hi christopher, thanks for kicking off the discussion this week with these remarks. an interesting fact: durkheim himself was not actually religious, and he thought (as many people did back in his day) that religion would inevitably disappear over the course of the 20th century. he did believe that religion played an important role in social cohesion, and he felt it would be important for other institutions and/or belief systems to form, to take over the role religion had played. can you put yourself in durkheim's shoes and hypothesize: if religious belief suddenly vanished, what other institutions or beliefs could step in, and maintain social cohesion?
