Sociology of Religion Quotes

“Ritual is a habit and/or a compulsion that at least fulfills one of the following functions: (1) to give worship to a particular divine agent; (2) to invoke remembrance of either a past or future religious event; and/or (3) a pseudo-technology that is used to control or change the believer’s environment.”
― Walter A. Jensen, Sociology of Religion: A Critical Primer

“Religion is the symbolic and/or ritualized cultural system of knowledge, which informs behavior, that offers one means of surviving this complex thing we call ‘Life.”
― Walter A. Jensen, Sociology of Religion: A Critical Primer

“The difference between the sacred — be it an object or religious method — and the profane is self explanatory (Durkheim 1965:52-54), so let us move on to magic, which I define as production without labor.”
― Walter A. Jensen, Sociology of Religion: A Critical Primer