SOC201H1 Lecture : Tocqueville and Religion
Document Summary
My answer: religion is on the decline because of the increase of individualism. As durkheim said, individuals are less dependent on religion and more dependent on themselves. Religion: extraordinary, transcendent as opposed to what is profaned. It is a set of answers to human existence. Religion may provide a justification for living or meaning for death. Sometimes it might mean belief in one god (christianity, judaism) or belief in many gods (hinduism) or religion that does not have a god (buddhism or animism) Before my culture encountered other cultures, we thought our god was the one and only true god. Through contact between cultures, beliefs can be strengthened. Contact between different beliefs relativized our beliefs, therefore weakening it. Rather than being relativized, culture could hang on to belief from outsiders. Open up to complexities of the problem. Weber: counterargument that there is a difference between studying people than studying molecules or objects moving through space.
