User:Andries/Theories of religion
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Scope and classifications
This article only treats theories that are open for empirical empirical verification or falsifications which means that most religious view will not be treated here.
Theories can be classified in several means
- eductionist
- functionalist
(Pals)
Marx and the opiate of the masses
(Pals and Kunin)
In this model, held by individuals such as Karl Marx and Bertrand Russell religion is seen as a tool concocted by the powerful to pacify and oppress the powerless. As Bertrand Russell wrote, "Religion in any shape or form is regarded as pernicious and deliberate falsehood, spread and encouraged by rulers and clerics in their own interests, since it is easier to control over the ignorant." In this model, the development of religion is seen as analogous to the growth of a cancer: and the most "developed" religion would be no religion at all. However, there is some question regarding the meaning of Karl Marx's image due to opium in his time being the only widely available pain killer (which, incidently, he had used). Thus, religion would be likened to a powerful pain killer, an idea that religious people would tend to support but that some of Marx's adepts may have misunderstood.
Durkheim and functionalism
(Pals and Kunin)
(Kunin)
Freud and psychoanalysis
(pals and Kunin)
Otto and the idea of the holy
Eliade and the sacred
(Pals)
Evans-Pritchard Society's construct of the heart
(Pals)
Geertz religion as cultural system
(Pals)
Stark and Bainbridge theory
Rodney Stark & W. S. Bainbridge's in their book "Theory of Religion" and subsequent works present four models: 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.
See also
References
- Kunin, Seth D. "Religion; the modern theories" University of Edinburgh
- Pals, Daniel L. 1996. Seven Theories of Religion. USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508725-9