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

What Are The primary(prenominal) Strengths and Weaknesses of The Rational Choice Approach To Religions Behavior?One of the pioneers of the rational pickax theory has been Gary Becker.He states that this approach can be applied to all told human deportment, includingreligion. This approach has three assumptions. It assumes that people engage in maximising behaviour. When applying this approach to religion we are not come to with money. We are concerned with the maximation of personalbenefits. When we make a decision we weigh up the cost and benefits and choosethe option which offers the most benefit. Secondly, there are marts thatwith alter degrees of efficiency allow the actions of different participantsto function together economically. Thirdly, prices and other market functionscan affect demand and supply, controlling desires and affecting the actions ofconsumers. Becker explains that price is not described in money terms but as ashadow price. For specimen, muslims cannot drink alcohol.This approach involves four theorems. Firstly, a rise in price reducesthe quantity demanded. The example he gives is if people have to ready more(prenominal) timeand effort into having children then less people lead do so. Secondly, a risein price increases the quantity supplied, the example given is women in thelabour market. Thirdly, competitive markets are more efficient thenmonopolistic markets and lead to the diversity of a product. Fourthly, a task onthe output of a market reduces that output eg the punishment of criminals is atax on crime.Finke and Iannaccone have applied this theory to religious behaviour andunderstand that the high degree of religion in America is attributed to the public of a free market and therefore rivalry and diversification inreligion. Finke argues that in a free market start up costs are low and thisleads to new ideas and more diversity and therefore more chance of everyonefinding a religion they like. Also in a competitive free ma rket earning aliving acts as an inducing to clergy to work harder and try to tailor theirreligion to suit the demands of the consumer. He similarly suggests that statemonopolies are less efficient in the absence of competition and believes thatstate churches would therefore allow high costs.Bruce highlights some weaknesses of this theory. He states that the betimes Christian church had very high startup costs eg persecution and this didnot prevent the recruitment of new followers. On the other hand, according tothe maximisation theory, the benefits must have outweighed the cost of thethreat of persecution or no-one would have joined. Bruce criticises the theorem