NAME: ASUNYEMI TIMOTHY AYODEJI

MATRIC NUMBER: 212906.

DEPARTMENT: RELIGIOUS STUDIES.

COURSE: RES328

COURSE TITLE: RELIGION AND SOCIAL CONFLICT

ASSIGNMENT ON LISTEN TO THIS CLIP, OUTLINE ITS RELEVANCE

TO THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN RELIGION AND SOCIAL
CONFLICTS.
Introduction to the theme ‘Religion’ and ‘social conflict’.
What is Religion?
1. "[Religion is] the belief in Spiritual Beings" (Edward B Tylor, Primitive Culture)
2. "By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are
believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life" (James George Frazer, The Golden
Bough).
3. "[Religion is] the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they
apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." (William James, the
Varieties of Religious Experience)
4. "A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things
set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a
Church, all those who adhere to them." (b) Religion is "the self-validation of a society by means of myth
and ritual." (Émile Durkheim, the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life)
5. "[Religion is] "the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other
concerns as preliminary, and a concern that in itself provides the answer to the question of the meaning of
our existence." (Paul Tillich)
6. "[Religion is] a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting
moods and motivations.... by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these
conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."
(Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System")
7. "Religion, like culture, is a symbolic transformation of experience." (Thomas F. O'Dea, the Sociology
of Religion) 8. "[Religion is] a system of symbols (creed, code, cultus) by means of which people (a
community) orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers,
meanings, and values." (Catherine L. Albanese, America:
There are many definitions of religion. It is not that easy to pin down exactly what religion is and then to
insure that the definition distinguishes religion from magic and from cults and sects. Many people offer
definitions without much knowledge of the wide range of religious phenomena and the many different
cultural manifestations of religion. It is a rather common misconception to think that religion has to do
with god, or gods and supernatural beings or a supernatural or spiritual dimension or greater
reality. None of that is absolutely necessary because there are religions that are without those elements.
In this millennium there are over 6.2 billion people on the planet earth. Most of them would declare that
they are religious in some way. Rough estimates are made that place people in the various traditions.
The three religions that are proselytizing religions, seeking more members actively are: Christianity,
Islam and Buddhism. Islam is the fastest growing of the traditions and will most likely have the most
adherents in the world by 2020. Some of these religions have no belief in a god. Some have no belief in
the survival of a soul. Some believe in more than one god. What do they have that makes them religion?
Here is a definition that captures the common core and yet distinguishes religion from other institutions
and phenomena. It is from Frederick Ferre in his work Basic Modern Philosophy of Religion. Religion is
the most comprehensive and intensive manner of valuing known to human beings. We shall put this
definition or understanding aside until the final chapter and after we have examined a number of
important issues related to religion. For now it would be less abstract and more useful if the initial idea of
religion would be phrased in terms of its characteristics which most people who have any experiences
with religion can most likely identify.
Characteristics of Religion
These are the common characteristics or family traits of those members of the category or “family” of
religion. Just as with family members not every member must have every trait but most have most of the
traits. The more any human phenomena demonstrates these traits the more likely it is that it will be
included into this category of social institutions known as religion.
Common Characteristics
1. Notion of a deity or absolute, that which is of ultimate concern and importance
2. Ideas on the nature of human beings
3. The idea of divine providence, destiny, fate
4. The idea and meaning of human history
5. Problem of evil explained
6. Description of the central problem of human life and suffering idea of an afterlife-life after death
7. A concept of the world
8. Ideas of human community and ethics-a moral code.

What is religion and social conflict?

Conflict theory for religion is a natural outgrowth of the conflicts that naturally exist in cultures.
Religious identity acts as an indicator of social status while incorporating the social status of the group
into its religious worldview as an extension of its social status. Conflict theory is a part of the social
sciences and seeks to analyze the political, economic and social inequalities within cultures. Conflict
theory is associated with Marxism, but has been used within social science theories such as functionalism
and positivism.
One aspect of culture is expressed in the varying institutions of religion, which are a natural outgrowth
of human behaviors and social groups. Religion is largely an attempt to add structure and understanding
to because of religion's role of providing explanations for the state of the world, religion tends to offer
explanations for social inequalities and often will perpetuate them by giving them divine sanction.
Religion acts as a justifications of the inequalities and thus lays a foundation for social conflict that is
only accidentally based upon religious identification. He universe, and as such will seek to explain the
noticeable inequalities that exist in human culture.
The natural cultural conflicts that emerge in culture are played out within different religious
communities. Because social groups tend to be of the same religious tradition, group identifications will
tend to overlap with religious identification. Thus the conflicts between religious groups are often based
upon conflicts between the groups themselves for other social, political and economic reasons. This is
true especially where one religion is dominant over others. A group's religious identification will thus act
as an indicator of social status. A minority religious group, whether part of the same larger religious
tradition as the majority or not, will experience the social stigma in the same way as any other minority
group, while incorporating the minority social status into its theology and religious worldview.
Comparatively, the dominant group enjoys its social position while often absorbing the role of affluence
into its theology and religious worldview.
The theological differences between religious groups will magnify the preexisting social, political and
economic differences by incorporating those inequalities into the group's religious identification and
theology over time. The more a group identifies with its social status, the more the group will incorporate
this status into its worldview and thus its views about the supernatural and its religious beliefs.
By associating their social status with their theology and religious worldview, the inequalities become
magnified and even absorbed into the group identity. Thus a groups' social status will become reflected by
the groups' religious ideologies.
Outline and state it relevance to the interplay between religion and social conflict.
Professor Yemi Oshinbajo opens our eyes to the stereotypes and prejudice that come to life and that deals
colossal damage to our national development as a result of half-baked information that have not been
empirically proven yet hastily generalized. These assumptions and prejudice are accepted as facts without
establishing contacts with the victims of such stereotypes, these stereotypes includes Ijebus are stingy,
fulanis are violent, Ibos are headstrong, Hausas do not like education to mention a few. These different
social views shapes decisions and these causes conflicts at all levels.
Leaders and rulers have cultivated the art and act of weaponizing ethnic and religious prejudice within
the same religion and different religions to strengthen their political goal, thereby dividing the already
multi-faceted nature of our society, some even go with pastoral and clerical backing in proclaiming their
political party as the will, mind and channel through which God will change the crumbling state of the
country to a better one.
However, the venom and the side effect of this gimmick remains even after the election which keeps
wreaking havoc and this abridged values are passed on to the coming generation. Politicians, both
incumbent and prospective ones should be careful by bringing themselves under complete control not to
in the pursuit of political power resuscitate the divide and rule policy because expressly the next
generation of young Nigerians has broken up with this grid by changing from the fundamental stereotypes
and prejudice while marrying an open mindset, we’ve seen intermarriages, commercial enterprises culling
individual of excellence from different cultural and religious background in the view to achieve a
common goal for the good of all.
Religious and tribal differences when weaponized brings an unneeded gap to the national development
because everyone is on the lookout for potential gain of his\her background without considering the
greater good of the country, for perfect understanding a good delicacy is not made by one ingredient,
ogbono soup though called ogbono soup is not only made with ogbono seeds, same goes for egusi soup, a
lot of ingreduents at their best quality were put together in the perfect proportion all towards the arrival of
a tastily rich ogbono soup.
So also according to yemi oshinbajo our pluralistic society is a great advantage to us because every
tribe and religion will present it best product towards the national development. We invest trust in people
when we can attest that they’re professionals, we do not care if they are Yoruba or Hausa or Ibo or a
Christian or Muslims or atheist, what we care about is if they can deliver the best at their profession. We
see in the surgery example that the speaker sighted. We should start judging by qualification not by tribes,
religion and ethnicity.