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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

In what way did Durkheim perceive religion as functional to society?

  • UPSC 2018
  • Sociological Thinkers

For Émile Durkheim, religion endures in every society not because its doctrines are true but because it does something indispensable. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) he concluded that when people worship the sacred they are, unknowingly, worshipping society itself. Religion is therefore the means by which a group represents, renews and reproduces…

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What the full answer covers

  • Why religion must be functional
  • The functions of religion
  • Further functions
  • Indian confirmation
  • Limits
  • Conclusion

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