First, I must say that sociology is not a science, hard science, as I know it. Everything I say is an educated speculation from a limited number of years of observation and reading. Despite my attempt to be unbiased some of my own experiences will color my empirical method as I describe religion. With that said, I will be using an empirical method to describe my understanding of religion and its study.
What is Religion?
If I were to believe my childhood upbringing, then religion would be cultural. A faith in a higher being with a set of rules and regulations that govern, or should govern, everyday life. Sir James George Frazier seems to support this observation in The Golden Bough.
For Sir James George Frazier (The Golden Bough) religion consists of a belief in a higher power than humans and an attempt to propitiate or please that higher power.
An individual would follow this set of rules and observe a 'holy' day to fully understand the way of the higher being. However, this definition itself touches upon the political, where a set of governing laws defines your right from wrong. In some ways, this can give the ruling body control of the common people, Voltaire.
François-Marie Arouet better known as Voltaire, held religion to be “superstition” and saw religion as something by which one could control the dangerous masses.
Moreover, the word religion so far in this blog has taken in the Christian sense, and thus defined by the Christian faith in the one higher being, God. If we are to take the belief of a higher power to be either single or multiple spirits, then it would be possible to look at religion as a describer, explain-er of the unknown. This would take into account the many cultures with a belief of multiple gods or spirits.
Supernatural explanations came into play only when logic failed. (Tylor and Frazer)
Many of what some would consider primitive cultures had a belief in spirits, or gods, which can explain the occurrence of natural disasters; floods, lightning, thunder, forest fire, drought, etc. These spirits could give reason to events in life be they good or bad. From these limited understandings of so called pagan religion, economic approach can be used to define religion. The gods, spirits, influenced the growth of crops. They could determine if prosperity would come or disaster would rule the land.
In Shaftesbury's “study of the mind”, as he called it, Shaftesbury asserted that religion was the product of fears, anxieties, illusions, and mass illusions particularly after natural disasters struck. (Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times of 1711, Shaftesbury)
Shaftesbury's assertion of religion being a product of fears, anxieties, illusion, and mass illusions (Sociology of Religion Text, Helfrich) adds support to religion being economically based. However, it does not take into account emotions such as rage and hopelessness. It could be argued that Christianity spread as quickly as it did because of the disparity from the rich and the poor in Roman times. If the economics of the time where different, then it could be expected that the message the Christian's held would not have had as much effect on then 'pagan' populous.
Despite, or perhaps in spite of, this wholly incomplete dissection of history of religion, I cannot definitively tell you what religion is. I do not believe anyone can.
Studying Religion
Studying religion, or how to study a religion, is very different for each cultural group. Demography plays a key role in how religion is practiced, and thus, how religion can be observed and studied. Knowing the history of any one religion is fundamental for the understanding of the view points of the religion. I could go on about any one religion for pages and still not cover enough information to conclude, definitively, anything about that religion. To avoid this problem, I will take into account techniques for studying religions.
Quantitative versus Qualitative
As a scientist and engineer, I would be more prone to acquiring quantitative data because numbers seldom lie. However, when the numbers come from the people themselves one must take into account human nature.
When social scientists actually do ethnography and actually observe whether those who say they go to religious services they find that the survey numbers are between 10% and 30% too high. (Sociology of Religion Text, Helfrich)
Therefore, it is important to also use qualitative techniques to study religion.
There are also two types of view of a religion; from inside the religion and as an outside observer.
These are some of the was I will interpret religion in the following blogs. Most of what I have said here will not be repeated. This is my bases for what is religion and how I will go about studying it.
So what was I looking for in this first reaction paper. As I said in the syllabus I was looking for a discussion of chapters one and chapters two including an engagement with social scientific debates over what religion is, how the debate over Mormon origins reflects debates in social science over what religion is, how social scientists have approached religion quantitatively and qualitatively, an engagement with the history or religion, and an engagement with the documentary we watched in class on the Westboro Baptist Church and how that documentary raises questions about culture creating reality and how we approach social groups and religious groups (economics, politics, culture, geography, demography, emics, etics…)
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I wanted to see more engagement with the Mormons as Christians and History of Religion vignettes and with the documentary, The Most Hated Family in America.
I will be more lenient in grading the first entries because I want you to get your feet in this class and know what I expect in these reaction papers.
As an opening statement there isn't much that I can add comment to. But the first thought I had while reading this was 'What would the people of my University (a highly conservative University with a high Christian/Religious population) say about how you have debased religion to speculation. Perhaps your scientific take on religion is too rigid and formal as it leaves out all respect for each culture and how they view religion. But of course you aren't a diplomat and it is not your quest to placate, but I'd like you to think of the reaction religious people would have to your study and incorporate their emotions and feelings and perhaps their interpretations. I do realize this is not your purpose, but perhaps you could add a small portion of their reaction to your opinion. It is quite fascinating to observe human reaction rather then create it.
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