Religion and Society: Why God Won't Die

Description

This co-coded course is an introduction to the Sociology of Religion focused on thinking and rethinking religion & society. For the past few years it has been cocoded with Anthropology to provide an inter-disciplinary discussion for thinking about religion, society and culture. Central to the discussion is why god and religion has not disappeared as was predicted in much modern social theory.

According to a central facet of twentieth century sociological thinking called the secularization thesis, as society became more modern, technological and scientific, religion would become irrelevant. Yet before the end of the 20th century it became apparent that society, both western and nonwestern, was in fact increasingly religious, even as it became more modern, technological and scientific. In considering this question, the course provides a critical discussion of the ways religion, god and religious practices have been thought, dismissed and applied over the past 150 years within the Sociology of Religion - with expanded crossover into wider interdisciplinary thinking and discussion concerning religion. Not only considering the past and present, the course also discusses the future of religion. It also discusses the rise of various forms of spirituality in the 21st century.