Religion for a functionalist would be viewed as more of a reinforcement for the values that society holds. One thing almost all religions have in common is the lesson of being “good”, to treat others how you would want to be treated. It also gives people something to turn to when they feel lost, or something to blame when life is not going the way the would like. Religion holds people together in many ways, offering stability to society. Religion does, however hold both manifest and latent functions.
Culture as a concept is important to sociologists because it holds a society together. Rules, laws and morals guide our behaviours and creates stability and order throughout societies. Morals come from religion and our parents: different kinds of morals differ between social groups. Subculture is a culture within a culture. It shares definite features in relation with the dominant culture, but it also has particular values, norms, attitudes and behaviours that is specific to it.
Hare also responds to the falsification principle, showing that religious statements are meaningful even though they cannot be falsified because they have a significant impact for the people using the statement. Religious believers adopt bliks for example “god is a loving father” cannot be falsified but it is still meaningful because of the
One thing really important in this section is the “vulnerability factor.” It names almost defines itself. Religion offers a line of defense. This defense helps a person to defend against stress, or stressful situation. With religion in place depending on how a person accepts religion and how they feel about their local religious support system. Religion can prevent the crisis from ever happening.
Emille Durkheim was as many know a functionalist and like any other functionalist he examined religion in terms of what a societies needs where. Functionalists are concerned with the way religion contributes to meeting the needs of a society. “The function of religion is the contribution it makes to meeting such functional prerequisites - for example, its contribution to social solidarity.”# Durkheim set out to establish the fact that religion was not divinely or supernaturally inspired but was in fact a product of society. He sought to identify the common things that religion placed an emphasis upon, as well as what effects those religious beliefs (the product of social life) had on the lives of all within a society. To have some insight into Durkheim’s view of religion and social solidarity, we shall firstly look at his idea of the sacred and the profane.
A term he coined to describe phenomena that have an existence in and of themselves, are not bound to the actions of individuals, but have a coercive influence upon them. Durkheim stated that “collective conscience governs what it is that we believe and the values and principles we have”. Collective conscience comes about because of our capacity to be moral, (ability to do what is right) and to look beyond our own selfish needs. As a group of people, we had recognized that we depend on society and that we need to maintain social order. This recognition promotes unity and consensus; it is done through institutions, such as religion and the education system.
This concept is also related to the idea of the unconscious as an important factor in determining and explaining human behavior and action. William James distinguished between two kinds of religion institutional and personal religion. William James interpretation of Institutional religion was religious groups or organizations. William James thought it played an important part in a society's culture. William James interpretation of Personal religion was that individuals can have a religious experience and can be experienced regardless of whatever culture he or she is from.
They emphasise the conflict and inequality and they argue that some individuals and groups may benefit more from religion at the expense of others. Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the functionalist view that religion benefits society as a whole and its individual members. (18 marks) Functionalists believe that society is a human body, all working together to achieve one goal of togetherness and consensus. Religion is supposed to benefit everyone as a whole and the individual members as well as it is one of the many functions that help run the society. Many sociologists have put forward arguments as to why this is true.
She relates spirituality with life that is created through engagement with the world. It involves discovering the attempts made by human beings to include physical experience in their life in order to have a meaning. She asserts that a meaningful life is that which does not exclude sexual nature or mortality. She suggests that a meaningful life or spiritual fulfillment does not only mean embracing religious traditions. In addition, she maintains that a spiritual life involves the acceptance of sexual nature and mortality of human beings.
We need to have the good opinion of people like us. An important part of socialisation may be religion. We are not all religious, but even so, our religion sets the rules for good behaviour and we follow the rules, if not the religion. The mass media are very important as a part of socialisation. It is claimed that we get many of our ideas from the media.