Religious Effects: In Praise of "Idealistic Humbug"
Most social scientists prefer to trace all religious phenomena to material causes and are quick to deny the possibility that religion is the real cause of anything. For example, many social historians deny that the Quakers founded the anti-slavery movement because of their religious concerns, claimi...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage Publications
2000
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| In: |
Review of religious research
Year: 2000, Volume: 41, Issue: 3, Pages: 289-310 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | Most social scientists prefer to trace all religious phenomena to material causes and are quick to deny the possibility that religion is the real cause of anything. For example, many social historians deny that the Quakers founded the anti-slavery movement because of their religious concerns, claiming instead that, whether they knew it or not, the Quakers really opposed slavery in order to further their economic interests in an emerging capitalist environment. Enough! In this essay I first reveal the absurdity of three major efforts to reduce religious effects to materialism. Next, I show that four major historical events that have been attributed to material conditions are better understood as rooted in religious causes. Then I illustrate that religious doctrines differ in their capacity to produce effects by comparing the responses of early Christians and pagans to several great plagues. This leads to a preliminary discussion of factors influencing the effectiveness of religious doctrines, concluding that the most important factor has to do with the image of Gods on which the doctrines rest. Consequently, the sociology of religion rests upon a sociology of Gods. |
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| ISSN: | 2211-4866 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Review of religious research
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3512031 |