Revision summary
Comte expected science to replace theology; Weber expected disenchantment of technique. Secularisation is regional, not a universal emptying of faith. Relations include conflict, institutional separation and practical coexistence. Berger’s later desecularisation thesis matches much of the contemporary world. India shows high-tech science beside public ritual and sacred politics. The modern pattern is differentiation plus plurality, not a simple war.
Model answer
Introduction
Modern society is often described as scientific, and science is often described as the opposite of religion. The sociological relationship is more mixed. Auguste Comte expected a scientific stage to replace theological thought. Max Weber spoke of disenchantment: calculation drives out magic. Later research found secularisation in some regions and religious revival in others. Science and religion now compete, ignore, and sometimes bless each other in the same public sphere.
Body
Conflict, separation and coexistence
Conflict appears in creation controversies, in battles over reproductive technology, and when clerical authority denies epidemiological advice. The independence model, close to Stephen Jay Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria,” treats science as how the heavens go and religion as how to go to heaven. Dialogue appears in religious environmentalism and in scientists who remain practising believers. Peter Berger first expected secularisation, then stressed desecularisation: the world is furiously religious, with pockets of European-style unbelief.
Weber’s disenchantment never meant that temples empty overnight. It meant that technical rationality becomes the default for administration, medicine and production, while meaning and theodicy may still be sought in faith. Thomas Luckmann described invisible religion; Durkheim already allowed civic sacredness. In India, space missions and large science laboratories coexist with ritual at launch, pilgrimage economies, and political uses of sacred geography. Ayurveda and evidence-based medicine negotiate prestige. Anti-superstition movements and new gurudoms grow together.
The nature of the relationship in modern society is therefore structurally differentiated and empirically plural. Science claims cognitive authority over empirical nature; religion claims authority over ultimate meaning, identity and often morality. The state, the market and the media decide which claim wins in a given dispute. A single formula of inevitable conflict is as unhelpful as a pious harmony.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD MOD[Modern society] --> SCI[Science cognitive authority] MOD --> REL[Religion meaning identity] SCI --> CF[Conflict] REL --> CF SCI --> CO[Coexistence dialogue] REL --> CO SCI --> DI[Disenchantment of technique]
Conclusion
Science and religion in modern society are differentiated institutions that sometimes clash, sometimes ignore each other, and sometimes intertwine in ritual and politics. Disenchantment names a tendency of technique, not the death of the sacred. Examples should show that plurality, not a winner-takes-all story.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
How does a multicultural society accommodate diversities of all kinds-ethnic, linguistic, and religious? Discuss its major challenges
Next question on this syllabus topic (2024 · Q6(b)). View answer →
-
Does a scientist performing a puja disprove disenchantment?
No. It shows differentiation: technical work can follow science while meaning and luck are still ritualised.
-
Is conflict the true modern relation?
It is one relation, visible in bioethics and schooling debates, not the only one.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2024 · Q6(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
How does a multicultural society accommodate diversities of all kinds-ethnic, linguistic, and religious? Discuss its major challenges -
2024 · Q7(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
How do you understand the phenomena of the mushrooming of sects and cults in contemporary society? Discuss the factors responsible for the trend -
2021 · Q6(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Give your comments on the growth of religious revivalism in the present day context -
2020 · Q3(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
Critically Analyse Durkheim's views on elementary forms of religious life and role of religion Also discuss the consequences of religious revivalism in contemporary society. -
2020 · Q5(d) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
State the reasons for the various religious beliefs and practices in pre-modern societies. -
2018 · Q8(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
What is sects? Discuss their role in multi-religious societies with empirical examples. -
2017 · Q8(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Elaborate on various types of religious practices prevalent in India society -
2016 · Q1(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
"Sociology is pre-eminently study of modern societies." Discuss
More from this topic
Q7(b) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
How do you understand the phenomena of the mushrooming of sects and cults in contemporary society? Discuss the factors responsible for the trend
Religion and Society
Church–sect theory treats sects as demanding protest groups beside an accommodated church. Cult, in careful use, names looser or new mystical memberships, not a tabloid insult. New religious movements are the contemporary research label for much of this field. Factors include urban migration, a market in belief, charismatic founders and media. Crises of meaning and weak monopoly of old churches open space for new groups. India’s guru organisations and global NRMs illustrate the same structural trend.
Q6(b) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
How does a multicultural society accommodate diversities of all kinds-ethnic, linguistic, and religious? Discuss its major challenges
Religion and Society
Multiculturalism is public recognition of ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. Accommodation uses constitutions, federalism, language policy and civil mixing. India is a principal case of pluralism inside a democratic republic. Challenges include majoritarianism, communal violence and segregated everyday life. Inequality that maps onto community turns culture into conflict. Group rights can clash with gender justice and with a common civic status.
Q6(c) · UPSC Mains 2021 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Give your comments on the growth of religious revivalism in the present day context
Religion and Society
Revivalism is intensified public faith, not simple return to the past. Secularisation is unfinished; public religions persist. Insecurity, effervescence, and media feed growth. Gender and caste often harden inside revivalist we-groups. COVID mixed online worship with communal blame.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.