Compare and contrast different sociological perspectives on religion. (33 Marks).

Compare and contrast different sociological perspectives on religion. (33 Marks).

It is very difficult to come up with a perfect definition for the characteristics of religion. Throughout the world there are a great variety of different religions over a great period of time, most of which are very diverse. A loose definition for religion would be that, it is an often-collective system of shared beliefs with guidelines and set moral values that most societies have put in place. This essay will attempt to compare and contrast four different perspectives, three of them being structural perspectives on the common ideology of religion.

Firstly, the functionalists perspective examines religion in terms of society’s needs and believe society is set in equilibrium. Functionalist analysis is primarily concerned with the contribution religion makes to meeting those needs. From this perspective, society requires a certain degree of social solidarity, social order, value consensus and harmony with integration. Emile Durkheim defines religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices, which are relative to sacred things. Durkheim found totemism to be the most basic and simple form of religion within Australian Aborigine tribes. Their society was divided up into several clan. A clan is like a large extended family, sharing certain duties and obligations. Each clan is represented with their own totem to worship, but the totem is a sacred visible symbol of god and the clan, so the clan worship their society as well as god.

However, critics have argued that Durkheim only studied a small number of aboriginal groups. Therefore, one could argue it may be misleading to generalise about Aboriginal beliefs based solely on his study, never mind generalising religion as a “whole”. Andrea Dawson found that parts of Durkheim’s field data was of doubtful validity, as a result, were his findings true to what he was claiming to measure. If not, would it be a good idea to base forms of religion as a part of Durkheim studies. Also, despite Malinowski being a...

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