Church Visit

Thomas J. Allen

10/2/06

Religion 2000

Emile Durkheim and Sigmund Freud are European sociologists who studied and wrote about the affect of industrializations and with society. Emile Durkheim is known to many in the humanities and academic fields. Freud is familiar to anyone who has studied intellectual and scientific history. Durkheim and Freud believed understanding the rules of society was vital for human survival. Durkheim compares to Freud in some aspects to religion. Both Emile and Freud were of European descent.

Emile went on to study the rules of society in order to better understand it. He found the broken link to when a crime or problem arose. He related this back to scientific theory which enabled the social group to play a huge role in sociology. The value of the smaller individual tasks led to a greater whole. When one group produces something very efficiently and soundly, they are relied upon by other groups which form an interaction between the groups. Yet the groups are independent, they rely on each other in order to function.

“Religion is something eminently social” (Pals 108). Durkheim feels that religion has been transmitted through years from birth.

Psychoanalysis, upon which Freud's ideas about religion rests, is not as scientific as people have assumed. Although Freud was successful in getting people to realize that there can be hidden psychological motives behind religion and religious beliefs, it is clear that religion involves much more.

Religious beliefs are expressions of symbolism to social realities; without those social realities serving as a foundation, religious beliefs would not make sense. Many have disputed this attitude, arguing that religion is more than just an expression of social realities. Although Durkheim has helped us understand that religion has a social function, it is clear that more is going on. Durkheim uses the example of Australian Totemism as the “elementary form”, that is, the original and most basic common denominator of religion.

He describes the totem emblem as a symbol both for a society and its sacredness. This is because, he states in his fundamental hypothesis, “god and society are one and the same,” though not necessarily on a conscious level. For Durkheim, religion is what brings people together by reinforcing social relations and moral norms through a “collective effervescence” or group energy. This energy, when felt by the individual, is not recognized as the result of communal energies, but is attributed to the sacred.

Emile Durkheim was a taught by a teacher and to add was a sociologist. Durkheim singularly developed sociology and is credited for expanding to academic discipline, social structures, social relationships, and social institutions, in attempt to understand human nature. Later Durkheim took these and applied them into religion. Durkheim focused on the importance of the concept of the sacred" and its relevance to the welfare of the entire community.

Freud examined much of psychoanalysis and trends that were affected by it. Freud disagreed with religion to full extent. He believed that there needed to different tasks accomplished by the individuals that made up the society but in difference will lead to capitalism and the destruction of the social structure.

It is certainly true that society and religion are related, it remains possible, however, that instead of a causal relationship, both are caused by an unidentified third phenomenon. “Just as sexual repression results in an individual obsessional neurosis, religion, which is practiced widely in the human race, seems to be a universal obsessional neurosis.”(Pals 65)

“Freud by contrast is quite sure that religious ideas did not come from God or any bible.”(Pals 64) Freud emphasized how no Gods exist. Religion is a form of mass neurosis according to Freud. It exists only as a response to deep emotional conflicts and weaknesses. Since it is nothing more but a by-produce of psychological distress, it should be possible to eliminate the illusion of religion by alleviating that distress.

The word communion means two things, Union and Com or with.

Freud treats religious practices and rituals as Drama to show how the content determines the form. It is generally thought that Durkheim based his theory of knowledge