presence.
- Oppose secular humanism.
*
