Theories of Religion/%c3%89mile Durkheim and Functionalism

Famous quotes containing the words theories, religion and/or durkheim:

    Whatever practical people may say, this world is, after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas. It is a matter of the very greatest importance that our theories of things that seem a long way apart from our daily lives, should be as far as possible true, and as far as possible removed from error.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    The religion which is to guide and fulfill the present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The scientific mind must have a faith which is science.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Man’s characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by a material environment brutally imposed on him, but by a conscience superior to his own, the superiority of which he feels. Because the greater, better part of his existence transcends the body, he escapes the body’s yoke, but is subject to that of society.
    —Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)