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There is particular emphasis on the recurring role of religion in all societies and throughout recorded history. The sociology of religion is distinguished from the philosophy of religion in that it does not set out to assess the validity of religious beliefs, though the process of comparing multiple conflicting dogmas may require what Peter L ...
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 ...
Nancy T. Ammerman is Professor Emerita of Sociology of Religion at Boston University.Her edited anthology Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives [2] was a significant advance in the study of everyday religion—the term she tends to prefer—by bringing together work by scholars such as Courtney Bender [4] and Meredith McGuire [5] who have shaped the study of living religion ...
It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives. While theology attempts to understand the nature of transcendent or supernatural forces (such as deities ), religious studies tries to study religious behavior and belief from outside any particular religious ...
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 ...
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.
Normal revelations: religions are founded when the founder interprets ordinary natural phenomena as supernatural; for instance, ascribing his or her own creativity in inventing the religion to that of the deity. Some religions are better described by one model than another, though all apply to differing degrees to all religions.
The beliefs of an individual are often centred around a religion, so the religion can be the origin of that individual's values. [13] When religion is defined heuristically , it can be used by individuals, communities or societies to answer their existential questions with the beliefs that the religion teaches. [ 14 ]