Assess the View That in Most Societies Religion Functions More to Cause Conflict Than to Bring About Harmony and Consensus

Assess the view that in most societies religion functions more to cause conflict than to bring about harmony and consensus

According to Functionalists and Marxists the function of religion is to bring about harmony and consensus, and they believe this will be achieved by using religion to prevent radical change and thus maintain the status quo. However, this view has been criticised for being too unrealistic and ‘rose-tinted’. In todays contemporary world religion appears in such places as the Middle East, India, and Europe to be causing more conflict than consensus, although, the conflict is not always an intentional function.

Functionalists such as Durkheim believe that religion helps to develop a collective conscience in societies. His research on Aborigines showed that religion provides a structure as an institution to pass on the norms and values of society and thus promote ‘social solidarity’. This is seen today in monolithic countries such as Brazil or Italy where the catholic religion binds the population. This was shown when Pope Francis nearly tripled the Vatican crowds in 2013, showing the population is acting as one moral community. They believe that religion does not only this but also helps through life crisis, helps make sense of the world and provides meaning. According to Parsons religion has wider function than just being a conservative force in society, it also helps people to understand the world around them, and gives man answers about the world he lives in. Therefore in this way it allows the continued existence of society in its present form.

Marx also believed that religious through the transmission of ideology, mystification and the prospect of a better life allowed the continued existence of society in its present form. However, Marx saw religion as maintaining the status quo of the bourgeoisie rather than society as a whole, which is the functionalist perspective.

However, Durkheim’s work tends to focus solely on monolithic societies. In today’s society, especially in the west, there is often more than one dominant religion, which in turn can cause conflict. An example of where religion does not always lead to consensus, used by Neo-Functionalists Glock and Stark, is in Northern Ireland where the Catholic and Protestant religion both dominated which caused conflict. Postmodernists believe that as we become globally smaller and with increased communication and knowledge of other cultures the beliefs and practices of traditional religion becomes diluted and individuals ‘pick and mix’ the values they wish to follow, resulting in great number of ideologies in more modern societies.

In addition to this, whilst functionalists