4. Max Weber's approach - religion as a cultural pattern

Max Weber essence of religion differs from Emile Durkheim con­ception because seemed to be adequately reflected in the definition cre­ated by Clifford Geertz. Geertz describes religion as "A synopsis of cosmic order, a set of religious beliefs, (...) a gloss upon the mundane world of social relationships and psychological events.

Max Weber is known as a one of the masters of sociology, who be­came famous for his reflection on Protestantism and its impacts on de­velopment of modern capitalism. But Weber analyzed also other religious systems, such as: Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, Judaism [Weber 1984] however, his approach to each of them was the same - as to the system of common beliefs that influences human action, impacts on men's life-style, generates specific attitudes to­wards life, and human kind - to the whole mundane world. Max Weber proves that each of the religious system generates its own set of meanings, axioms, norms of human behavior that shape human life and attitude towards it. But only Protestantism, and Calvinism as its core, could create capitalism in Occidental 'manner' within western mod­ern societies⁵. Protestant spirit denied English-styled liberalism (with its core values such as: naturally based competitiveness, hard work, greed [Seidman 1989, p. 73] and 'consisted' of such puritan's attitudes - as­sumed in the theology of predestination as the God's calling - like: self-discipline, restraint, value of work (hard-work), conspicuous consump­tion, prosperous business or career achievements; all those were clear examples of saved soul.

All above suggests that Max Weber's understanding of religion has deeply cultural meaning. But not only. Religion can be also interpreted as the main source of change that brings visible, rational consequences. According to example of Protestantism - its ethic resulted in the blossom of specific economically-oriented social activism - capitalism.

In the light of "elective affinity" [Ray 1999, p. 174]⁶ we can see, that religion was not only the set of symbols that brings specific meaning, creates the rituals consisted as the source of change influencing human development, the but religion was also interpreted as the mechanism creating rational patterns of human activity, specially on economical field. In this point, Weber's religiously-oriented perspective finds connec­tion with his methodological work - in the social action. The social ac­tion, opposite to simple, impulsive and naturally-based human behavior, is deeply rational: is based on rational motives, and is always socially-(humanly-) oriented⁷. In result, in his view, the purpose of sociology -value-related and value-relative science [Ray 1999, p. 167] - was explicit­ly warded in the concept of verstehen⁸.

The concept of understanding then, in social science is also a cru­cial element for disputes on religion in Weber's works, when we do real­ize that protestant (puritan) ethics brought about rationality which then became a central attribute of modernity. Rationalism - inevitable step in developing process of modern societies, caused it transformation into bureaucracy - an ideal state of society - and was called by Max We­ber as an "iron cage". This term then was interpreted into two dimen­sions: as a state of mind and the shape of human activity. Rationalism in future perspective, resulted in "the disenchantment" of the world and was understood as "a loss of meaning in modern societies with the de­cline of integrated worldviews that in the past had been provided by reli­gious and philosophical systems" [Ray 1999, p. 164]. But simultaneously, rationalism was the category and mechanism that brought back human religious activity. It was Protestantism indeed in which context its basic values became driving forces of capitalism - genuinely rational thinking.

In this context, let us capture one more conclusion that can be, un­expectedly, revealed from Max Weber work. Since we agree with L. J. Ray who makes Weber's approach to Protestantism more precise, in words

that:

"In order to understand the thesis in the context of Weber's work one should see it as only one part of his account of the development of capitalism, which was complex and multidimensional (.)",

and adds that:

"His account of the origin of capitalism referred to a complex in­teraction of social, economic and cultural factors, while the Protestant Ethic essays had the more limited objective of explaining the origin, not of capitalism per se, but the spirit of rational accumulation" [Ray 1999,

p. 175],

should not we assume that religious values - presented in Weber's works - can drive into the self-dismissal? The response should be nega­tive and opposite. "Rationalization", Ray explains, is "originated in the decline of magic and taboo, which give way to the norms according to which certain actions were constructed as religious abomination" [Ray 1999, p. 186]. But abomination of religious activity that confirmed magi­cal inconceivable order.