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Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology.This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods (surveys, polls, demographic and census analysis) and of qualitative approaches (such as participant observation, interviewing, and analysis of archival ...
Among the main proponents of this theory of religion are Daniel Dubuisson, Timothy Fitzgerald, Talal Asad, and Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm. These social constructionists argue that religion is a modern concept that developed from Christianity and was then applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures.
Sociological, psychological, and anthropological theories about religion generally attempt to explain the origin and function of religion. [1] These theories define what they present as universal characteristics of religious belief and practice .
Various sociological classifications of religious movements have been proposed by scholars. In the sociology of religion , the most widely used classification is the church-sect typology . The typology is differently construed by different sociologists, and various distinctive features have been proposed to characterise churches and sects.
The sociology of religion is distinguished from the philosophy of religion in that sociologists do not set out to assess the validity of religious truth-claims, instead assuming what Peter L. Berger has described as a position of "methodological atheism". [161]
The essence of religion, Durkheim finds, is the concept of the sacred, the only phenomenon which unites all religions. "A religion," writes Durkheim, "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 a single moral community called a ...
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the discipline of sociology: . Sociology – the study of society [1] using various methods of empirical investigation [2] and critical analysis [3] to understand human social activity, from the micro level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and social structure.
Bellah's magnum opus, Religion in Human Evolution (2011), [22] traces the biological and cultural origins of religion and the interplay between the two. The sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas wrote of the work: "This great book is the intellectual harvest of the rich academic life of a leading social theorist who has assimilated a vast range of biological, anthropological, and ...