1. Does religion influence your choice of friends?
Religion in Sociology
Does religion influence your choice of friends?
Write down your own religious affiliation on a piece of paper.
Write down the names of your five closest friends and their religious affiliations.
What percent of your friends have the same religious affiliation as you do?
Do your friendships develop because of your religious affiliation?
Do you think religion plays a role in your friendships?
Have your friendships ever been tested because of your religious differences?

2. Is the crucifix sacred or profane?
Religion and Sociology
Religion – Unified system of beliefs and practices concerned with sacred things
Sacred – Holy and set apart and given special meaning that goes beyond, or transcends, immediate existence
Profane – Non sacred
Is the crucifix sacred or profane?

3. Religion and Sociology
Sociologists do not attempt to judge the validity of religion. They examine and focus on the social and cultural aspects of religion that can be measured
Sociologists are unable to study the unobservable (spiritual) world

4. Religions of the World

5. Religions of the World

6. Religions of the World

7. Religions of the World
What is the fastest growing religion in the world? Why?

8. Religions of the World

9. Functionalist Perspective
Religion gives formal approval to existing social arrangements
Justifies or gives authority to social norms
A society's religion explains why the society is and should be the way it is
Religion encourages a sense of unity
Religion provides a sense of understanding

10. Conflict Theory
Conflict Theory Focuses on how religion works to either inhibit or encourage social change.
Karl Marx – Religion is used by the ruling class to justify its economic, political, and social advantages over the oppressed
Elites use religion to manipulate the masses

11. Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic Interactionism – People create symbolic meanings from their religious beliefs, rituals, and ideas
Symbolic meanings cover the secular world and guide social interactions

12. Religious Organizations
Denomination – one of several religious organizations that most members of a society accept as legitimate
Sect – religious organization that arises out of a desire to reform an existing religious organization
Cult – is religious organization whose characteristics are not drawn from existing religious traditions within a society

13. Religiosity
Religiosity – ways in which people express their interests and convictions
Beliefs – Jesus is the Son of God
Rituals – Attending church or wearing a yamaka
Consequences – Heaven or Hell
Intellectual Dimension – knowledge of scripture
Experiences – feeling close to a deity when praying

14. Religiosity

15. Religion in the United States
Secularization – the process through which the “sacred” or the “religious” lose influence over society
Fundamentalism – the resistance of secularization and the rigid adherence to traditional religious beliefs
Why is fundamentalism so strong today?
What is the relationship between religion and political allegiance in the United States?