Social Prganization and Control

Victoria McDaniels

Sociology315

July 19, 2011

Religion€”Social Organization and Control?

How do religions use control in the process of social organization?
      I would say that religion is a form of social control it seems that in the early western civilizations priest’s priests and rulers were, in some ways almost interchangeable, they both wanted the same thing a respectful, law-abiding people that shared their beliefs and morals. In the end they achieved that goal by using a combination of religion and politics to retain that status quos.
When we look into the world’s major religions, there are many examples of attempts at social control - in Christianity, the ten commandments and the teachings of Jesus can be viewed as attempts to control through fear i.e. fear of divine retribution should an individual err into "godlessness".
      And In Islam, al'quran provides a framework and rules for daily living, and how an individual should behave, in almost every respect. Speaking as a Christian who is opposed to organized religion (due to the massive hypocrisy for one thing), I find it strange that more people do not question their beliefs, or indeed their own spirituality, given the nature of the origins of the belief systems prevalent throughout the world.
Major religions and organizations are not the cause of all the world's troubles, but perhaps they don't always help matters either........
How do anthropologists view religion as related to the larger culture? For example, what specific social patterns of religion are common features in other social institutions?
      Anthropologists argue that culture is "human nature," and that all people have a capacity to classify experiences, encode classifications symbolically, and teach such abstractions to others. In this case since the anthropologists believe that culture is leaned then people in several areas of the world can share and learn the differences in culture. And Anthropologists believe...