Functionalism and Religion

• meets individual and societal needs
• intergrating force in society
• allows us to express collective beliefs concerning social commitment and social solidarity 
• a way for people to affirm common values, beliefs and ideals 
• produce a collective consciousness
• explains the inexplicable 
• provides a central value system 

'religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is, things set apart and forbidden which unite into one single moral community - called a church - all those who adhere to them' 

There is a difference between the sacred and profane

Totemism 

• simplest and most basic religion
• a clan is a large extended family who share duties and obligations 
• the totem is an emblem of the clan and is sacred, a symbol of their god
• worshipping the totem is like worshipping their own society 

Collective Conscience 

• gives our thinking conceptuality 
• ability to share thoughts
• origin of all thoughts, reason and science 

Cognitive Functions of Religion

• shared norms and values
• maks cooperation
• without it society would disintergrate
• maintain social integration
• suggests we are part of something greater

Evaluation

• differences between the sacred and profane are imagined
• ignores conflict within religion 
• doesnt apply within contempary society
• unsound evidence for totemism 

Identifies certain areas of religion and attaches them with emotional stress and threats to social solidarity, these are crises of life 

• birth, death, puberty, marriage 
• all crises of life are surrounded by religious ritual

Death

• most disruptive crises of life
• funeral cermonies
• mourners support the berieved
• socially destructive 
• group unites

Fishing in the lagoon 

• fishing in the lagoon is safe and predictable with no ritual
• fishing in the ocean is dangerous and unpredictable and so requires ritual 

• human action is directed and controlled by norms 
• religion is part of a culutural system that provide guidelines for us 
• adresses particular problems

Religion and Social Order 

• individuals are hit by events they can not forsee -  religion is a mechanism for adjustment and as a means of restoring normality 
• the is a problem of uncertainty - always will be unknown, provides a means of adjusting and coming to terms 

Makes sense of all experiences, suffering achieves rewards in heaven ect

• emphasises only the positive contributions of religion
• ignores dysfunction of religion
• does not see religion as disruptive and divisive as it can be
• gives little consideration to hostility 
• can be a direct threat to social order