Sociology of religion

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Sociology of religion is the branch of sociology that deals with what religion is, how it works and what effects it has. Two classic modern sociologists of religion are Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, but the field goes back to Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology.

Sociology of religion requires "methodological atheism," which means that a sociologist following the scientific method cannot explain religious phenomena using religious ideas. For example, the question "Why did Christianity become the official religion in the Roman Empire?" cannot be explained by Goddidit.

Contents

[edit] What is religion?

One of the most commonly accepted definitions of religion is Durkheim's, which says:

A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.
—Emile Durkheim, "Elementary Forms of the Religious Life".

This definition isn't completely uncontroversial, but it summarizes some important ideas:

  • Religion involves practice (ritual) as well as belief.
  • Religion involves setting things apart – creating taboos, raising some things and ideas above others. For example, eating a flat piece of bread is nothing special, but if you put it in a particular setting – in a church, being given by a person with fancy robes – then religion interprets as something special and set apart.
  • A religion is a community of people as well as an abstract belief system.

[edit] Religion and belief systems

This definition does raise some interesting questions, though: is nationalism, for example, a religion? (Some sociologists of religion think it is.) Could Objectivism be considered a religion? (Probably.) What about "civic religion" – which in America involves 'rituals' like the Fourth of July? All of these involve communities of people being bound together towards particular beliefs and practices. There are plenty of things which most people wouldn't consider "religions" which can easily enough be thought of as religions. They all deal with non-empirical – non-rational – ideas. [1]

It's important to draw a distinction, though, between the "religion" that sociology of religion deals with, and belief systems like theism. Many – most – sociologists of religion hold "religion" of some kind to be inescapable, and this is a view that goes back all the way to Comte. Even the strongest atheists are "religious" in the sense that they do arbitrary things, they set things apart – we treat our friends differently from people we don't know, for example. However, philosophical theists make claims expressed in rational language about the nature of reality. That is not an inescapable part of human existence. The claim that "atheism is a religion" depends on an equivocation between these two ideas of "religion" – and under this definition it doesn't stand up anyway. Atheists are not a single moral community, and atheists have no unifying system of ritual, even if we all practice rituals in daily life.

This distinction is referred to as the "functional" versus the "substantive" definitions of religion. Functional analyses, most often used in sociology, look at the role religion plays in social and cultural contexts. Substantive analyses, on the other hand, concentrate on the supernatural and philosophical content of religious thought.[2]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. For example see Burleigh, M. (2006) Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda. HarperCollins.
  2. What Is Religion? Functional vs. Substantive Definitions of Religion, about.com
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