Functionalist Views on Religion Essay

The functionalist view of holiness stems from Durkheim who said that club is analogous the homosexual body. He argued that that worship reinforces collective conscience that leads to a unity indoors night club as a solid and that each member of the society is joined in solidarity, on that pointfore it acts as glue. It does so by reinforcing mixer norms and values that bring the community together. It allows flock to accept that society is close to more than just the individual. However this preserve be brained as westerly societies such(prenominal) as Britain argon becoming increasingly secular.This means that they turn int believe in worship as much, and therefore how dope religion act as a collective conscience. community argon turning to science as a way of life, theories which head follow up the evolutionary approach. It suggests that the theory is issue of date. Malinowski looked at the psychological function of religion. This looked at when things such as funerals and divorce occur. Religion acts as an act of take to which allows individuals to feel at ease when they are increasingly stressed out.They are brought together like a community within things like a funeral because it allows the individual to grieve provided collectively with active members of the family and church/temple/mosque etc. At times of un sealedty and stress, religion helps people to sack up control of themselves again, and community acts like funerals progress that. This is supported by the field of view of the Trobriand Islanders. The fisherman had a number of prayer rituals which they performed before going out to sea. They did this as a company of individuals to have a sense of a belonging to a community of fishermen.They would not perform these then they were pilotage because of safety. Malinowski suggested that the threat of the open sea to them, was like a threat to the perceptual constancy of their community and therefore they had to perform those p rayer rituals to prevent that from happening. However Marxists would point out this and say that actually religion teaches people social control. And actually when people have grieved at a funeral it doesnt allow them to fully hold their grief, they are socially controlled into getting over it which is morally wrong.Parsons crackd with Malinowski and Durkheim, tho went further and suggested that religion provided answers to unanswered questions about the meaning of life, and about things like death, it also prevented anomie. He agreed that religion promotes social solidarity, and agreed that it helps in times of stress. EG during the Second World War, people began to gather together in churches as a community as a source of comfort. Bellah suggested that there were functional alternatives to religion known as well-behaved religion, which brought whole countries together regardless of their faith hardly on behalf of a civil religion.He suggested that instead of religion facing secularisation it is facing vicissitude into isms such as the Statesnism. Uses religious images to promote national identity, EG in America having God bless America on coins or the Queens coronation in Britain. It is an act that allows the country to come together without questions of ethnicity, gender, religion etc. The functionalist theory of religion benefits wider society and the individual through marriage, immobilise mitzvahs, christenings, pilgrimages to Mecca/Lourdes, praying the holy books Quran, Bible, Torah, and things like hymns.Religion helps to bring communities together and also helps individuals who whitethorn not feel wanted, welcomed into religious practices. However, contemporary examples suggest that religion doesnt bind people together at all in fact it allows the complete opposite. For example, in Northern Ireland there is conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants, which suggests that religion doesnt help equality between religious groups. And as f unctionalism is a consensus theory it is doing the actual opposite allowing conflict.Functionalism has been criticised because of todays multicultural society. Theorists such as post-modernists are questioning whether religion can actually commingle a multi-faith society, where lots of small groups have different religious views. They would agree that Durkheims view of religion was accurate for a primitive society but not for a complex society such as today. Many other theorists have criticised functionalists and their theories about religion.Marxists would argue that religion oppresses groups of women and the poor, so how can religion benefit the individual or society. If an individual is be separated due to his/her gender and class then how can religion allow them to fit into a community when the elites would look down upon them. People recognise that Bellahs approach of civil religion begins to overcome the problem, but again can something like Americanism be considered as a r eligion, especially if there is no belief in he supernatural? both(prenominal) people would argue that religion is spread as a conception to spring hatred on one group of people. It benefits one group but puts down another.Todays example would be of minister Terry Jones, wanting to burn the Quran. He brought about this plan to lease Muslims angry, and therefore how can a group of Muslims be part of a community when someone in a position like his can provide such hatred for another religious group. It goes back to the question of integrating a multi-faith society.Granted that the church proposing this was small, but sometimes nonage influence has an impact which is why it was all over the media. This provides evidence that religion isnt able to benefit society or an individual because certain groups are always made to feel alienated, from a mainstream trend. To conclude, religion is of necessity able to help people in terms of crises, and does prevent anomie, but on the other han d it does allow for social cohesion to fragmentize down, as hatred for religious groups grow subtly in countries.