Lecture Abstract

In this lecture, in order to observe the religious function from a sociological perspective, religions will be regarded as a particular form of communication, as a mechanism that brings in communication the invisible world with the visible world. By examining religions from their very birth in this lecture, it will be demonstrated how a religion is formed and more specifically what was a religion before it became one. To do that we will look upon the salient role of the founding father of a religion, his teachings and his impact on his community but also the issue of the succession of charisma. Finally it will be demonstrated how a religion becomes an autonomous and complex system of communication. This lecture will use concrete historical examples from different world religions in order to show how Systems Theory can be applied for the analysis of religious traditions.