Theories of religion of Marx, Durkheim, Freud & Weber

Durkheim seems to take the most candid view toward faith, arguing that there is non yet overflowing scientific research into what devotion is and does in the sociological context, moreover concluding nevertheless that religion through history has mazed the sociable power it once had. Finally, Freud is most aligned with Marx in that twain men believe religion to be a line for delusion, for ignoring the harshness of reality in favor of an hallucination which gives the individual comfort. However, unlike Marx, Freud (as a psychologist rather than a sociologist) does not adequately deal with the larger social involve of religion.

With observe to the views of these theorists on the role religion plays in both social constancy and social change, again, Marx and Freud generally agree that religion is a tool which braces society, but also that the stability it provides masks a deeper instability, both psychologically and socially.

Weber has the most unique of the four theorists in terms of his view of religion's role in the stability of society. He places in religion the power to not only stabilize society but to develop society economically and technologically and to bring it in those contexts into the modern age. Modernization, then, is, in effect, in Weber's view, the go forth of religion, in the special way he uses that term.

Marx, as Anthony Giddens writes, presents only a "fragmentary" (Giddens 206) skeleton of his ideas on religion, although what he does give the reader is "unequivocally opposed" (Giddens 206). Nevertheless, he does hold that Christianity, for example, was a force for social stability from its origins, "contrasting with the moral decadence of Rome." Similarly, "the Reformation provided a alike(p) moral regeneration in relation to an internally disintegrating feudal society" (Giddens 206-207). Still, Marx sees the spread of Christianity from the beginning as an expression of socioeconomic forces: "The causes of its expansion have to be related to the internal break up of the Roman Empire" (Giddens 206).

Durkheim more than Marx believes that "gradually political, economic, and scientific functions stone-broke free from the religious function, becoming separate entities and taking on more and more a markedly temporal consultation" (Durkheim 119). For Marx, all social factors come back to the economic, and therefore religion is seen as a factor which advances capitalism rather than saves souls. Whereas Durkheim believes that religion in past had a more stabilizing impact than it does today, he does not see it as a force for change today, but merely diminished in its competency for stabilizing society.

Giddens, Anthony. Capitalism & Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992.

We need to shed a stop to this anomie, and to find ways of harmonious co-operation amid those organs that still clash discordantly together. we need to stick in into their relationships a greater justice by diminishing those outside inequalities that are the source of our ills (Durkheim 340).

Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labor in Society. late York: Free Press, 1997.

To Durkheim, one of the major contributions of religion to society is the change of the common consciousness which translates into social stability. However, again, Durkheim argues that religion's hold on soci
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