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FUNCTIONALIST and MARXIST VIEWS OF RELIGION

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Title: FUNCTIONALIST and MARXIST VIEWS OF RELIGION


1
FUNCTIONALIST and MARXIST VIEWS OF RELIGION
2
Emile Durkheim 1858 - 1917
  • Durkheims standard definition of religion based
    on a study of totemism amongst Australian
    aborigines
  • 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.
  • Religion brings the tribe/group/society together

3
Totems
4
Totemic Principle God Society
  • Durkheim suggests that the totem is sacred
    because it is symbolically representative of the
    group itself. It stands for the values of the
    group and by worshiping it people are essentially
    worshipping the group (society)
  • Totemism is seen by Durkheim as the most
    elementary form of religion involving rituals and
    ceremonies around a totem which bring a group
    together
  • Religion is not a matter of individual belief
    it is about collective rituals, ceremonies and
    worship which have the functions of bringing
    together and defining the group

5
Marxism and Religion
6

Marxist perspective mirrors in some ways the
functionalists take on religion
7

For Marxists, religion is also a conservative
force in society
  • However that conservative force is not a positive
    one for Marxists.
  • Religion legitimises, reinforces and perpetuates
    the rule of the ruling class and their interests
  • Religion is also the opium of the people as it
    dulls the working class pain of exploitation

8
Religion and the Working Class
  • Religion is a sedative, a narcotic, that dulls
    the peoples experience of, sensitivity to and
    understanding of, the plight of their life
    situation.
  • This applies to the class of people who are
    alienated by their life of production under
    capitalist exploitation the workers

9
Religion and the Bourgeois Class
  • For the owners of production and property,
    religion plays a different, but complementary,
    role
  • It serves as a tool to control the proletariat
    (the working class), by placating them (promising
    future rewards / suffering as a virtue /
    messianic hopes / a kind of religious fatalism)
  • serves also to help owners of production
    rationalise and justify their position of power
    and privilege

10
  • Religion under these circumstances appears to
    take on the character of an ideology
  • Such an ideology justifies and legitimates an
    unjust social order in such a way as to make it
    seem inevitable, pre-ordained and unchangeable.
  • Promises some form of salvation or reward in some
    other life conditional upon complete acceptance
    of conditions in this life, ones place in it and
    the appointed places of others.

11
Marxs Famous Quote
  • Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,
    the heart of a heartless world, as it is the
    spirit of unspiritual conditions. the removal of
    religion as the illusionary happiness of people
    is the requirement for their real happiness
  • (Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels, Toward the
    Criticism of Hegels Philosophy of Right, 1843)
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