Before this weeks lecture and tutorial, I was unaware of the vast impact that religion has on culture and I was especially interested to discover some specific cases of this controversial relationship. Max Weber’s belief that Christian Protestantism was a large contributing factor towards the rise of Capitalism in the West, suggested religion to encourage hard work as people wanted to earn their place in Heaven. This work ethic was implied by Weber to have built up our developed western world society of today.
However, Carl Marx believed the opposite to this. He believed that religion was used by the rich to control the poor. He believed that hard work did not earn ones place in Heaven as religion itself was an illusion which deluded people into blindness from the unfairness of their situations and made them accept their fate as a poor state of life while the rich and powerful remained so without being challenged.
Bruce Lincoln supports many of Marx’s views such as the idea that religion impacts control within society as it has a power within it, similar to the pwoers within all areas of society, although he believes that people must not accept all religious claims as the truth but they should be cautious of it. In contrast to this, Matt Waggoner believes that religion is not simply a myth which controls power in society, but it is just as powerful as culture itself. He argues to those who oppose the power of religion that our world was developed by a culture which was based on religion.
Therefore, despite these views being very different from each other, they all have one thing in common and that is the undeniable belief that religion has, even in today’s more secular world, a very large impact on culture and therefore society. I have came to the conclusion that although these beliefs are different, they all provide examples of religion as a factor of social change. Weber’s belief that religion provided a work ethic which allowed for our well developed society of today and Marx’s ideas that religion acted as a means of social control – keeping a hierarchy without challenge, may be completely different beliefs, however they both represent ways in which religion has an impact on culture.
Furthermore, by learning about Unchurched Spirituality, I learned that people search for spiritual guidance even if they do not belong to a particular religious group. This type of spirituality may struggle to provide moral order and it often goes against any beliefs of science or politics. It can also be very dangerous if it goes wrong as it can lead to brainwashing and mind control of people who are searching for more extreme spiritual guidance than that which they are finding in a church. As part of the tutorial, my group and I concluded that the main reason for the rise of this type of spirituality has been secularisation. Therefore in looking to find the main reasons for secularisation we suggested that modern education teaches science, for example Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as truth and teaches about different religions as beliefs. It also may be connected to the fact that todays society is generally richer than it once was, with material objects becoming more readily available to most, meaning that, as Ronald Inglehart (2004) said “When material conditions improve, need for religious solace depreciates.” However, those who are poor are looking to super natural powers rather than religion.
Finally, religion clearly has a huge impact on society as a whole, whether that be on people personally, on diversity or on culture. Religion can provide solutions to social problems but it has also been said to cause social problems. As a solution to social problems, religion has been known to provide material resources to people in need as it can be said to encourage kindness and generosity. It also provides people with a spiritual community, influencing how meaningfully people live their lives and providing a community in which people discuss their problems with others who may be experiencing similar issues. Furthermore, many religions provide charitable organisations which step in when the state fails to help certain types of people. In addition, religion can encourage high self-esteem and can lower how stressed people feel as it provides them with support when they are dealing with various social and emotional problems.
However, religion can be argued to cause social problems as many people who claim to be religious and to be following the wishes of their God are really people who are misusing the name of a religion to create conflict. Also, many religious groups will use their acts of generosity and kindness to promote their religion and to discourage belief in anything else. Furthermore, religion can impact on health in a negative way as certain people believe that to accept some medical treatments would be to go against their religion.
From what I have learned throughout the lecture, tutorial and individual task, I have found many ways in which religion impacts on society and vice versa. This has been the case since religion came about and despite the continuing secularisation of the world around us, religion will always have an impact on society as it can be said to have been the base of the development of modern society.
In reflection of my learning of these topics I am looking to read more widely on them and to develop a true and deep understanding of the ways in which religion impacts on culture and societies problems, as well as the impacts of unchurched spirituality.
