RELG 2260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Reductionism, Aboriginal Australians
16 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Durkheim only focused on primal, simple religions (australian aborigine) Sacred vs. profane: there can be varying degrees of each but the profane can never be sacred and the sacred can never be profane. There was an evolution from totemic principle, to souls, to ancestral spirits, and finally to the concept of gods ritual existed first, and belief in gods developed out of this. Religion functions to bind society"s members by prompting them to affirm their common values and beliefs on a regular basis. Just as individual and society need each other, gods and worshipers need each other religion"s true function is not intellectual, but social rituals create beliefs; beliefs change over time, but the social function of ritual does not change. Aggressively reductionist functionalism : religion is nothing but a function of society. Church is a community not a building.
