Assess Science Has Replaced Religion

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Assess the view that science has replaced religion as the main ideology today Ideology is a set of ideas that legitimates the power of a particular group. Science explains the world with testable evidence and that evidence would legitimate the power of that group. As opposed to religion which is a shared set of views and looks up to a supernatural being and having answers for the creation of the world regarding these supernatural deities, and these answers would legitimate the power of a follower of that religion. Throughout the course of history, religion has played a huge part in terms of followers and people’s views of how the world is created. Mainly Christianity in pre industrial Britain and also after. Masses of people would attend rituals such as going to church on certain days and having holidays such as Christmas and other days such as harvest. It has influenced people’s behaviour as it has told people and set a foundation of how we lived then and how we live now. A good example of this is right from wrong, early religion would have told us what was right or wrong such as the ’10 commandments’ or the Qu’ran, telling us that we shouldn’t steal from others etc. Functionalists would argue that this is a function of religion in terms of primary socialisation i.e. learning right from wrong and not stealing or lying and having good morals. This is one argument against that science has become the main ideology now. However, conflict theories such as Marxism would argue that religion in primary socialisation is teaching working class a concept called ‘false class consciousness’, by this I mean making the working class accept the fact that they are lower and that the norms and values that they learn such as respect for others and meritocracy is just in the favour of the bourgeoisie/ ruling class. Therefore, they would agree with science and believe
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