Last class we learned about religion. According to lecture, religion is a major element of culture in all societies. And basic element of religion could be categorized to religious values, religious beliefs, religious rituals, and cult structure. Religious values are conceptions about what is right or wrong and religious beliefs, to be simply thought, is another name of faith. Religious rituals are behaviors that fulfill supernatural demands and cult structure is the structure of organized religion.
About religion we had discussion. The topic was "what functions religion may have?". Our answer was function of making solidarity, freeing oneself from pain of reality, and making people understand others. And we also thought this function of religion could be used both in good way and in bad way.
And then we studied religion from two different perspective. First perspective was functionalist theorists. Functionalist theorists see religion contributing to social integration. Second perspective was conflict theorists and they think religion is just a tool of social control.
And we had discussion about religion from conflict theories perspective. The topic was "Can you think of other examples in how religion can be used to control people?". Our team thought two examples. First example was Muslim not eating pork. About this we had short time to think why muslim do not eat pork and it was interesting time. And our second example was there is lots of donation in Myanmar because state religion of Myanmar is buddhism. 
Religion was friendly material as much as culture. So I felt little bit more easy to approach and understand lecture.
I also think that religion has both advantage and disadvantage. Religion may be positive to people who have pain in mind. So if we can get something from religion, religion is positive thing. But the other way, someone think that religion is negative because religion may be abused. So we must judge religion through
ReplyDeletereligious mean.