Religion's role in society.

• Author: Howell, Llewellyn D.
• Position: Religion

PURPOSE ANALYSIS is a method for understanding organizations, institutions, and human behavior by looking for their purpose. Looking at religion--amidst all of its contradictory and conflicting beliefs and practices--what is its purpose?

First, there are premises to any systematic analysis. The critical one in the case of religion is that, clearly, there are many religions, and just as many institutions through which they are maintained. Religions not only are many, but they come and go. Their formation and demise always have been in the minds of men and women--mostly men. Religions are created by human beings. When they are created, each has a purpose. While the specific nature of one religion varies from another, common purposes certainly can be identified.

In categorizing purpose in religion, let us examine Christianity but, remember that, in working outward through every other religion, there are purposes in common in every one. There are three ordered categories of purpose: primary, secondary, and tertiary. In keeping with the Christianity framework, the Ten Commandments will be employed as illustrations of each type of purpose.

The primary propose of religion is to create an institution that prevents any widespread destruction of the beings that make up the immediate society and any systematic implementation of practices that will wreak havoc in its organization. So, in Judeo Christianity, we first have: you must not murder. As a general principle, this prevents any society from physically destroying itself. In this same primary category is the second rule: you must not steal. This stimulates economic growth. Produce something for sale or work for wages that you can exchange for goods. Accompanying this is the principle represented in the 10th Commandment: you must not covet your neighbor's house, or wife or servant or ox or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. Stealing and murdering would, of course, result in societal chaos and anarchy. So, the first purpose of religion is to preserve human society and live to see another day.

The secondary purpose has to do with the control of women, both for reproduction and the continuance of the society, and to satisfy male biological and physiological demands for sex. Simply put--make babies and males have an outlet for sex. Built into the reproductive aspect of this purpose is the necessity to be able to trace hereditary origins, and built into this is the need to determine who will...