Double Power Principle Analysis

Parsons says that religion helps people to deal with things that are unforeseen and have outcomes that cannot be changed. There are essential functions of religion in society it creates and legitimates society’s values. It achieves this by sacralising core values such as individualism, meritocracy and self-discipline which promotes value consensus. Religion also provides a primary source of meaning answering ultimate questions about life which helps people to adjust to adverse events and maintain stability.

“I believe that the root of all evil is power,” (Patricia Cornwell). I think this quote says a lot about the power of power. Let’s think about some people who were incredibly evil. Hitler killed 11 million people (Schwartz), 49 million deaths were linked to Joseph Stalin (Ghosh), and Kim Jong-Un has executed 70 officials since coming into office in 2011 (Omara). That doesn’t even include all of the other people who have died because of him or who will die because of him in the future. What do all of these people have in common? Power. If none of these people had power, millions of lives could have been saved. But with all power comes evil, as proven by these three horrible people. Now, power may not be taken to this extent all the time. As

Martin uses a functionalistic approach to understand the role religion plays in society, exploring each object with hermeneutical suspicion, believing, for the sake of this study, that any supernatural claims are false. By exploring such concepts as classification, structured society, and habitus, Martin explains how “we, as humans, are a product of society”. He focuses on answering questions such as “what’s going on” and “whose interests are served” by skeptically looking at the way in which people use legitimation, authority, and authenticity to push their own agendas.

Religion can be powerful under the right certain circumstances for social change. However it can be argued that religion can be a conservative force.

The belief that morality requires God remains a widely held moral maxim. In particular, it serves as the basic assumption of the Christian fundamentalist's social theory. Fundamentalists claim that all of society's troubles - everything from AIDS to out-of-wedlock pregnancies - are the result of a breakdown in morality and that this breakdown is due to a decline in the belief of God. This paper will look at different examples of how a god could be a bad thing and show that humans can create rules and morals all on their own. It will also touch upon the fact that doing good for the wrong reasons can also be a bad thing for the person.

“Either we must say that God is not wholly good, and that he permits or is even the author of evil. Or we must say that God is not omnipotent, and although he is wholly good and would prevent evil if he could, he is powerless to stop it.” (Fitzgerald 340).

“This model declines the claim of the Enemies model that psychology and Theology are connected exclusive, although it recognizes that there have been tensions and misunderstandings that have fostered such antagonism. The Allies model agrees with the Spies model that good psychology can be found in religion, but it categorically rejects the claim that religion is only valuable as a vehicle to express psychological truths and to foster psychological benefits.” (Entwistle, 2015).

According to Joyce A. Little, the major moral problem that human’s face is that when people attempt to agree upon attacking evil, their different opinions separate their views on identifying exactly what should be right? Little expresses the problem as "we cannot agree on what would be right or good for society...by people whose fundamental views of reality are radically opposed to the Church 's" (23).

Power is a negative concept that turns people against each other if power is used in a wrong way.

religion have the ability to be taken as believing in the reducing of the power of the head

We begin to define the line between good and evil and the way in which it can corrupt human beings. The message portrayed that evil and the misuse of power is an ongoing matter, one in which could affect anyone and is partially an involuntary act – the evil animalistic behaviour becomes engraved into minds; like Goeth.

Religion can be defined as a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. It contains a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices that allow its followers to live their life a certain way. The world consists of 19 major religions, which are further subdivided into 270 larger groups. According to David Barrett et al, editor of the “World Christian Encyclopedia,” there are 34,000 separate Christian groups around the world. Just from those numbers alone, we can conclude that religion has a prevalent effect on people and society. Religion is viewed as a positive influence on an individual both psychologically and physically. Throughout history we can study the various effects that religion has on society. Studies generally provide great evidence in favor of religion having a positive effect on individuals and society as a whole.

In his book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens dissects and criticizes the various claims of religions and the tragic events that have been caused by various religions. The title of the book sums up the arguments of Hitchens in this book in the fact that he makes many arguments of why “religion poisons everything.” The majority of the chapters in this book discuss why he believes religion to be a manmade notion that has led to more trouble than anything else in the world. Most of his focus is on the three Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism but he does fit in criticism of other religions as well. The topics he chooses to discuss range from the sketchy origins of Mormonism to the

For example, William James studied religious experience and suggested that the spiritual process works to curtail people's negative behaviors (James, 1936). For James, spirituality helps individuals recognize their own earthly suffering as either a consequence of individual pathology or addictive behavior, or both. When people begin to criticize or consciously reject problematic individual behaviors as a permanent way of being, then they become open to the possibility of rising to a higher awareness. This higher awareness of his or her own behavior is then integrated as a part of the person's psychology. James was already considering the role religion plays in a person's consciousness early in the twentieth century.

     Another equally important remark I came across in my studies was one by the Methodist pastor Rev. Cecil Williams. Williams' main topic of discussion was that of toxic religion and inspiring social action. Williams begin the interview by saying, "Be careful of religion because religion is toxic" (Williams Interview, Class 2). He means that believers are not focusing on the actions, but the outcomes instead. You cannot genuinely identify with a religion or call yourself a religious person unless you relate to other human beings or form relationships that work to ease human suffering (Simmons Study Guide, 15). Again, I was reminded of my own beliefs and the history of my religion when I explored the meaning of this statement. Contrary to popular belief, this nation was not founded on the basis of religion. America was founded by men in search of power and money who used their religious beliefs, predominantly Protestant Christian, as an excuse for their brutality. Not all believers act on their beliefs, creating a fine line between which are factious and which are not. The first attempts at