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In this unit, we were asked to comment on Baum's work in light of the relative significance of life after death from the individualist vs. the collective orientation. Is the individualist orientation a reflection of modern subjectivism?
After reading Baum's essay, I belive the relative significance of life after death from the individualst vs. the collective orientation is that the teaching of Christianity as it pertained to the collectives taught that eternal life remained focused on the community during the patristic age. In the modern period, the teachings that pertained to life after death were focused and taught more about an eternal life that awaited the individual after death. "In the modern period the church's teaching of eternal life was understood almost exclusively in terms of the fate that awaited the individual after his or her death" (p.547). This "individualist" teaching is in contrast to the people of the church as a collective whole and living eternally as "one".
The individualist orientation is indeed a reflection of modern subjectivism and seems to be more compatible with a non-religious belief over the collective orientation because with the individualist orientation people are left to ponder the notion of life after death probably more according to their own personal experiences instead of what they are told they should think and accept according to a collective orientation.
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"Is the reaction of people to their mortality a transcendent phenomenon, independent of their cultural world, and hence a solid ground, beyond the changing social circumstances, on which to construct a sociology of religion" (Baum, p.547)?
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