The two texts in this book are abridged longer articles written by Niklas Luhmann on religion to entities of the posthumous appearance of his monograph theme "The religion of society." Despite being more than ten years away from each other, both reflect the extraordinary breadth of scholarship developed by the German sociologist, and shows how important it was to be the study of religion to make his grand social theory._x000D_
_x000D_
As is well known, Luhmann based his theory of society on the concept of communication and the three unlikely to be associated with it: the improbability of communication given to understand, the improbability of that communication goes beyond those are present and, finally, who understands unlikely to accept it. The latter is unlikely, the acceptance of communication, is the problem that was solved first by religion (aided by rhetoric) and more recently in modern society, through the symbolically generalized media - or symbolic means no more whose prototypical examples are the power, money, love and truth._x000D_
_x000D_
Initially, the company was incorporated religiously. Thus religion is a kind of proto-symbolic means. before the advent of modern society, religion was the communication device of choice for ensuring successful communication. The kings ruled by divine grace and virtually no significant social problem that is not religion helps to generate agreements. Be polite and be healed with a religious sense in the way, in the same way that art could not do without it. Religion is the basis of social allocation processes of meaning: religious communities are, strictly speaking, a form of respect.