Karl Marx (1818–1883) The social philosopher
Karl Marx (1818–1883) held a
materialist worldview. According to Marx, the dynamics of society were determined by the
relations of production, that is, the relations that its members needed to enter into to produce their means of survival. Developing on the ideas of
Ludwig Feuerbach, he saw religion as a product of
alienation that was functional to
relieving people's immediate suffering, and as an ideology that masked the real nature of social relations. He deemed it a contingent part of human culture, that would have disappeared after the abolition of class society. These claims were limited, however, to his analysis of the historical relationship between European cultures, political institutions, and their Christian religious traditions. Marxist views strongly influenced individuals' comprehension and conclusions about society, among others the anthropological school of
cultural materialism. Marx' explanations for all religions, always, in all forms, and everywhere have never been taken seriously by many experts in the field, though a substantial fraction accept that Marx' views possibly explain some aspects of religions. Some recent work has suggested that, while the standard account of Marx's analysis of religion is true, it is also only one side of a dialectical account, which takes seriously the disruptive, as well as the pacifying moments of religion
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) saw religion as an
illusion, a belief that people very much wanted to be true. Unlike Tylor and Frazer, Freud attempted to explain why religion persists in spite of the lack of evidence for its tenets. Freud asserted that religion is a largely
unconscious neurotic response to
repression. By repression Freud meant that civilized society demands that we not fulfill all our desires immediately, but that they have to be repressed. Rational arguments to a person holding a religious conviction will not change the neurotic response of a person. This is in contrast to Tylor and Frazer, who saw religion as a rational and conscious, though primitive and mistaken, attempt to explain the natural world. In his 1913 book
Totem and Taboo he developed a speculative story about how all
monotheist religions originated and developed. In the book he asserted that monotheistic religions grew out of a homicide in a clan of a father by his sons. This incident was subconsciously remembered in human societies. In
Moses and Monotheism, Freud proposed that Moses had been a priest of
Akhenaten who fled Egypt after the pharaoh's death and perpetuated monotheism through a different religion. Freud's view on religion was embedded in his larger theory of
psychoanalysis,
which has been criticized as unscientific. Although Freud's attempt to explain the historical
origins of religions have not been accepted, his generalized view that all religions originate from unfulfilled psychological needs is still seen as offering a credible explanation in some cases.
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917)
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) saw the
concept of the sacred as the defining characteristic of religion, not faith in the supernatural. He saw religion as a reflection of the concern for society. He based his view on recent research regarding
totemism among the
Australian aboriginals. With totemism he meant that each of the many clans had a different object, plant, or animal that they held sacred and that symbolizes the clan. Durkheim saw totemism as the original and simplest form of religion. According to Durkheim, the analysis of this simple form of religion could provide the building blocks for more complex religions. He asserted that moralism cannot be separated from religion. The sacred i.e. religion reinforces group interest that clash very often with individual interests. Durkheim held the view that the function of religion is group cohesion often performed by collectively attended rituals. He asserted that these group meeting provided a special kind of energy, which he called
effervescence, that made group members lose their individuality and to feel united with the gods and thus with the group. Differing from Tylor and Frazer, he saw magic not as religious, but as an individual instrument to achieve something. Durkheim's proposed method for progress and refinement is first to carefully study religion in its simplest form in one contemporary society and then the same in another society and compare the religions then and only between societies that are the same. The empirical basis for Durkheim's view has been severely criticized when more detailed studies of the Australian aboriginals surfaced. More specifically, the definition of religion as dealing with the sacred only, regardless of the supernatural, is not supported by studies of these aboriginals. The view that religion has a social aspect, at the very least, introduced in a generalized very strong form by Durkheim has become influential and uncontested. Durkheim's approach gave rise to
functionalist school in sociology and anthropology. Functionalism is a sociological paradigm that originally attempted to explain social institutions as collective means to fill individual biological needs, focusing on the ways in which social institutions fill social needs, especially social stability. Thus because Durkheim viewed society as an "organismic analogy of the body, wherein all the parts work together to maintain the equilibrium of the whole, religion was understood to be the glue that held society together.".
Bronisław Malinowski The anthropologist
Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942) was strongly influenced by the functionalist school and argued that religion originated from coping with
death. He saw science as practical knowledge that every society needs abundantly to survive and magic as related to this practical knowledge, but generally dealing with phenomena that humans cannot control.
Max Weber Max Weber (1864–1920) thought that the truth claims of religious movement were irrelevant for the scientific study of the movements. Weber acknowledged that religion had a strong social component, but diverged from Durkheim by arguing, for example in his book
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that religion can be a force of change in society. In the book, Weber wrote that modern
capitalism spread quickly partially due to the Protestant worldly ascetic morale. According to the typology, churches,
ecclesia,
denomination, and sects form a continuum with decreasing influence on society. Sects are protest break away groups and tend to be in tension with society. •
Ideal type: a hypothetical "pure" or "clear" form, used in
typologies •
Charismatic authority: Weber saw charisma as a volatile form or authority that depends on the acceptance of unique quality of a person by this person's followers. Charisma can be a revolutionary force and the authority can either be
routinized (change into
other forms of authority) or disappear upon the death of the charismatic person. Status groups have differing levels of access to power and prestige and indirectly to economic resources. In
his 1920 treatment of the religion in China he saw
Confucianism as helping a certain status group, i.e. the educated elite to maintain access to prestige and power. He asserted that Confucianism opposition against both extravagance and thrift made it unlikely that capitalism could have originated in China. He used the concept of
Verstehen (German for "understanding") to describe his method of interpretation of the intention and context of human action.
Rational choice theory The
rational choice theory has been applied to religions, among others by the sociologists
Rodney Stark (1934–2022) and
William Sims Bainbridge (born 1940). They see religions as systems of "compensators", and view human beings as "rational actors, making choices that she or he thinks best, calculating costs and benefits". Compensators are a body of language and practices that compensate for some physical lack or frustrated goal. They can be divided into specific compensators (compensators for the failure to achieve specific goals), and general compensators (compensators for failure to achieve any goal). The main reasoning behind this theory is that the compensation is what controls the choice, or in other words the choices which the "rational actors" make are "rational in the sense that they are centered on the satisfaction of wants". It has been observed that social or political movements that fail to achieve their goals will often transform into religions. As it becomes clear that the goals of the movement will not be achieved by natural means (at least within their lifetimes), members of the movement will look to the supernatural to achieve what cannot be achieved naturally. The new religious beliefs are compensators for the failure to achieve the original goals. Examples of this include the
counterculture movement in America: the early counterculture movement was intent on changing society and removing its injustice and boredom; but as members of the movement proved unable to achieve these goals they turned to Eastern and new religions as compensators. Most religions start out their lives as
cults or sects, i.e. groups in high tension with the surrounding society, containing different views and beliefs contrary to the societal norm. Over time, they tend to either die out, or become more established, mainstream and in less tension with society. Cults are new groups with a new novel
theology, while sects are attempts to return mainstream religions to (what the sect views as) their original purity. Mainstream established groups are called
denominations. The comments below about cult formation apply equally well to sect formation. There are four models of cult formation: the
Psychopathological Model, the Entrepreneurial Model, the Social Model and the Normal
Revelations model. •
Psychopathological model: religions are founded during a period of severe stress in the life of the founder. The founder suffers from psychological problems, which they resolve through the founding of the religion. (The development of the religion is for them a form of self-therapy, or self-medication.) •
Entrepreneurial model: founders of religions act like entrepreneurs, developing new products (religions) to sell to consumers (to convert people to). According to this model, most founders of new religions already have experience in several religious groups before they begin their own. They take ideas from the pre-existing religions, and try to improve on them to make them more popular. •
Social model: religions are founded by means of
social implosions. Members of the religious group spend less and less time with people outside the group, and more and more time with each other within it. The level of affection and emotional bonding between members of a group increases, and their emotional bonds to members outside the group diminish. According to the social model, when a social implosion occurs, the group will naturally develop a new theology and rituals to accompany it. •
Normal revelations: religions are founded when the founder interprets ordinary natural phenomena as supernatural; for instance, ascribing his or her own creativity in inventing the religion to that of the deity. Some religions are better described by one model than another, though all apply to differing degrees to all religions. Once a cult or sect has been founded, the next problem for the founder is to convert new members to it. Prime candidates for
religious conversion are those with an openness to religion, but who do not belong or fit well in any existing religious group. Those with no religion or no interest in religion are difficult to convert, especially since the cult and sect beliefs are so extreme by the standards of the surrounding society. But those already happy members of a religious group are difficult to convert as well, since they have strong social links to their preexisting religion and are unlikely to want to sever them in order to join a new one. The best candidates for religious conversion are those who are members of or have been associated with religious groups (thereby showing an interest or openness to religion), yet exist on the fringe of these groups, without strong social ties to prevent them from joining a new group. Potential converts vary in their level of social connection.
New religions best spread through pre-existing friendship networks. Converts who are marginal with few friends are easy to convert, but having few friends to convert they cannot add much to the further growth of the organization. Converts with a large social network are harder to convert, since they tend to have more invested in mainstream society; but once converted they yield many new followers through their friendship network. Cults initially can have quite high growth rates; but as the social networks that initially feed them are exhausted, their growth rate falls quickly. On the other hand, the rate of
growth is exponential (ignoring the limited supply of potential converts): the more converts you have, the more missionaries you can have out looking for new converts. But nonetheless it can take a very long time for religions to grow to a large size by natural growth. This often leads to cult leaders giving up after several decades, and withdrawing the cult from the world. It is difficult for cults and sects to maintain their initial enthusiasm for more than about a generation. As children are born into the cult or sect, members begin to demand a more stable life. When this happens, cults tend to lose or de-emphasise many of their more radical beliefs, and become more open to the surrounding society; they then become
denominations. The
theory of religious economy sees different
religious organizations competing for followers in a religious economy, much like the way
businesses compete for consumers in a commercial
economy. Theorists assert that a true religious economy is the result of
religious pluralism, giving the population a wider variety of choices in religion. According to the theory, the more
religions there are, the more likely the population is to be religious and hereby contradicting the
secularization thesis. ==See also==