1. Chapter18 Henslin’s Sociology: A Down To Earth Approach
Religion
Chapter18
Henslin’s Sociology: A Down To Earth Approach

2. What Is Religion?
Durkheim identified three essential characteristics of religion:
Beliefs that set the sacred apart from the profane
Rituals
A moral community (a church)

3. What are the functions and dysfunctions of religion?
Among the functions of religion are;
Answering questions about ultimate meaning
Providing emotional comfort
Social solidarity
Guidelines for everyday life
Social control
Adaptation
Support for the government
Fostering social change.
Groups or activities that provide these same functions are called functional equivalents of religion.
Among the dysfunctions of religion are war, terrorism, and religious persecution.

4. What aspects of religion do symbolic Interactionists study?
A Symbolic Interactionalists focuses on the meanings of religion for its followers.
They examine religious symbols, rituals, beliefs, religious experiences, and the sense of community provided by religion.

5. What aspects of religion do conflict theorists study?
Conflict theorists examine the relationship of religion to social inequalities, especially how religion reinforces a society’s stratification system

6. What does the spirit of capitalism have to do with religion?
  Max Weber disagreed with Marx’s conclusion that religion impedes social change.
In contrast, Weber saw religion as a primary source of social change. He analyzed how Protestantism gave rise to the Protestant ethic, which stimulated what he called the spirit of capitalism. The result was capitalism, which transformed society.

7. What are the world’s major religions?
Judaism
Christianity
Islam
Buddhism
Hinduism
Confucianism

8. Old Testament Roots…
All monotheistic religions, can be traced to the same Old Testament roots.
Hinduism, the chief religion of India, has no specific founder, as do Judaism (Abraham), Christianity (Jesus), Islam (Muhammad), Buddhism (Gautama), and Confucianism (K’ung Fu-tsu).
Specific teachings and history of these six religions are given in the text.

9. What types of religious groups are there?
Sociologists divide religious groups into cults, sects, churches, and ecclesias.
All religions began as cults. Those that survive tend to develop into sects and eventually into churches.
Sects, often led by charismatic leaders, are unstable.
Some are perceived as threats and are persecuted by the state.
Ecclesias, or state religions, are rare

10. What are the main characteristics of religion in the United States?
Membership varies by region, social class, age, and race-ethnicity.
The major characteristics are diversity, pluralism and freedom, competition, commitment, toleration, a fundamentalist revival, and the electronic church.

11. What is the connection between secularization of religion and the splintering of churches?
Secularization of religion, a change in a religion’s focus from spiritual matters to concerns of "this world," is the key to understanding why churches divide.
Basically, as a cult or sect changes to accommodate its members’ upward social class mobility, it changes into a church.
Left dissatisfied are members who are not upwardly mobile. They tend to splinter off and form a new cult or sect, and the cycle repeats itself.
Cultures permeated by religion also secularize. This, too, leaves many members dissatisfied and promotes social change

12. Religion in the Future…
Although industrialization led to the secularization of culture, this did not spell the end of religion, as many social analysts assumed it would.
Because science cannot answer questions about ultimate meaning, the existence of God or an afterlife, or provide guidelines for morality, the need for religion will remain.
In any foreseeable future, religion—or its functional equivalents—will prosper. The Internet is likely to have far-reaching consequences on religion.