Functionalist Views on Religion Essay

The functionalist view of organized faith stems from Durkheim who tell that golf-club is wish the human body. He argued that that religion reinforces collective conscience that leads to a unity inwardly order as a whole and that distri entirelyively member of the society is joined in solidarity, consequently it acts as glue. It does so by reinforcing accessible norms and value that bring the company unneurotic. It lay offs people to accept that society is intimately more than just the individualistic. However this rouse be questi sensationd as western societies much(prenominal) as Britain ar becoming progressively secular.This means that they slangt believe in religion as much, and whence how apprize religion act as a collective conscience. People are bend to science as a way of life, theories which lead stamp out the evolutionary approach. It adumbrates that the theory is out of date. Malinowski looked at the psychological function of religion. This look ed at when things such as funerals and divorce occur. Religion acts as an act of consent which earmarks individuals to feel at ease when they are increasingly stressed out.They are brought together exchange qualified a fellowship within things like a funeral because it allows the individual to grieve but collectively with active members of the family and church service/synagogue/mosque etc. At times of incredulity and stress, religion helps people to gain control of themselves again, and community acts like funerals progress that. This is supported by the memorize of the Trobriand Islanders. The fisherman had a number of prayer rituals which they performed onwards going out to sea. They did this as a base of individuals to have a sense of a be to a community of fishermen.They would not perform these therefore they were sailing because of safety. Malinowski suggested that the threat of the open sea to them, was like a threat to the stability of their community and therefo re they had to perform those prayer rituals to preclude that from happening. However Marxists would notice 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 express their grief, they are socially controlled into getting over it which is morally wrong.Parsons hold with Malinowski and Durkheim, but went further and suggested that religion admitd 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 compile together in churches as a community as a source of comfort. Bellah suggested that there were functional alternatives to religion known as cultured religion, which brought whole countries together regardless of their faith but on behalf of a civil religion.He suggested that inst ead of religion facing secularisation it is facing duty period into isms such as the Statesnism. Uses religious images to promote discipline identity, EG in America having God bless America on coins or the Queens investiture in Britain. It is an act that allows the country to come together without questions of ethnicity, sex, religion etc. The functionalist theory of religion benefits wider society and the individual through marriage, bar 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 love opposite. For example, in Northern Ireland there is conflict amid the Catholics and the Protestants, which suggests that religion doesnt help equality among religious groups . And as functionalism 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 batch actually integrate a multi-faith society, where lots of niggling groups have different religious views. They would agree that Durkheims view of religion was accurate for a unenlightened society but not for a tangled society such as today. Many otherwise 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 being 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 Ame ricanism be considered as a religion, in particular if there is no belief in he supernatural? Some people would argue that religion is spread as a plan to give curse on one group of people. It benefits one group but puts down another.Todays example would be of Pastor Terry Jones, deficient to burn the Quran. He brought about this plan to pee 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 hazard to the question of integrating a multi-faith society.Granted that the church proposing this was small, but sometimes minority influence has an furbish up 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 make to feel alienated, from a mainstream trend. To conclude, religion is inevitably able to help people in terms of crises, and does prevent anomie, bu t on the other hand it does allow for social cohesion to break down, as hatred for religious groups grow subtly in countries.