1. Religion: What Is It?

2. What is Religion? Zeus Shiva Ecstasy Gods Yahweh Tranquility
Odin Experiences
Zeus Shiva Ecstasy
Gods Yahweh Tranquility
Allah Ishtar Sanctified
Ahura Mazda
What is Religion?
Atonement
Ablution Beliefs
Prayer Immortality
Practices (rituals) Transubstantiation
Meditation Hungry Ghosts
Spirits
Demons
Ancestors

3. Religion is COMPLEX!!! Lots of Ins and Outs and What-Have-Yous
Religion is neither a single phenomenon, nor a “thing”; rather, it is a messy and dynamic collection of institutions, practices, and beliefs.

4. Attempts at a Definition
Edward Tylor
“The belief in spiritual beings.”
Clifford Geertz
“A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”
Emile Durkheim
“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.”

5. Attempts at a Definition
Melford Spiro
“Religion is an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings.”
Peter Berger
“Religion is the human attitude towards a sacred order that includes within it all being—human or otherwise—i.e., belief in a cosmos, the meaning of which both includes and transcends man.”
Max Weber
Refused to attempt a definition of religion. [Smart Man!]

7. Theories of Religion …from Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained (2001)
Religion provides explanations
People created religion to explain puzzling natural phenomena
Religion explains puzzling experiences: dreams, prescience, etc.
Religion explains the origins of things
Religion explains why there is evil and suffering

8. Theories of Religion Religion provides comfort
Religious explanations make mortality less unbearable
Religion allays anxiety and makes for a comfortable world

9. Theories of Religion Religion provides social order
Religion holds society together
Religion perpetuates a particular social order
Religion supports morality

10. Theories of Religion Religion is a cognitive illusion
People are superstitious; they will believe anything
Religious concepts are irrefutable
Refutation is more difficult than belief

11. Functionalism: Religion as explanation and comfort
Social institutions are collective means to fill individual biological needs
Why does religion do? What does it do that makes it especially functional?
Examples?

12. Structural-Functionalism: Religion aids social order
Agreement (consensus) between members of a society on morals maintains social order
Moral consensus creates equilibrium, which is the normal state of society
When things disrupt equilibrium religion is often the method of setting things right again…outside personal interest, sometimes sole institution for arbitration

14. The Social Functions of Religion
Religion articulates a culture’s “beliefs” and conception of “the beyond.”
Durkheim saw religion as worship of society, not as worship of a deity:
“…rites are a means through which a group reaffirms itself.”
Religious rites strengthen commonly-held attitudes.

15. Function #1: Providing Emotional Support and Security for Believers
Religion provides meaning in a natural world in which humans have little or no control over certain phenomena. Humans use religion to deal with:
Dependence
Powerlessness
Scarcity

16. Religion offers a transcendental relationship with “the beyond,” which provides people with
New security
A firmer identity in this world (believers and priests) and the next

17. Function #2: Religion Provides Social Control
As Durkheim implied, religion sacralizes the norms and values of established society, maintaining the dominance of group goals over individual wishes: Religion is a means of social control.

18. Function #3: Religion Provides Mechanisms for Social Change.
Religion has served a “prophetic” function in which absolute standards take precedence over “earthly” ones.
Religious belief is thus used as justification for social protests, social movements, political revolutions, etc.

19. Function #4: Religion Contributes to Individuals’ Identities
Religion is an aspect of heritage, like ethnicity.
Religion furnishes part of individuals’ understanding of who and what they are: eg, “I am Catholic” or “I am Muslim.”

20. Function #5: Religion is a Factor in directing the Individual’s Lifecourse
Religion contributes to the developing identity of the individual: This is the maturation function of religion.
Religions prescribe rites, privileges and responsibilities that are associated with life stages, as with the identity of “elder,” ceremonies for entry into “adulthood,” marriage, etc.

21. Any of these “functions” might also be seen as “dysfunctional
Any of these “functions” might also be seen as “dysfunctional.” For example, religion might recommend quietism, not social protest; religion might instill immaturity, not personal development.

22. Religion and Secular Society
Generally, religion concerns the “sacred,” and secular society comprises the “profane.”
However, there are important and enduring relationships between these two separate spheres.
The religion-society link is expressed differently in different religious organizations.

23. Religions as Organizations
A church is a formal organization that shares features with all formal organizations: it is bureaucratic in nature and integrated into the larger society.
A sect is a form of religious organization that is non-bureaucratic and clearly distinct from the larger society.
A cult is distinct not only from the larger society but from other religions as well- it does not emerge from pre-existing religious forms; it is completely new.