Religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal god or gods. There are many sociological arguments and evidence both for and against the statement that "The main function of religion in society is the control of weaker social groups by the more powerful." These sociological arguments come from many of the main sociological perspectives and include evidence from the likes of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, De Beauvoir, Engels and Turner.
One of the main sociological arguments that would agree with the above statement if from the Marxist perspective as they tend to see society as a structure divided into two major parts. The first and most important part is the economic base or infrastructure. The second major part known as the superstructure consists of the rest of society, in the form of the political, legal and educational systems, beliefs and ideas. Marx claimed that the infrastructure largely shapes the superstructure in other words the economic system largely shapes the rest of society.
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