The Rational Choice Approach To Religions Behavior :: essays research papers fc

What Are The Main Strengths and Weaknesses of The Rational Choice Approach To Religions Behavior?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the pioneers of the rational choice theory has been Gary Becker. He states that this approach can be applied to all human behaviour, including religion. This approach has three assumptions. It assumes that people engage in maximising behaviour. When applying this approach to religion we are not concerned with money. We are concerned with the maximisation of personal benefits. When we make a decision we weigh up the costs and benefits and choose the option which offers the most benefit. Secondly, there are ‘markets that with varying degrees of efficiency allow the actions of different participants to function together efficiently.' Thirdly, prices and other market functions can affect demand and supply, controlling desires and affecting the actions of consumers. Becker explains that price is not described in money terms but as a shadow price. For example, muslims cannot drink alcohol.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This approach involves four theorems. Firstly, a rise in price reduces the quantity demanded. The example he gives is if people have to put more time and effort into having children then less people will do so. Secondly, a rise in price increases the quantity supplied, the example given is women in the labour market. Thirdly, competitive markets are more efficient then monopolistic markets and lead to the diversity of a product. Fourthly, a tax on the output of a market reduces that output eg the punishment of criminals is a tax on crime.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Finke and Iannaccone have applied this theory to religious behaviour and understand that the high degree of religion in America is attributed to the existence of a free market and therefore competition and diversification in religion. Finke argues that in a free market start up costs are low and this leads to new ideas and more diversity and therefore more chance of everyone finding a religion they like. Also in a competitive free market earning a living acts as an incentive to clergy to work harder and try to tailor their religion to suit the demands of the consumer. He also suggests that state monopolies are less efficient in the absence of competition and believes that state churches would therefore allow high costs.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Bruce highlights some weaknesses of this theory. He states that the early Christian church had very high startup costs eg persecution and this did not prevent the recruitment of new followers. On the other hand, according to the maximisation theory, the benefits must have outweighed the cost of the threat of persecution or no-one would have joined. Bruce criticises the theorem

Analysis of the daffodils by Wordsworth Essay

In this poem the poet speaks to a friend or family member about a spectacular group of daffodils that he recalls seeing when on a walk one day .The poet has an exultant tone which is obvious when reading this well-known poem. The theme is introduced with an end rhyming scheme which allows the poem to flow †I wandered lonely as a cloud†¦.when all at once I saw a crowd† .The theme of this poem is nature. The tone of the poem is shown by the use of joyful adjectives such as â€Å"golden† or â€Å"fluttering† this allows the poem to be light-hearted .Although the main theme in this poem is nature, I believe another theme is relationships because Wordsworth seems to have an amazing relationship with nature , in the way he describes the daffodils and when he thinks of the daffodils â€Å"his heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils†. The imagery in this poem is bright and colourful due to the metaphors used â€Å"Continuous as the stars that shine†. In third stanza the poet talks of the waves â€Å" The waves beside them danced ,but they outdid the sparkling waves in glee† this creates a striking image of waves ,but this quote also proves how great the daffodils were .This effects the tone of the poem. The wording Wordsworth uses is so brilliant that, with each sentence the image of the daffodils becomes clearer and clearer. This effects how I imagine the flowers. The sound pattern in this poem is includes many examples of assonance â€Å"For oft when on my couch I lie†, the o in a lot of the words slows the poem down, and it allows you to reflect on the sentence. There is alteration in this poem for example â€Å"Beside the lake ,beneath the trees† .Alliteration makes the sentence remorable and allows the poem to flow.

Literature Review On Racism And Racism - 835 Words

Literature Review and Approach To answer the question â€Å"how does black representation fight the Oppressions of Whiteness?† we first must look at race. For many American’s race, the definition for race is the color of someone’s skin. While many Americans will say that they â€Å"don’t see color† which is harmful in its own way. Race is a huge part of America from politics, shows, toys, books, many things in our daily life. Many anthropologists have even said that race isn’t real, but a social construct created to catalog people. Anthropologist Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban book Race and Racism: An Introduction talks about how â€Å"Americans are socialized first to identify a person’s race by skin color and then secondly by physical features† (pg.1†¦show more content†¦In the United States, it has come to be by talking or acting white that one is civilized or at the very least speaking in Mainstream American English. Which is to say if a black person show s there Blackness by using their language which from many Blackness for the topic of this paper is the weapon in which the black community uses in order to fight the oppression of whiteness. Helan E. Page talked about some of the strategized that were used in No Black Public Sphere In White Public Space: Racialized Information And Hi-tech Diffusion In The Global African Diaspora that black people used to be able to gain visibility was â€Å"In exchange for control of African American markets, major companies that previously overlooked the black market now grant blacks a new visibility in the nations public sphere† This sphere is mainstream media and even though with doing this it does come to the discussion of self-representation and if that is possible to have when black people are not the ones that fully control it. With the talk of self-representation also opens the door wide open to tokenization, authenticity, and authorization. When it comes with dealing with self-representation there is always a problem of tokenization and â€Å"speaking in the name of† a group. Tokenization is where the token speaker becomes what Dr.Smith calls the concrete experience to the audience.Show MoreRelatedAnnotated Bibliography Of The Heart Of Darkness1207 Words   |  5 PagesNoel Guillen Mr.Nigro English 8/12/17 The Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer Annotated Bibliography Zeitler, Michael. â€Å"Isolation in Heart of Darkness.† Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature, 3-Volume Set, Facts on File, 2010. Blooms Literature, online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/38721?q=heart of darkness. Accessed 30 Nov. 2017. 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