FUNCTIONALIST and MARXIST VIEWS OF RELIGION

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FUNCTIONALIST and MARXIST VIEWS OF RELIGION
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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

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Totems
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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

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Marxism and Religion
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Marxist perspective mirrors in some ways the
functionalists take on religion
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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

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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

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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

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• 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.

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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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