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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 ...
The term "social science" was coined in French by Mirabeau in 1767, before becoming a distinct conceptual field in the nineteenth century. [9] Social science was influenced by positivism, [6] focusing on knowledge based on actual positive sense experience and avoiding the negative; metaphysical speculation was avoided.
Causing further complications is the fact that there are various secular world views, such as nationalism and Marxism, which bear many of the same characteristics that are commonly associated with religion, but which rarely consider themselves to be religious. [16] Conversely, other scholars of religious studies have argued that the discipline ...
Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action; it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts [209]...Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and ...
The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the corporate, academic, and religious segments of society. Political ideologies:
The sociology of science involves the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." [149] Important theorists in the sociology of science include Robert K. Merton and Bruno Latour.
In the social sciences, social groups can be categorized based on the various group dynamics that define social organization. [1] In sociological terms, groups can fundamentally be distinguished from one another by the extent to which their nature influence individuals and how.
In simple terms, the functional approach sees religion as "performing certain functions for society" [7] Theories by Karl Marx (role of religion in capitalist and pre-capitalist societies), Sigmund Freud (psychological origin of religious beliefs), Émile Durkheim (social function of religions), and the theory by Stark and Bainbridge exemplify ...