Discussions on religion 

Revised version: Part -1

Date:2010.09.25

By: Jafar Hasanpoor

E-post: jafarhasanpoor@gmail.com   

Social Sciences and Understanding Religion

1. Introduction

   During recent years, some young Kurdish-American and  Kurdish-European citizens have converted to Christianity. Moreover, some of diaspora Kurds (atheists or Muslims)  are married to Christians or live in an unmarried cohabitation relationship with them. As far as I know, no one has made a study into the ideas of these Kurds and their wifes/husbands. I try to raise a debate on some ideas of these persons. My discussions are preliminary. I  am an atheist and  have a Christian companion. I am also in contact with some Christian Kurds. In my discussions, I use the viewpoints of these men and women.  My purpose is to understand these  persons better and develop a friendship with them.

1.1.Sociological theories

      I use social science theories for explanation of religion. According to  some sociological theories, religion is a product of  “human need for meaning”, it is “social and collective”.   I have been informed  that converting to Christianity has helped one of  the diaspora Kurds to think about other human beings and not only about “himself ”.  I consider that such a change is positive and nice. The above-mentioned believer  says:

“Hearing the bible explained felt good, and I began to trust in this Word. Right away, a lot of miraculous things happened. I was able to get a driver’s permit. I got help with Immigration. I quickly found a job after finishing my computer engineering classes. God was putting the puzzle together and things got better. It. looked as He wanted to show me how powerful He was. Later I blew it. I stopped going to church and l replaced God with my self “I.”  I began to think these good things were happening because of me. For awhile, I was very lost.  Finally, when l asked God for help, l found His door was still open. Like a father whose son comes back home, He was still there for me.  At that point, everything changed, and I’ve been serving the Lord in His church ever since.” (Rewritten  by me without any changes).

  “The sociology of religion, by contrast, was concerned with religion as nonrational, collective, and symbolic. It was not interested in the historical origins of religion in ‘primitive society’. Religion was not based on erroneous belief, but responded to the human need for meaning. It was not individualistic but social and collective. It was about symbol and ritual rather than belief and knowledge. The growth of scientific knowledge was therefore irrelevant to the social functions of religion ”, source:

 http://www.encyclopedia.com/utility/printdocument.aspxid=1O88:religionsociologyof

1.2. Socialist and feminist theories

        Socialist and feminist scholars have also studied religion thoroughly.

     According to Karl Marx, “the religious world is but the reflex of the real world.”   “And for a society based upon the production of commodities, in which the producers in general enter into social relations with one another by treating their products as commodities and values, whereby they reduce their individual private labour to the standard of homogeneous human labour – for such a society, Christianity with its cultus of abstract man, more especially in its bourgeois developments, Protestantism, Deism, &c., is the most fitting form of religion.” “ In the ancient Asiatic and other ancient modes of production, we find that the conversion of products into commodities, and therefore the conversion of men into producers of commodities, holds a subordinate place, which, however, increases in importance as the primitive communities approach nearer and nearer to their dissolution...” Read more on:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

#219

      According to “A Concise Glossary of Feminist Theory”, “feminism has a history of opposition to patriarchal word religions” ...  But there are different feminist theories about religion.   “Secular forms of Western feminism which dominate feminist theory have by and large neglected religion, but others have preferred the strategy of critique, appropriation and transformation” (See: ibid.). “Because religion has such a compelling hold on the deep psyches of so many people feminists cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the fathers (Christ, 1986)”  (See:ibid).

1.3.Some definitions

(a) Symbol:

“symbol sign representing something that has an independent existence.”

“Religious symbolism is best known in its more ancient form from the discoveries of archaeologists; this is especially important in the study of Egyptian religion , in which the symbol of the god often appeared more frequently than the likeness of the god himself. Greek religion , on the contrary, seemed to eliminate symbols of gods in favor of actual images. In Judaism and Christianity religious symbolism is important, notably in the prophetic passages in the Bible and in the uses of public worship (see, for example, candle ; incense ; liturgy ; sacrament ; see also iconography )”, source:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/utility/printdocument.aspx?id=1E1:symbol

, the Columbia Encyclopedia.

(b) Ritual:

“Ritual: generally, an often-repeated pattern of behaviour which is performed at appropriate times, and which may involve the use of symbols. Religion is one of the main social fields in which rituals operate, but the scope of ritual extends into secular and everyday life as well. ..”

“The Durkheimian approach (The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, 1912) makes a strong distinction between the sacred and the profane and locates rituals firmly in the former category. For Durkheimians, rituals create social solidarity, which is necessary to hold society together. Durkheim reduced ritual to social structure since he asserted that, through rituals, people correctly represent to themselves the pattern of relations in society...”

“The Marxist approach to ritual, by contrast, proposes that rituals transmit only false consciousness. They mystify their participants by misrepresenting the pattern of social relations in the society (see, for example, M. Bloch , From Blessing to Violence, 1986)....” Read more:

 http://www.encyclopedia.com/utility/printdocument.aspx?id=1O88:religionsociologyof

  A Dictionary of Sociology, published by Oxford University Press, 1998.

1.4. Sources

(a) Marx, Karl, Capital volume One, Part 1:Commodities and Money, Chapter one:Commodities, Section 4. The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret therof

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

(b) Andermahr, S, et.al, (1997), A Concise Glossary of Feminist Theology, Arnold, London.     Christ, Carol (1986) 'Why women need the Goddess: phenomenological, psychological, and political reflections'. In Pearsall, M (ed.) (1986).