A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON RELIGION |
HUMAN SPECIES
Basic Assumption: Humans are a species with distinctive characteristics
that facilitate survival
and adaptation.
The qualities that we define as characteristic of human individuals
and groups are the product
of physical, psychological, and social attributes.
All three dimensions therefore are important in understanding any human
form, in this case
religion.
1. Physical Attributes
Opposable thumb (permits creation of material culture)Absence of instinct (undirected physical/psychic energy)
Long period of conception and dependency (requires organized protection of mate and offspring)
Lack of physical characteristics for survival (hide, senses, speed, strength, claws/fangs)
Brain structure (permits ecstatic experiences)
2. Psychological
Individual capacity for moods and "alternative states of consciousness"Individual capacity for symbolizing (permits language)
Individual capacity to suspend disbelief
Individual capacity to conceive holistically
3. Social
Capacity for collective symbolic organization in the form of cultureCapacity for the supra-individual organization in the form of social groups
Survival for any species requires adaptation (mechanisms for creating
control)
Across species, organisms possess mechanisms to promote survival and adaptation
Aggression/defenseSense perception
Food procurement
Sexual relationships and procreation
Establishing and maintaining territorial location
Because human behavior is not instinctual (pre-patterned), the patterning of human behavior is created through
Culture – symbolic patterningCreating cultural and social reality involves constructing cultural and social logic (the relationship between part and wholeGroup organization – social patterning
Culture and group organization are not inherent in the world but rather are created by humans.
This means that the only order that exists for humans is created by them.
A constructed cultural reality involves
Common cognitive interpretations of existenceCommon emotional stake in these interpretations
Common set of moral orderings and priorities
All constructed cultural order establishes a means for creating
order and avoiding chaos.
Cognitive - meaning
Order is enhanced by creating larger systems of interpretationChaos is avoided by preventing a breakdown in interpretive systems (bafflement, confusion, indecisiveness)
Emotional - commitment
Order is enhanced by creating a connection to sources of energyMoral - valueChaos is avoided by preventing dissolution of energy (demoralization)
Order is enhanced by creating legitimicacy and priority for alternative lines of actionChaos is avoided by avoiding moral indeterminacy (quandry, paradox, contradiction)
Creating social reality involves
Effectiveness of social organizationLegitimating social processes
Power consolidation
All social organizations are mechanisms for creating
and sustaining order
InstitutionsSocial Processes
Types of Organizations
Intensity of organization
Transcendence refers to structural principles or relations of a level lying above or outside the level of structure taken as the point of reference
Like all other social reality, the transcendent is socially constructed
Transcendence is constructed on multiple levels, and humans are accustomed to inhabiting realities on several different levels simultaneously
TimeSpace
Logic
TRANSCENDENT REALM
In some cases transcendence may be constructed in the form of a separate realm, domain, plane, sphere. In these cases, the transcendent realm is qualitatively different from the everyday world
Creation of a transcendent realm establishes a part-whole relationship of the largest scale structural principles or relations of a level lying above or outside the level of structure taken as the point of reference
Like all other social reality, the transcendent is socially constructed
Transcendence is constructed on multiple levels, and humans are accustomed to inhabiting realities on several different levels simultaneously
Creation of the transcendent establishes a
part-whole relationship of the largest scale
RELIGION
The social construction of religion involves ultimate transcendence
Definition -- Religion is the social form that is the product of the socialThe creation of an alternative, transcendent realm distinct from the realm of everyday life that creates a larger whole of which the everyday world becomes part and which authorizes social relations in the everyday world
construction of a transcendent realm (world, sphere, level, plane, power, force)
that possesses qualitatively different attributes, the sacred, which distinguish it
from the profane, everyday realm. The social construction of religion involves
creating narratives that describe the relationship between the sacred and
profane (myth), procedures through which a relationship of the sacred and
profane is maintained (ritual), and social collectivities through which adherents
organize themselves (“church”).
The relationship
between part and whole is religious logic, which authorizes social relations
within a religious community
THE SACRED/HOLY
Definition - The sacred/holy is a nonempirical force of great and power that is
intrinsically valuable to believers and places a moral obligation on them
What distinguishes
religious transcendence from other forms of transcendence is that the transcendent
realm is the locus of the sacred/holy
MYTH
Religious transcendence is constructed culturally through myth
Definition -- Narratives that (1) recount the operation of transcendent forces inMyth creates a narrative of the relationship between the transcendent realm and the everyday world through its construction of
primordial times that have shaped the everyday world as it presently exists and
(2) provide the ultimate truths and foundational assumptions about the nature
of the world and of humankind that guide and authorize our actions.
Time – past, present, futureSpace – everyday world and sacred/demonic realms
Logic – nature of the relationship between the everyday and sacred realm
Through
myth the transcendent realm is constructed as the ultimate source of
Understanding (The cognitive dimension)Myth creates a set of ultimate ordering normative prescriptions and proscriptions are constructed in such as fashion that theyThe transcendent realm is the repository of ultimate knowledgeEnergy (The emotional dimension)The transcendent realm is the locus of the true/ultimate source of energyValue (The moral dimension)The transcendent realm is the source of ultimate value
Apply to all individualsApply to all situations and actions
Apply to all time
Apply unequivocally
RITUAL
Religion is constructed socially through ritual
Definition -- Religious ritual is a prescribed form of behavior through whichThe creation of spritual agency involves constructing ritualistic connections between the everyday world and the transcendent realm and demonstrating the independent power of the transcendent realm
transcendent sources of value are created and affirmed. These rituals are closely
scripted, dramatically organized, and authorized by the source of transcendent
value, which lend to them an intrinsic value.
Transcendent power is
IrresistibleThere are a variety of ways in which a ritualistic connections between the transcendent realm and everyday world are establishedInexorable
Irreversible
PrayerConnection with the transcendent realm produces the capacity to reorient human understanding (The cognitive dimension), the basis of human loyalty and commitment (The emotional dimension), and human commitments (The moral dimension)
Pilgrimage
Transportation of a realm member to the other realmAstral travel
Channeling
Near death experience
Healing
ConversionGlossolalia
Salvation
Revelation
RELIGIOUS COLLECTIVITIES
Religious collectivities historically have been organized around three forms of relationship with the transcendent
CoerciveUtilitarian
Normative
Contemporary religious collectivities are most clearly distinguished by
The extent to which they accommodate to or resist the established social order
The social location of religious group adherentsPriestly religious groupsProphetic religious groups
Social classTheir primary organizing form of social relations
ContractualCovenantal