To a sociologist, religion is not primarily a creed (a collection of beliefs) — it is a set of cultural systems, social practices, institutions, performances, and so on. Even if the religionist may claim that all these are founded upon their creed, we aren’t compelled to agree with them — after all, many religious institutions and practices persist over changes in the ostensibly-underlying creeds.
Rather than treating a religion as a creed and asking whether those beliefs are true, we can examine what it is that people do that they call “religion”; and what are the results of their doing religion. What do they get out of it? What meanings do they ascribe to particular parts of it? What are the effects on others? How do different religious organizations and practices plug into the rest of the societies in which they occur?
One thing that people often do in religious contexts, but rarely in other contexts, is ritual — a sort of performance involving symbols, recitations, sometimes costume, sometimes music, etc. which is done for some purpose. Some other institutions do ritual — a graduation ceremony is a ritual, for instance. But a church does ritual every week; and a priest or monk does ritual every day, or in some cases nearly constantly.
My imprecision was further up in the paragraph, actually. I should have said that a ritual, in the ceremonial or religious sense, is done for some symbolic purpose. The purpose of the procession of the faculty at a graduation ceremony is not merely to accomplish getting the faculty members’ asses in their seats. The purpose of the wafer and wine of the Eucharist at a Catholic church is not at all as a light snack. But the purpose of deleting emails is merely to have rid of them. On the other hand, I suppose there’s got to be some techno-pagan out there who ceremonially empties her spam folder as part of a ritual of banishment …
To a sociologist, religion is not primarily a creed (a collection of beliefs) — it is a set of cultural systems, social practices, institutions, performances, and so on. Even if the religionist may claim that all these are founded upon their creed, we aren’t compelled to agree with them — after all, many religious institutions and practices persist over changes in the ostensibly-underlying creeds.
Rather than treating a religion as a creed and asking whether those beliefs are true, we can examine what it is that people do that they call “religion”; and what are the results of their doing religion. What do they get out of it? What meanings do they ascribe to particular parts of it? What are the effects on others? How do different religious organizations and practices plug into the rest of the societies in which they occur?
One thing that people often do in religious contexts, but rarely in other contexts, is ritual — a sort of performance involving symbols, recitations, sometimes costume, sometimes music, etc. which is done for some purpose. Some other institutions do ritual — a graduation ceremony is a ritual, for instance. But a church does ritual every week; and a priest or monk does ritual every day, or in some cases nearly constantly.
Some sociologists would disagree with distinguishing religion from other activity based on regularity of ritual. See, for example this paper.
Is there a formal “Order of Email Readers” one joins, or is it more sectarian? “The Sect of Gmail Deleters”, for instance?
My imprecision was further up in the paragraph, actually. I should have said that a ritual, in the ceremonial or religious sense, is done for some symbolic purpose. The purpose of the procession of the faculty at a graduation ceremony is not merely to accomplish getting the faculty members’ asses in their seats. The purpose of the wafer and wine of the Eucharist at a Catholic church is not at all as a light snack. But the purpose of deleting emails is merely to have rid of them. On the other hand, I suppose there’s got to be some techno-pagan out there who ceremonially empties her spam folder as part of a ritual of banishment …