Elaborate and critique Durkheim's view on religion. Add any queries you have on the same.

Émile Durkheim defined religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred
things”. Durkheim’s “The Elementary forms of Religious life-1912” was his last major work that
focuses on analysing the collective or group forces to the study of Religion. Since religion was seen
as force that contributed in creating structure, solidarity and morality, he was interested to study
religion and used functionalist approach to do so. His contribution becomes part of the larger sub-
area “Sociology of religion”.
Durkheim believed that religion is something eminently social and therefore it acted as a source of
solidarity and provided meaning and structure to a social system. Religious representations become
collective representations leading to depiction of a collective reality. Religion also served purposes
like providing social control, cohesion, purpose, a form of communication and connection and in
establishing and reaffirming some societal norms.
He specifically discusses the sacred and the profane in the context of religion. For Durkheim, religion
is about the separation of the sacred from the profane. He observed that there was a division of
religious symbols, objects and rituals in the world into 2 main categories – sacred – this pertains to
anything that goes beyond our daily existence and refers to things , beliefs, rotes, deities that are
accorded a special status such as religious places like temples, mosques etc and profane – refers to
the objects that encompass the mundanities of everyday life – our daily routines and the objects
involved in such routines that don’t really hold a special status such as a toothbrush used everyday
to brush our teeth is a profane object. The role of religion here is in clearly demarcating and
segregating these two spaces as different like how only deities are worshipped and not an everyday
object like a comb for example.
There is also elaboration on Totemism which is considered to be a simple religious practice found
among the aborigines and the totemic religion of the Australian aborigines was used to develop
Durkheim’s theory. Each clan had a totem that was either an animal or plant linked to a creation
myth and it was a sacred object and Durkheim propounded that worshipping the totem can be
equated to the clan members worshipping society and it shows how society is more important than
individuals. This need for choosing a totem is so that it’s easier to substitute a smaller symbol to
represent a larger structure such as a society.
So, Religion according to Durkheim is defined as an interdependent system of beliefs and practices
regarding things which are sacred, that is to say, apart forbidden, beliefs and practices which unite
all those who follow them in a single moral community called a church. Church is added to this
definition so as to differentiate magic and religion.
There were two interpretations contrary to Durkheim’s view regarding religion - “Animism” and
“Naturism” which were rejected by him because they didn’t contribute to explaining the distinction
between the sacred and profane, the idea of religion being an illusion, a collective hallucination of
sorts and the involvement of the reductionistic fallacy contributed to this and lastly, religion provides
the power according to him to save the reality of religion. For if man worships society transfigured,
he worships an authentic reality; real forces. Religion is too permanent, too profound an experience
not to correspond to a true reality; and this true reality is not God, then it must be the reality so to
speak, immediately below God, namely society.
His work on religion was able to adequately recognise the role religion plays in society in the form of
vital social functions. But there are also criticisms such as it was observed that his work on religion
was purely speculative and it couldn’t be accepted by modern sociologists. Goldenweiser criticised
Durkheim’s theory as one sided and psychologically untenable and argued that a “society possessing
the religious sentiments is capable of accomplishing unusual things, but it can hardly produce that
sentiments out of itself”. Few others have stated that “by making social mind or collective
representations the sole source of religion, Durkheim resorted to something quite mysterious in
itself and hence failed to give a satisfactory explanation”.
Queries –
1. Does the totemism aspect have to be studied in detail? Or is a basic understanding enough?
2. The use of the sacred and the profane and the difference between the two is brought about
for discussion in other spheres as well such as literature. Can that be used in generating
examples?

Small suggestion –
Ma’am, if could mention a specific timing by which the submission needs to be made in the Google
Classroom it would be beneficial. Because for us it just shows the date and not the time. Thank you !