2.1. Durkheim’s Theory of Religion

Please refer to Unit 4 Content

2.2 Max Weber– protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism

Please refer to Unit 4

2.3 Marx’s Theory of Religion

Introduction

19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx, the founder and primary theorist of Marxism, viewed religion as "the soul of soulless conditions" or the "opium of the people". According to Karl Marx, religion in this world of exploitation is an expression of distress and at the same time it is also a protest against the real distress.

Marx’s approach to ‘‘religion’’ can be delineated in terms of three somewhat overlapping and mutually supportive elements:

• A view of religion as the source of
• An analysis of religion in terms of ‘‘false consciousness’’.
• A depiction of religion as a compensatory mechanism, whose rationale is to bring hope to those who find it difficult to come to terms with life on this earth.

Marx’s thesis that religion is a manifestation of human alienation has its antecedents in Hegel and Feuerbach.

The Concept

• Religion is a form of false consciousness: The function of religion is to join the state in inculcating a false consciousness, that ‘religion transforms the world of suffering and misery into the promise of its blissful opposite’.
• Religion therefore serves to provide compensation for those who dwell in a heartless world: ‘‘Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.
• Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.
• Besides being the ideological tool used by the oppressive class for the legitimization of oppression, Marx finally recognizes and acknowledges that there is something operative, functional and positive in the religion of the oppressed class.
• Religion is the opium of the people’. Marx believed it futile to pursue the outright suppression of religion or to seek a promulgation of atheism by decree: as long as humans continue to live in a heartless world, the ideological formation that is the core of religion would be inexpungible.
• The crucial need, therefore, is not the abolition of religion by fiat, but the abolition of the heartless world that is the fount and origin of the religious impulse.
• Whatever happens to this impulse, primacy has to be ceded to the task of emancipation: only an emancipated world will be in a position potentially to dispense with religion.
• Marx’s critique on religion is radical and can hardly be compared with his contemporaries.
• He says, “Religion is pure illusion.” Furthermore, he sees in religion a more active moral agency, and religion itself for him is less a device for pacifying suffering than a protest against the suffering.
• According to him “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world.”
• According to Marx’s theory, life determines consciousness. Man makes religion; religion does not make man.
• Marx viewed religion as one facet of that whole which he calls the superstructure and that is based on and affected by the infrastructure.
• Marx adds all the facets of superstructure such as religion, state, political, legal philosophical and artistic react upon one another as well as upon the economic base. Thus, it is not the economic situation is the sole active cause.

Criticism

• The Marxian view of religion stems from Marx’s misguided idea of a God.
• There are a number of socio-empirical facts which can be referred to in demonstration against Marx’s views of religion.
• Marx draws most of his religious interpretations from the study of Christianity. He is not taking into consideration the religions in general.
• Some argue with evidence that Marxian propositions about the role of religion in the society must be limited to the operation of religion at certain times and in certain places.
• Max Weber rejects the Marxian view that religion is always shaped by the economic system.
• Max Weber is against false consciousness. He discovers that religious can offering a new vision of human life, and can affect the transformation of culture and society.

Evaluation

• Although Marx attacks religion vehemently, it would yet be very illusive to regard his theory of religion as a mere attack.
• There is considerable evidence to support some aspects of the Marxian view of the role of religion in society.
• Marx’s criticism on religion basically not only offers some challenges and opportunities for religious believers to evaluate and renewal with a new spirit, but also functioned in giving best and concrete solution.

Conclusion

• All in all, Marx notes that religion clearly benefits for those people in alienated society, but the ruling class benefit the most because one of the unintended consequences of religious beliefs.
• The cause of human misery was the capitalist economic system, and the solution was its forcible removal and replacement by nonexploitive economic system namely communism.

2.4 Weber vs. Durkheim

Durkheim’s and Weber’s studies of religion get their distinct foci or emphases because of their distinctive approaches to human beings and society.

Units of Analysis

• Society imposes certain constraints to make the individual a part of it.
• Emile Durkheim studies religion in what he believes is its most elementary form.
• He focuses on tribal society where collective life is pervasive. Ideas are held in common by all individuals and there is an intensity of shared ideas and feelings.
• This is a society without written historical records. Religion and clan organisation overlap.
• Thus, Durkheim emphasises the role of religion as a collective phenomenon which serves to strengthen social bonds.
• As per Durkheim, society is ‘sui-generis’, it exists over and above the individual. Individuals are born and die, but society is eternal.
• Weber, on the other hand, studies the major features of the great world religions. He is interested in their historical roots and their capacity to guide and shape economic activity.
• Weber focuses on the role of individuals as actors, orienting their behaviour patterns in terms of their values and beliefs. It is the task of the sociologist to study these through “verstehen” or interpretative understanding.

The Role of Religion

• Durkheim’s emphasis on tribal religion visualises the role of religion in maintaining social order, Weber’s analysis looks at the creative role of religion in helping to shape new ways of thinking and acting.
• Durkheim basically sees religion as an expression of the collective conscience. Worshipping the totem according to him is nothing but worshipping the clan itself.
• Ideas and beliefs cherished by the clan as a whole thus become part of the individual conscience.
• The separation between the sacred and the profane aspects of the world is mediated through certain rites.
• The participation of the whole clan in some important rites helps to bring about collective enthusiasm, linking individuals into social bonds and making them aware of the awesome power of society.
• Weber, in contrast, wishes to understand religion in relation to economic, political and historical factors.
• Weber is interested in the unique culture patterns to be found in each society. He sees religion as part and parcel of a larger historical trend, namely, the move towards capitalism, industrialisation and rationality.
• He is concerned with the role of religion in making the world-view of individuals in different societies favourably or unfavourably inclined towards capitalism and rationalisation.

Gods, Spirits and Prophets

• Durkheim denies that religion is concerned with the mysterious, with gods and spirits. He holds that the object of worship is society itself, transformed and represented through certain symbolic objects.
• He maintains that it is society itself, which is worshipped in order to strengthen social bonds and make individuals who are born and who die feel the power and eternity of society.
• Weber does not hesitate to use the idea of gods and spirits.
• Weber is dealing with religions, which are of relatively recent origin as compared to the tribal religions.
• These religions discussed by Weber express certain personal qualities and display a certain level of abstraction.
• When individuals abstract, they engage in symbolic activity. Let us look at totemism in this respect.
• Durkheim argues that the totem is the symbol of the clan.
• Weber takes the example of a totem, which while worshipped as a symbol, is an animal that is sacrificially killed and eaten. The spirits and gods of the tribe are called to take part in the feast. Whilst eating the animal, clan members believe themselves to be united because the spirit of the animal enters them.
• Weber, unlike Durkheim, attaches great importance to prophets in propagating religious beliefs. Religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam are characterised by great ethical prophets who revere as the representatives of God.
• Thus, spirits and gods are reflections of symbolic thought.
• Unlike Durkheim, Weber accounts for the role of charismatic, ethical prophets in redefining and remaking religious beliefs is also accounted for.

Religion and Science

• Durkheim views both religion and science as providing society with its collective representations. The classifications of science derive from those of religion. Thus there is no conflict or opposition between the two.
• Weber is not of this view. His comparative studies of world religion show how religious ethics in India and China prevented the growth of capitalism, which basically requires an ethic of mastery, of rational calculation.
• It is only the Protestant ethic, which provided the appropriate world-view for rational capitalism.
• Science, as Weber views it, is an expression of rationality and a challenge to the traditional and mystical claims of religion.
• Science provides empirical knowledge or verifiable factual information, which helps human beings to know and master the world.
• Thus science and religion, in Weber’s view, exist in contrast to each other.