Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sociologyandrelgions 160904065449
Sociologyandrelgions 160904065449
By:
Muhammad khuzaima
Religion and Society
• What is religion?
– A system of beliefs, rituals, and ceremonies
3
The Great Transformation of Societies
4
Function of Religion
• What does religion do for people?
– Gives them hope of something better than what
they have now.
7
Examples of Social Control by Religion
8
Examples of Social Control by Religion
9
Gender and Religion
– Women have played fundamental role in religious
socialization
• However, they take subordinate role in religious
leadership
• Most religions are patriarchal
– Leader is a male
– Reinforce men’s dominance in secular and spiritual matters
10
Characteristics of Religion
• Beliefs
– Ideas, based upon faith, that people consider true
• The sacred
– Sacred: that which has supernatural qualities
• Rituals
– Routines that reinforce the faith
• Moral communities
– People who share a religious belief
• Personal experience
– Grants meaning to life
11
Americans Believe
12
3 Components of Religion
• Denominations
• Sects
• Cults
13
Components of Religion
– Denomination:
– Large, organized religion with strong support
in the world
– Christianity
– Muslim
– Judaism
– Hinduism
14
Components of Religion
– Sect:
– Relatively small religious group that has broken
away from some other religious organization to
renew what it considers the original vision of
the faith
• Protestants
• Episcopalians
• Church of Christ
15
American’s Religious Preferences
16
Components of Religion
– Cult
– Small, alternative faith community that
represents either a new religion or a major
innovation in an existing faith
• Similar to sects
• Tend to be small
• Are often viewed as less respectable than
more established faiths
17
Sects and Cults
• Cults
– Non-conventional religious
group
– Members required to
withdraw from normal life
– Full-time communal
obligation for members
18
Christianity
• World’s largest religion
• 2 largest branches
– Roman Catholic
• Pope is head of Church in Vatican City.
– Protestant
• Luther breaks away from Roman Catholic Church in 16th
century
19
Islam
• Second largest religion in world
• Significant beliefs and practices
– Only one god that all must recognize
– Daily prayer, share wealth, pilgrimage
• No centralized authority
– Local clerics rule often with close state ties
– Two major sects
• Sunni
• Shiite
20
Judaism
• Numerically smallest of world religions
• Important beliefs:
– God’s chosen people
– Torah: first 5 books of the Bible; oldest truths from God
• Major divisions
– Orthodox: strictly traditional
– Reform: liberal and worldly
– Conservative: middle ground between Orthodox and
Reform
21
Hinduism
• Largest of the Eastern religions
– Concentrated largely in India
• Important beliefs
– Dharma: special force makes daily demands and sacred
obligations
– Karma: spirit remains through life, death, rebirth
• Organization
– Caste membership
22
Buddhism
• Large religion throughout Asia
– Includes southeast Asian countries and China
• Based upon teachings of the Buddha, the
enlightened one
– Monks and lay people spread his teachings
• Important beliefs
– To relieve human suffering one must follow a path that
ultimately leads to enlightenment
– “Right” thoughts and actions must be daily performed and
evaluated through meditation
23
Confucianism
• Originated with Confucius attempting to solve practical
problems of daily living
– Wisdom summarized guides management of society
• Jen: human sympathy that binds people in 5 basic
relationships
– Sovereign and subject
– Parent and child
– Older brother and younger brother
– Husband and wife
– Friend and friend
• Proper etiquette and ritual help these relationships
24
25
Is religion bad?
• Stunts intellectual growth
– Spanish Inquisition
• Arrested or killed any philosophers against Church.
– Galileo
– Enlightenment Movement in Europe.
36
Why do people change
their religion?
Inside Forces
• Forty percent of Americans change faiths
during their lives. Some changes are relatively
minor–moving from a conservative Baptist
church to a more liberal Methodist church.
Others are more substantial, such as
converting from Christianity to Judaism or
dropping religion altogether.
Cont…
• Most of like to think of such religious
changes as an individual choice. Even if we
continue in the faith in which we were
raised, we see this as a conscious
decision. And the reason we made this choice
is, of course, reasonable and thought-out.
Cont…
• Sociologists find such claims to be dubious.
Religion may be a choice, but this choice is
shaped by forces outside of our control.
Without realizing it, our religious choices are
constrained by our families, our ethnicities,
our neighborhoods, and our occupations.
Outside forces
• Changes in education
• Changes in marital status
• Changes in geography
• Changes in assimilation (or the continuity of
recent immigrant communities)
Changes in education