Durkheim Sacred and Profane
Added on 2023-06-11
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Running head: DURKHEIM SACRED AND PROFANE
DURKHEIM SACRED AND PROFANE
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DURKHEIM SACRED AND PROFANE
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1DURKHEIM SACRED AND PROFANE
The sacred and the profane are ‘two distinct classes’. Explain and discuss. What are the
implications of this? Is the profane simply cut off from any intercourse with the sacred?
Ans.) The term secularism refers to the absolute freedom from the religious belief and the
freedom to practise one’s religion without any fear. Secularism underscore on the principles that
the state should not interfere in the personal religious belief of a person. Secularism denotes that
reason guides an individual rather than the cultural beliefs intrinsic to a community and
therefore, reason becomes the cultural barrier. The institutions, beliefs and practises are
submitted to the rational belief of the worldly tribunal where the qualities of an individual are
evaluated on the standards of human rationality (Lukes 1985). It has been found that the rule of
reason enables in weighing the human action and emphasizes that it is human rationality take
should take precedence in the lives of the individual rather than conforming to cultural belief
related to God. Emile Durkheim, the functionalist sociologist studied primitive religion to
understand the collective consciousness that contributes in the functioning of the society. In the
Elementary Forms of Life Durkheim argued that in order to understand the advanced religions,
there is a need to intervene into the functioning of the religion (Durkheim and Swain 2008). It is
important to place each of the constituent elements of the modern religions through the analysis
of the way religion has progressed throughout the history. Durkheim was of the view that the
foundation of science of religions is not was not a conceptual possibility but concrete reality that
is based on the historical and ethnographic observations. The sacred denotes the ideal and
transcends the everyday existence. The scared represents the ideal that transcends the mundane
and the everyday existence, potentially dangerous, pernicious or awe-inspiring. The sacred refers
The sacred and the profane are ‘two distinct classes’. Explain and discuss. What are the
implications of this? Is the profane simply cut off from any intercourse with the sacred?
Ans.) The term secularism refers to the absolute freedom from the religious belief and the
freedom to practise one’s religion without any fear. Secularism underscore on the principles that
the state should not interfere in the personal religious belief of a person. Secularism denotes that
reason guides an individual rather than the cultural beliefs intrinsic to a community and
therefore, reason becomes the cultural barrier. The institutions, beliefs and practises are
submitted to the rational belief of the worldly tribunal where the qualities of an individual are
evaluated on the standards of human rationality (Lukes 1985). It has been found that the rule of
reason enables in weighing the human action and emphasizes that it is human rationality take
should take precedence in the lives of the individual rather than conforming to cultural belief
related to God. Emile Durkheim, the functionalist sociologist studied primitive religion to
understand the collective consciousness that contributes in the functioning of the society. In the
Elementary Forms of Life Durkheim argued that in order to understand the advanced religions,
there is a need to intervene into the functioning of the religion (Durkheim and Swain 2008). It is
important to place each of the constituent elements of the modern religions through the analysis
of the way religion has progressed throughout the history. Durkheim was of the view that the
foundation of science of religions is not was not a conceptual possibility but concrete reality that
is based on the historical and ethnographic observations. The sacred denotes the ideal and
transcends the everyday existence. The scared represents the ideal that transcends the mundane
and the everyday existence, potentially dangerous, pernicious or awe-inspiring. The sacred refers
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