1. Sociology 1301: Introduction to Sociology
Religion
Sociology 1301: Introduction to Sociology
Week Seven

2. Religion & Sociology Not the role of Sociology to criticize
Sociologists of religion are interested in:
Why do people value their religious beliefs?
How do they experience their faith in a way that makes them truly believe in something that an Oxford scientist has dismissed as factually inaccurate?

3. What is Religion?
Religion: A system of beliefs and practices regarding sacred things.
Profane vs. Sacred
Faith: Belief based on conviction rather than on scientific evidence.

4. Types of Religion Religion takes three major forms:
Theism
Ethicalism
Animism
Monotheism: Belief in a single divine power.
Polytheism: Belief in many gods.

5. Degrees of Acceptance Churches vs. Sects vs. Cults
Charisma: Extraordinary personal qualities that can infuse people with emotion and turn them into followers.

6. Different Ways to Look at Religion
Religiosity: The importance of religion in a person’s life.
Supernatural Compensators: Rewards that come in the form of promises of future rewards, such as salvation or eternity in heaven.
Reflexive Spirituality: Looking to religion for meaning, wisdom, and profound thought and feeling rather than for absolute truths about how the world works.
Fundamentalists: Religious adherents who follow a scripture using a literal interpretation of its meaning.
Takes the words of sacred texts literally
Reject religious pluralism
Pursue the personal experience of God’s presence
Oppose “secular humanism”
Endorse conservative political goals

7. Religion in History Hunters and Gatherers:
Animism: The belief that elements of the natural world are conscious life forms that affect humanity.
Pastoral and Horticultural Societies:
Single divine power responsible for creating the world
The conception of God as a ‘shepherd’ arose because Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all began among pastoral peoples.
Agrarian Societies:
Religion becomes more important.
Development of a specialized priesthood in charge of religious rituals and organizations.

8. Industrialization & Religion
Secularism: The general movement away from religiosity and spiritual belief toward a rational, scientific orientation, a trend observed in industrialized nations.
Movement towards secularism - worrisome

10. Ripping the Sacred Canopy
Peter Berger (1967)
Sacred Canopy: The entire set of religious norms, symbols, and beliefs which convey the feeling that life is worth living, reality is meaningful and ordered, and all is not just a random chaos.
Pluralism & Secularism Causes:
Crisis of credibility / loss of religious legitimacy
Rips apart sacred canopy
Gives way to conflicting ideas about how the world works
Religious disintegration
Psychological malaise
Chaos.

11. Fundamental & Permanent
Emile Durkheim
Religion is a fundamental and permanent aspect of humanity.
Religion strengthens solidarity and collective conscious.
Predicted that religion would persist in industrial societies because science is powerless to address issues of ultimate meaning in human life.
Learning how the world works is a matter for scientists, but why we and the rest of the universe exist at all is a question of faith.

12. Religious Consumerism
Religion in the United States is big business
Megachurches
Church - earns 4.6 million dollars a year.
Ministers – earn more than $100,000 a year
We are now "Faith Consumers"
Competition makes religions better
People have different needs

13. Religion & 3 Perspectives
Functionalism
3 Major Functions of Religion:
Social cohesion
Social control
Providing meaning and purpose
Symbolic-Interactionism
Religion is social constructed (although perhaps with divine inspiration).
Through various rituals people sharpen the distinction between the sacred and the profane.
Conflict Theory
Karl Marx
Religion serves ruling elites by legitimizing the status quo and diverting people’s attention from social inequality.
Religion is the "opiate of the masses."

14. Religion in Everyday Life
Perceived moral vacuum in the modern workplace
"Faith at Work" movement
Give Christians an opportunity to 'out' themselves
Religious freedom w/out persecution
Potential issues
Christian "duty" = proselytize
How to protect minority "non-Christians"
As it stands Christian holidays are only ones celebrated
There is probably no more insidious form of bullying than religion.
Competing rights
Does the consumer have a right to a secular atmosphere? or
Does the owner have a right to express their faith?

15. References
Conley, D. (2008). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Macionis, J. J. (2010). SOC100: Sociology: custom edition (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Custom Publishing.
Massey, G. (Ed.) (2006). Readings for sociology (5th Ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.