Emile Durkheim: The Latent Function Of Religion

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For hundreds of years, religion connects people from diverse races, and societies from all over the world together. Religion plays an important role in society, its gives hopes, meanings, and faiths to our everyday life. Simply put, religion is a guideline to our life. Since religion is an important aspect to our life, many sociologists have studied it. According to Gidens, in his book “Emile Durkheim: Selected Writing”, Emile Durkheim asserts that the latent function (the real purpose) of the church is to promote the social gathering of all its followers, and exercising sacred time together, as a form of social bonding. Durkheim calls it social cohesion, which is the ongoing process of developing a community on shared beliefs, values, and …show more content…
In other words, a person’s sense will perceive as a member of the group. In a way, the function of religion is to integrate individuals into a group or society, which reassure people’s stability and cohesions.
Third, religion creates collective consciousness. As a religious group, all members have the same set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes. As a result, as a group, they will start to accept these new standards, and integrate it in their daily life. In the book “Selected Writing”, Durkheim argues that a symbol is a powerful too that can strengthen the relationship between members. (Giddens, 1972, p.232). Lastly, as mentioned above, religion gives faiths, hopes, and meanings to people to continue living. “Religion rituals also helps us feel that we are more in control of often uncontrollable, capricious events which threaten us the safety of the group… But certain rituals allows us to experience a sense of comfort as well as control in the sense that they reassure us of the continued existence and strength of the group, even in the face of adversity” (Pasdermajian, 2015, p.

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