ovde - vera znanje mir

3. Offers the hope of supernatural intervention to solve problems
4. Justifies the social order & persons position in it - makes life
more bearable by encouraging people to accept their situation & status
Criticisms
o Secularisation may mean that religion doesn't function as an
'opiate' to the same extent as it may have in the past (maybe the mass
media or another social institution is carrying out the role of an
'opiate' instead)
o How far religion can be seen as the 'opiate of the masses' in
contemporary society depends on a number of issues.
Social control
o Doesn't just cushion effects of oppression but also instrument of
that oppression
o Keeps people in their place by making unsatisfactory lives bearable
o Discourages people trying to change their situation
o Diverts people's attention from real source of their oppression -
helps maintain ruling class power
o Legitimates inequality
o Religious teaching justifies inequality, legitimating its
existence/accepting its inevitability
o C19th the notion of 'the rich man at his castle, the poor man at his
gate, He (God) made them high or lowly, He ordered his estate'
o Any challenge to the existing social order is therefore not simply a
challenge to some secular authority, but to one which is sanctioned by
God
o The Caste System of India was justified by Hindu beliefs
o People were treated horrifically but they used religion to justify
their dominance/power
o Kings like Henry 2nd and James 1st believed in the divine right of
kings - God chose them so they had the right to do anything
o Apartheid: System which believed that all Native S.Africans should
move to bad land & could be killed/arrested if they were found off
that land.
o 2 tier system = black & white
o As a result England stopped trading with S.Africa - even banned them
from the Olympics
o Huddleson made it a world issue & got the world to force it to end
o Religion doesn't always help because it was the Arch Bishop that
started by the Apartheid movement