The Uniquely Religious: Grounding the Social Scientific Study of Religion Anew
The dominance of the classical paradigm in the social scientific study of religion has been undermined by the increasing capacity of secular agents and interpretations to fulfill the functions the “masters” assigned the sacred. An alternative is offered in which the uniqueness of religious faith is...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1985
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| In: |
Sociological analysis
Year: 1985, Volume: 46, Issue: 4, Pages: 361-366 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The dominance of the classical paradigm in the social scientific study of religion has been undermined by the increasing capacity of secular agents and interpretations to fulfill the functions the “masters” assigned the sacred. An alternative is offered in which the uniqueness of religious faith is seen to lie in its grounding in awesome apprehensions of the “trustability” of existence which transcend highly salient experiences of finitude (affirmations that “I” need not have been in a given particularity of time and setting, burdens and gifts and/or that nothing need have been) which appear relatively immune to empirical and/or logical adjudication. The classic paradigm's conclusion that “selflessness,” in varying measure, was over time linked to the sacred due to its contribution to social cohesion is then supplemented by hypotheses that would see it as a derivative of a trusting response to the finitudes noted. |
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| ISSN: | 2325-7873 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sociological analysis
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3711152 |