Reading summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Reading summary - Essay Example The nature of pre-modern social life was essentially religious and it did represent the society’s collective conscious. Thus, in order to analyze this it is quite proper to have broad understanding of recent religions, which is only possible if we go back into the past and follow the manner how it progressed in history. Religions showed same conformity to some essential elements such as their outside and visible characteristics which makes them comparable to one another. Although in the course of history, religious life appeared to be complicated and diversified which Durkheim referred as difficult to distinguish such as secondary from principal, essential from accessory, popular superstitions from purest dogmas, and the beliefs from rites and even from priests to monks and laymen. With this build up, it is not easy to situate the common foundation of religious life. Lower societies are then compared to more advanced societies wherein the former being simple and with slighter development of individuality makes it easier to identify its religious foundations as compared to the latter which everything is common to all. It is thought that the more advanced a society is, the more complicated it is to trace the early beginnings of religious life. The primary religions then allow us to understand these elementary forms since the facts are simpler, not influenced, and as Durkheim see it as nearer and more closely related to the motives which have really determined these acts (Durkheim, 7). Religious origin for a long time has been known to be the first system of representations. Durkheim believed that in order to understand these representations there must be the participation as to time, space and identity of individual thoughts. However, Durkheim stated that we cannot conceive time but we can only realized that portions of our past