Is Religion the Most Dominant Ideology in Society Today?

Is religion the most dominant ideology in society today?

Sociologists cannot agree on a single definition of religion but they do agree that there are functional or substantive definitions. Having no fixed definition of religion can cause numerous problems for sociologists, including making measuring religion highly difficult therefore effecting the ability to measure whether secularisation has taken place or not. Bruce (1995) of the functionalist perspective, provided two ways of defining religion; functional definition – focuses on the function religion provides to society and the individual, and substantive definition – focuses on the content of religion. Yinger provides a further elaboration on the functional definition of religion and states religion is ‘a system of set beliefs and practises by means of which a group of people’s struggles with the ultimate problems of human life’. However, this notion of set beliefs and practises can be argued with in terms of the post-modernist theory which states that we have choice in what we wish to do as members of society. This means that the beliefs and practises within a religion are not necessarily set as they may not be strictly followed by all who are religious. Robertson goes on to further explain the substantive definition by stating that religion refers to the existence of supernatural beings having a governing effect on our lives’ however this definition cannot be applied to all religions, as in Buddhism, no supernatural being is worshipped. Durkheim proposed another example of substantive definition by saying that religion is a unified system of beliefs and practises related to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden’. Berger however disagrees with these definitions stating that definitions cannot be defined as true or false, useful nor useless so we need not keep arguing over the definition of things.

Marxist ideology disagrees strongly with the post-modernist theory and sides with...