Assess the nature and extent of secularization in society today. Evidence surrounding church attendance is one of the most valid arguments in the secularisation debate.

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Assess the nature and extent of secularization in society today (33)

Many sociologists have claimed that social change would lead to the weakening or even disappearance of religion. In the nineteenth century it was widely believed that industrialisation and the growth of scientific knowledge would lead to secularisation (the process of religious decline). Comte believed that human history passed through three stages. In the first, theological stage, religious and superstitious beliefs would be dominant. These would be weakened as society passed into the second, metaphysical stage, during which philosophy would become more important. Religious belief would disappear altogether in the final, positive stage, in which science alone would dominate human thinking and direct human behaviour. Durkheim also anticipated that religion would be of declining social significance, in a society where there was a highly specialized division of labour; religion would lose some of its importance as a force for integrating society. Weber too, predicted a progressive reduction in the importance of religion. He argued that rationalization would gradually erode religious influence. Marx concluded that religion was needed to legitimate inequality in class societies but capitalism would eventually be replaced by communism, and religion would cease to have any social purpose.