notes for week five on religion

Why study the sociology of religion?
- Because religion has played a role in all societies throughout history, uniting the private sphere with the public sphere through:
- Symbol: Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible.
- Values: collection of guiding, usually positive principles; what one deems to be correct and desirable in life, especially regarding personal conduct. Norms: an established standard of behaviour shared by members of a social group to which each member is expected to conform
The study of religion in sociology
- Religious truth cannot be tested by empiricist science. It is a matter of faith.
- Began with Durkheim's 1897 study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations
- Max Weber emphasized the relationship between religious belief and the economic foundations of society.
- Marx called religion “the opiate of the masses”
 
Peter Berger
- Published The Social Construction of Reality (1966) with Thomas Luckmann, “social construction”
- born in 1929 in Vienna - emigrated to USA
- earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in New York
- believes in “epistemological modesty” ( held by a believer who is not sure)
- As an intellectual he is willing to change his mind, limit his statements, and look at both sides of the argument
Secularization
- In the 1960’s Berger and others said that secularization = modernity
- but in the 1990’s he questioned that theory and said that most people are religious
o though western Europe and “a thin layer of humanistically educated people” are exceptions
- postulates that increased religiosity is a response to secular humanism
o But Christianity has changed due to “loss of religious substance” (real faith, related to God and Christ and redemption and resurrection and sin and forgiveness),
 The church has become a therapeutic agency
 The church has been politicized

Questions for small groups:

- Is Canada moving toward:
o A government that doesn’t favour any religion?
o “a government that is antiseptically free of religious symbols”?
- Is humor one of the “signals of transcendence”? If so, in what way?
- Are various religious institutions now therapeutic or politicized?
- Do we need religion in order to live with uncertainty?