Durkheim's And Marx: The Role Of Religion In Human Life

Durkheim defines religion as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things”. He says all societies

As I read Émile Durkheim’s classic piece, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, I experienced a whirlwind of thoughts, expressing agreement, disagreement, and complete puzzlement over the details of his logic and conclusions. As far as my essay goes, I will attempt to put these thoughts in a neat, coherent order like the one mentioned above.

Karl Marx’s view of society was based around the economy. All other social structures according to Marx, such as religion, family values, and politics stem from the base, the economy. Religion played no part at all in Marx’s sociological views. He is known as an atheist. He believed that religion was nothing more than a burden on society. “The

It reinforced the morals and social norms held collectively by all within a society. Society, to Durkheim, was greater than the individual and it gave people strength and support and made things possible and meaningful. The function of religion was to keep society in check, to assist social control, and to provide individual meaning for each individual’s life.

Religion has held an important role in society since the beginning of civilisation and it has such power over people’s minds and shape the way our world developed. Whilst some sociological theories such as functionalist sees religion as performing a positive function in society as it can lead to social solidarity, integrating people into society, other sociological theories such as Marxist and Feminist totally disagrees with this and would argue that religion leads to instability and conflict in society.

The bourgeoisies made sure that the only way of survival for the working class was through them. Marx even believed that the churches were oppressing the proletarians because the bourgeoisies were controlling the churches. Therefore, Marx thought that religion should be abolished. Another thing that Marx believed had no existence was the government because the bourgeoisie held all political power.3

Conversely, according to (Turner 23-109), Durkheim points out that religion is part and parcel of the society and that each society has religion. Emile Durkheim’s purpose was to assess the connection between particular religions in various cultures, and finding a common cause. Basically, he wanted to comprehend the three major aspects of religion; that is the empirical together with the social and the spirituality components. His definition of religion is that; it is a joining arrangement of beliefs together with practices in relation to sacred things. According to him, it is religion that establishes the contemporary society as

The two theorists i’ve decided to compare and contrast are Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim. Firstly i’ll compare them to one another. From all the readings I did and past education on these individuals I found they have a lot of the same views in regards to religion. Both Emlie Durkheim and Karl Marx believe that religion is a projection of mans hopes and desires. They both also agree that religion plays a powerful role in influencing the members of a society. While coming up with these theories they were both more concerned with the human rather than the religion. Both of them did not believe in a god or gods. It’s been said that Marx saw god as idealization of human nature while Durkheim believed the idea of a god was society itself. They were not religious people so it’s interesting that they did have some of the same views and theories regarding religion in the society.

Following the Industrial Revolution in 19th century Europe, change was in full swing and religion began to have different meanings for different people. The upper-class citizens used Religion, namely Christianity, and the power that it possessed in an attempt to keep their high status in society, while the lower class turned to faith so that their lives could possibly improve. Instead of religion being the cornerstone of faith and worship amongst all people, it was being used for power and money by the upper class. Even worse, religious leaders were using the upper class people as well, gaining money and authority from their endorsement. A man by the name of Karl Marx saw

In order to combat anomie Durkheim asserts that people turn to religion. Religion for Durkheim was not divinely inspired but was simply a set of collective beliefs that shaped norms and values, norms and values that shaped

Emile Durkheim and Max Weber are two prominent philosophers whose theories unequivocally differed on countless themes. The outlooks of Durkheim and Weber contrast however, their general message in which they attempt to convey are of similar ideologies. When examining Durkheim and the concept of sacred and profane, one would see how it parallels with Weber’s notion of enchantment and disenchantment. Their stances on religion correspond with each other and despite their distinct conceptual frameworks and differing perspectives, Durkheim and Weber both offer profound contributions to the concepts of religion and modernity.

Moreover, Durkheim compares religion to society. He says that society is the cause of the unique sensations of the religious experiences, so called “sui generis” (Ritzer, 84). This concept

The crux of Emile Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life lies in the concept of collective effervescence, or the feelings of mutually shared emotions. Through a hermeneutical approach, Durkheim investigates the reflexiveness of social organization, the balance between form and content, and the immense cooperation in collective representations. In his work, society is the framework of humanity and gives it meaning, whereas religion acts as the tool to explain it. Since society existed prior to the individual, the collective mind must be understood before the concept of the individual can be grasped. However, one component seems missing from his social theory – what underlies society in terms of rituals and rites? Only when this

A religion can be seen as a unified system of beliefs and practices which are relative to sacred things and beliefs (Giddens 1972, p.224). It can shape ones thoughts and feelings and gives people a sense of hope and something to believe in. All three main sociologist writers Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim offer different perspectives on religion and how important it is to society. Some of the theorists chose to have a positive view whilst others argue the unimportance of religion. This essay attempts to discover which theorist has the most accurate perspective of religion in modern times. This is done by firstly explaining the basic ideas regarding to religion put forward by Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Then both Marx's and

Similarly to Weber, Durkheim believed that religion plays an integral part in society. He defined religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things… beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church...” (Durkheim EF: 47). This functional definition describes what Durkheim believes what role religion plays in contemporary society: it unities it. He analyzed religion within the context of the entire society and recognized its influence on people’s thoughts and behaviors. Durkheim was interested in the communal bonds forged by participating in religious activities and stressed the importance of the communal aspect of religion.