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What anthropologist believed religion gave people community in life?

User Allenski
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Final answer:

Émile Durkheim believed that religion creates a unified community

Step-by-step explanation:

French sociologist Émile Durkheim utilized an anthropological approach to religion in his study of totemism among Indigenous Australian peoples in the early 20th century. In his work The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915), he argues that social scientists should begin with what he calls "simple religions" in their attempts to understand the structure and function of belief systems in general. His definition of religion takes an empirical approach and identifies key elements of a religion: "A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them" (47).

User Ian Pilcher
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