UPSC Sociology Mains Syllabus
Paper 1 – Chapter 8
Religion and Society:
(a) Sociological theories of religion.
(b) Types of religious practices: animism, monism, pluralism, sects, cults.
(c) Religion in modern society: religion and science, secularization, religious revivalism, fundamentalism.
MONISM
- Monism is belief in single attribute, god or religious idea. It is centered on the belief of oneness of all existences or in a single god, ideology.
- Among modern religions, Islam is a monistic religion as its believers deny existence of any other power than Allah.
- Similarly, Advait philosophy of Hinduism also contends that there is no distinction between the disciple and god and they are one and there is ultimately a single being. Sufi saints also stressed upon this concept of a single all powerful.
- Monism is often seen as partitioned into three different kinds:
*Physicalism or materialism, which holds that only the physical is real, and that the mental can be reduced to the physical
*Idealism or phenomenalism, which holds the converse
*Neutral monism, which holds that both the mental and the physical can be reduced to some sort of third substance, or energy
PLURALISM
- Pluralism religious practices are those which accommodate different viewpoints, beliefs etc.
- The existence of religious pluralism depends on the existence of freedom of religion, fertility of ideas and
mutual tolerance. - Freedom of religion is when different religions of a particular region possess the same rights of worship and public expression.
- Hinduism as a religion is one such examples.
- In Hinduism, multiple philosophies and ideologies like Vaishnaiv, Shaiv, Advait, Dwait etc thrive in parallel.
- Similarly, in Christianity also Calvinism, Methodists, Protestants, Catholics thrive in parallel.
- Religious pluralism is the belief that one can overcome religious differences between different religions and denominational conflicts within the same religion.
Pluralism as a limitation can be understood in a better way by examining it in the Indian context. In India, pluralism and secularism as an ideology is often seen in conflict. There is a constant tiff between the majority and the minority.
