Durkeim_on_Religion

Durkeim on Religion Man's relationship with a higher being, if there is such a thing, is a very controversial issue. A person's beliefs can cause them to do and say things that someone with different beliefs would not say or do. Some people believe in several gods while some believe in just one God. And there are those who don't believe in any form of a higher being. People with these different beliefs can all lead relatively normal and similar ways of life, but in most cases man's relationship with a higher being influences man's beliefs, decisions, and way of life. This gives an excellent explanation of why there are so many different belief systems in the world. Religion means different things to different people. The purpose of religion is summed up well in the book The Worlds Religions: Understanding the Living Faiths, by Peter B. Clarke. The purpose of religion according to Emile Durkheim, a distinguished French scholar and sociologist (1858-1917), is given as: "Religion has two main functions "congnititve" and practical. By cognitive Durkheim meant that religion makes the world intelligible to people, providing them with their notions of time and space, cause and effect, and the ability to think about god, beliefs, literature, people, greek, strong, religion, gods, world, religions, theseus, story, one, man, life, belief, son, man's, main, king, different, because, antigone, two, stories, right, posiedon, james, higher, hebrew, being, trust, society, shows, persecution, persecuted, new, faith, eds, decisions, culture, books, bible, believe, as/in, york, while, way, time, through, things