I'm studying religion again, and I would like to read your view of religion.
I have not read Durkheim but IMHO a simple minded view ..if it helps ...seems to be that religion is an expression of fear connected with the finite nature of life span..The concept of time then becomes important because the basic instinct of preserving life takes over the cognitive and intellectual powers of higher life forms and satisfies the mind by holding out promises of such possibilities. There seem to be two ways this happens , one is the way of science , connected with external "real" world and the other is to examine the source of fear itself ("self preservationof mankind") leading to an inner creativity and imagination which maybe not always in consonance with the first. .
Cheers
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
"The general conclusion of the book which the reader has before him is that religion is something eminently social. Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a manner of acting which take rise in the midst of assembled groups and which are destined to excite, maintain, or recreate certain mental states in these groups. So if the categories are of religious origin, they ought to participate in this nature common to all religious facts; they should be social affairs and the product of collective thought. At least -- for in the actual condition of our knowledge of these matters, one should be careful to avoid all radical and exclusive statements -- it is allowable to suppose that they are rich in social elements."
‘’Recognizing the social origin of religion, Durkheim argued that religion acted as a source of solidarity and identification for the individuals within a society, especially as a part of mechanical solidarity systems, and to a lesser, but still important extent in the context of organic solidarity. Religion provided a meaning for life, it provided authority figures, and most importantly for Durkheim, it reinforced the morals and social norms held collectively by all within a society. Far from dismissing religion as mere fantasy, despite its natural origin, Durkheim saw it as a critical part of the social system. Religion provides social control, cohesion, and purpose for people, as well as another means of communication and gathering for individuals to interact and reaffirm social norms.’’
web.pdx.edu/~tothm/religion/Durkheim%20on%20Religion.doc
"The most barbarous and the most fantastic rites and the strangest myths translate some human need, some aspect of life, either individual or social. The reasons with which the faithful justify them may be, and generally are, erroneous; but the true reasons," Durkheim concluded, "do not cease to exist" and it is the duty of science to discover them."
"At the foundation of all systems of belief and all cults," Durkheim thus argued, there ought necessarily to be a certain number of fundamental representations or conceptions and of ritual attitudes which, in spite of the diversity of forms which they have taken, have the same objective significance and fulfill the same functions everywhere. These are the permanent elements which constitute that which is permanent and human in religion; they form all the objective contents of the idea which is expressed when one speaks of religion in general.
"...sacred things are simply collective ideals that have fixed themselves on material objects."
(1973, p. 159 [excerpt from "The Dualism of Human Nature and its Social Conditions"])
"A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden -- beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."
(1982, p. 129 [excerpt from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life])
"This system of conceptions is not purely imaginary and hallucinatory, for the moral forces that these things awaken in us are quite real -- as real as the ideas that words recall to us after they have served to form the ideas."
(1973, p. 160 [excerpt from "The Dualism of Human Nature and its Social Conditions"])
"Since it is in spiritual ways that social pressure exercises itself, it could not fail to give men the idea that outside themselves there exist one or several powers, both moral and, atthe same time, efficacious, upon which they depend."
(1973, p. 171 [excerpt from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life])
"But from the fact that a 'religious experience,' if we choose it this, does exist and that it has a certain foundation ... it does not follow that the reality which is its foundation conforms objectively to the idea which believers have of it."
(1973, p. 190 [excerpt from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life])
Do you agree with him?
I do agree with the above quotes but I consider that these are not probing deep enough into what is religion.
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