The problem of religion and the sacred in the analyzes of Emile Durkheim and the French School of Sociology

Abstract

The subject of religion has received the attention of the majority of scientists and the
founding scientists of Sociology that is still raised and discussed, especially with the emergence of
modern society’s concepts which are related to it in a way or another. Among those founders, the
French social scientist Emile Durkheim who considers religion, since his first writings, as a major
issue in the reflections of the nature of social relations and the conditions of social cohesion. In his
view, the society is not merely a total members occupy a certain place in particular physical
conditions, but it is before that the total number of ideas, beliefs, and feelings...etc which is
achieved by individuals. Therein, Durkheim discusses the problem of the holy in a circular
relationship with the concept of religion, the fact that sacred things are those that are prepared by
the society in itself, giving it a religious nature.