جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « Sociology Of Religion » در نشریات گروه « علوم اجتماعی »

Max Weber's approach as a sociologist is classified in the category of sociological micro-approaches, and his explanation of various phenomena is an objective co-explanation. Paying attention to the individual and explaining based on considering the position of the individual in the society has shown itself even in his opinion about the development of religion in the society. This article is written with the aim of understanding the criticisms obtained from the point of view of Morteza Motahari about Max Weber's views on the issue of the development of religion. It is written in an exploratory, descriptive and critical method, has reached this finding that religion is not a phenomenon with the origin in atheism, humanism or society, so that due to the changes and transformations of conditions and time, it needs to evolve and conform to the conditions. Comprehensiveness and compatibility of religion with reality are two basic elements for religion that prove it doesn't confront substantive changes. Also, the nature of religion has not changed in the course of history so that religion needs to be completed. The elements of all divine religions are the same, and no change has been made in these elements, so as to create the suspicion of change, transformation and evolution in religion. The Qur'an's point of view regarding the development of religion is an integrated point of view. That is, from the beginning of the creation of the first man to the last creature, this religion has been accompanied by Allah almighty with the aim of ensuring the happiness of the this world and the afterlife world with man and human society, and since the goal is the same, religion has also been comprehensive of this goal from the beginning until now.

In recent decades, Iranian society has experienced the formation and growth of new spiritual groups. Given the obvious differences that most of these groups have with the traditional culture of the society and the official institution of religion, their proliferation has created problems for the society in general. Maintaining social order in the face of this social reality is based on recognizing it scientifically. Globalization and the similarity between new spirituality in Iran and religious transformation in other parts of the world lead researchers to pursue the identification of religious transformation from a global perspective. One dimension of this identification is the recognition of macro-social trends and facilitating factors that provide a suitable basis for the emergence of these developments in the world, including Iran. Accordingly, the aim of this research paper is providing a sociological explanation of the growth of new religious groups from a global perspective and evaluating the current encounter with it. Here, using logical analysis and inference from research and findings in the field of sociology of religion, the relevant explanations are categorized and explained, and, then, some suggestions are made about the common and appropriate encounter with spiritual groups.

Sociologists have long regarded "religion" as an important factor in providing and maintaining the social cohesion of societies, and had proposed arguments for rationalization of this relationship. In contrast, some recent theorists of secularization in the social sciences have argued that one of the most important consequences of modernization and development on the religious life of the societies today is that it has sharply weakened the link between religion and social cohesion to the extent that social cohesion is no longer dependent on the religion and religiosity of the community members. In the present study, the arguments of these two competing theoretical views in sociology were first translated into two conflicting hypotheses about how religion is related to social cohesion. Then, an attempt was made to experimentally test the validity of these hypotheses using an inter-country comparative method in Iran by analyzing the "province" and using the collective data of the second half of the 2021s. The results of this test, on the one hand, provided empirical support for the traditional hypothesis in sociology claiming that religion reinforces social cohesion. On the other hand, the research findings did not provide any empirical support for predicting the empirical secularization theories. Overall, the findings of the empirical test of the hypotheses of this study in Iran, using an inter-country comparative method and an inter-provincial analysis, showed that religion is an important factor in strengthening the social cohesion even when the effects of development are controlled and eliminated

It is an imperfect inquiry to study religious changes in contemporary Iran without considering new religious movements in the world. In this essay, the most important characteristics of religious developments in contemporary world are studied from a global perspective in order to recognize the main trend of these changes. Here, using the method of logical analysis of and inference from knowledge gathered in the realm of sociology of religion, the characteristics of new religious movements and their possible trends are identified. Some of these characteristics include: the proliferation of movements that are undogmatic, unregulated and unstructured, personal experience as the measure of truth claims, the notion of religion as a self-revising system, the principle of salvation without intermediaries, multiple membership, and the goal of liberating humanity, either through self-knowledge, which includes understanding the self as part of the universal Self, or through self-transformation through transformation of the world, as in engaged spirituality.

The proliferation of new religious groups is one of the general manifestations of religious developments in the contemporary world. From the second half of the 20th century, social thinkers have suggested various ways to study these developments. Examining why and how these groups were formed, and the young joined these groups, has been one of the most important areas of research in this field. Here, this area of research has been studied under the heading of conversion. Our methodology was logical inferential analysis and inference, we examined the research findings in the field of sociology of religion and related fields. Although there is no universally accepted model or theory that fully explains the mechanism of conversion among the youth, the models and types of conversion that are presented here can trace the main lines and major tendencies about the process of conversion and help to plan and predict the future.

This “Detailed and Illustrated” article is a sociological narrative of the reflections of the “Coronized World” on religious lifeworlds “from Qom to Rome” since the beginning of 2020. Theoretical and analytical basis of this narrative are derived from the perspective of “Sociology of Religion and Anthropology of Religion” and its sources of data are based on national and global media and cultural multilingual (i.e. English, Arabic, Persian) reports.
In this narrative, an attempt is made to describe and interpret what happened in the “Lifeworlds of Abrahamic Religions” (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and the “Lifeworlds of Asian religions” (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism) and the probable social challenges that are likely to arise in these lifeworlds from the perspective of sociology of religion and anthropology of religion. Religious biographies should be described and interpreted from the perspective of the sociology of religion and the anthropology of religion. Moreover the illustrations themselves, as social narrators, speak to the audience on recently occurred events in a coronized world and religious lifeworlds from Qom to Rome.
This detailed illustrated article, as a lived experience, is probably a good start for fellow sociologists and anthropologists of religion in Iran to put this genre of combined narrative (sociology and anthropology of religion and religion digital journalism) to test in order to describe, interpret and explain social events related to the religious lifeworld at four levels (i.e. local, national, regional, and global) and also at inter-religious level.

The two dominant paradigm on sociology of religion since the late 20th century sparked a hot and heated controversy around the relationship between religious pluralism and religious participation. On the one hand, the secularization paradigm argued that the power and authority of a religion in society is in its monopoly; and religious pluralism causes the erosion of religious faith, and has a secular effect. On the other hand, the economic / market of religion’s paradigm argued that the diversity and free competition among different religions in a society not only does not lead to secularization, but rather contributes to increased religious participation and mobilization. These arguments, for empirical testing in social research, lead to two contradictory hypotheses: (1) Religious pluralism has a negative relationship with religious participation (the secularization paradigm); and (2) religious pluralism has a positive relationship with religious participation (the economic / market of religion’s paradigm). Nevertheless, a large set of sociological researches has yielded conflicting results; some empirical findings support the hypothesis of the secularization paradigm and imply rejection of the hypothesis of the paradigm of the economy / market of religion, while some others have supported the hypothesis of the paradigm of the economy / market of religion and implies rejecting the hypothesis of the paradigm of secularization. On this basis, a general problem was raised for the present article about the question of why the common pattern in the social sciences in general and sociology in particular is that multiple empirical studies on a single subject, produce contradictory results? To answer this question and to solve this problem, the arguments presented in the perspective of critical realism was used.

Today, people are on the one hand under the impact of their respective societie's religious culture, and on the other exposed to the modern world's structural components. A survey of transformations occurred in society and their impact on religiosity can illustrate both theachievements and failures of the existing programs in the field of religious issues. This study was done with the aim of assessing the relationship between religiosity and the degree of people's participation in charitable social networks. The method adopted was a survey of the statistical population of 18-year-old and above inhabitants of Tehransmunicipal Division 14. These were selected according to one-stage cluster design in random. Due to extensive theories in the sociology of religion, a compilation of the views of Weber, Inglehart, Berger and Lukman was used for explaining the issue and a standard questionnaire was also adopted for collecting the data. Data analysis was done according to statistical tests. The religiosity variable was examined in four different ritual, experimental, consequential and ideologicaldimensions; and the groundwork variables were considered from thepoint of view of age, education, and marital status. The research resultsindicate a correlation with a high percentage of probability between independent variables and the degree of people's membership in charitable social networks.

In one hand, Weber, in the Protestant Ethics, has understood that religious ideas influence profits, and on the other hand, in his comparative sociology of religion, he has acknowledged a reverse causal relationship in economical ethics of other religions throughout the world. Values which play main and primary role in the Protestant Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism, in his other articles especially his comparative studies about religion have been turned into secondary phenomena. In most of the cases in his recent works, the domain of profits has gained a primary and major role. This turn in Weber's viewpoint can be distinguished but in an implicit and indirect way. In this paper, we, by documentary method, have tried to analyze his recent articles and texts about religions and especially Islam, to answer the following questions: Whether religious domain is still a main variable for him or not? To what extent his recent explanations can be considered as materialistic? Is Weber's explanation about Islam a materialistic one?
Results of this research has demonstrated that all of his important presumptions, mentioned in his first paper entitled "The Protestant Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism" and brought him a global fame and motivated him for comparative studies, were not consistent with his following comparative works. In fact, research on the economic ethics of different religions throughout the world provided him information which was against those gathered by him during almost his first period of life.

One of the major theoretical approaches to religion is sociological study of religion. Among the new researches carried out in this field is An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives, by Igner Furseth and Pal Repstad which is published in 2006. This book is translated by Majīd Ja’fariān; and University of Religions and Denominations Press publishes it in 1394. The book is an attempt to have a sociological perspective on religion, define religion and its dimensions, and talks about its place in some grand narratives such as modernity, globalization, and secularization. It also scrutinizes individual piety, religious organizations and movements, and the role of religion in the public sphere and its relationship with race, ethnicity, gender and sociology. In the present paper, the author, after an introduction, is going to talk about 12 chapters and a detailed list of the book. Following this, she briefly points out the book writers’ objectives and approach.

The study of religiosity is a sociological field in need of special attention. The determining role of religion in private and public aspects of the lives of the Iranians throughout the history in general, and the establishment of an Islamic State in 1979, in particular, point to the importance of the topic of transformations in the religious domain. This article, through the analysis of some religious representations, rituals and a few behaviors, which are supposed to be regulated essentially by religious values and norms, propose to study the religious attitude of young people in Shiraz. This research is conducted via open interview among the youth, aged 18 to 32, in different localities. A field observation of two ceremonies, in which the young take part actively, completes the study. The results show that the increasing phenomenon of individualization at three levels is engaged: belief, ritual and daily behaviors. Since the individuals live in a plural world, conveying its values, the religious subjectivity takes on an increasing fluidity and, as the process of individualization carried out in the context of social life, the individual tendencies become more apparent.

Studying various aspects of religion necessitate various approaches. These are the insider approach to studying the cognitive (subjective) aspect, and outsider approach to studying the external (objective) aspect of religion. The focus of attention, the purpose of recognition, and thus the methods of these two approaches are different. In this view, the two approaches are not at the same level. Then, they do not contradict each other, but rather are complementary and assist each other in extensive study of religion. One of the disciplines equipped with an outsider approach to the study of religion is sociology of religion which has a variety of methods, amongst which is the method of comparative-historical analysis. Scholars especially from early twenty first century started to use this method. In addition to having appropriate techniques for historical description and explanation, this method is methodologically compatible with topics, which have recently become important for religious studies.

Praying is a socio-religious action, either from “religious sociology” (religious looking on society) or” sociology of religion” (sociological looking on religion).This social and spiritual action has few features: it is an effective action, for its positive implication on prayer’s everyday life; it is a continued action, for it is current in all dimensions of prayer’s activities; and finally, it is an encompassing action for its sovereignty on all prayer’s life events.
For these reasons, religious pray is an important and strategic social and cultural action, that linking among religiosity dimensions. It means that, praying action relate to religious belief, rituals, experience, knowledge as well as morals.
Therefore, in this article we concentrate on trio key questions:1) what is the social philosophy of pray?2) what is the meanings and themes of religious pray ?;3)what is the discursive foot prints in Islamic – Shiites’ pray?.
Then, for empirical answering to these, we use from “secondary analysis” (SA) and “content analysis” (CA) methods of pray – studies literature in English as well as Persian languages.
Our findings show that:A) Abrahamic pray is symbol of religiosity.
B) Islamic pray is symbol of communicate- with- ALLAH.
C) Shiite pray is symbol of political ideology and social consciousness.

Religious behaviors in the form of rituals and ceremonies, as the most obvious manifestation of religion in society, have great importance for sociologists. For explaining religious behaviors, theories of deprivation, religious socialization, and doctrinal beliefs are three major and dominant theoretical approaches in sociological researches. In the present research article an attempt has been made, first, to combine the basic ideas of these three theories in a theoretical model for added richness of explanation of the topic namely, religious behaviors, and in the second step, some competing predictions of these theories are made to empirically evaluate and to clearly determine which of them are preferable. Finally, the developed theoretical model was tested by data obtained from the National Iranian population (n = 4937) to find out the level of empirical fitness. Overall, the results of this study indicate that theoretical model derived from aforesaid theories, generally and in sum, could explain about three-quarters (73 precent) of variance of Religious behaviors. However, the theory of deprivation failed to obtain empirical support. Also, the findings of the present research once again proved the importance of religious socialization and indicated that religious behaviors are more direct function of their religious socialization experiences.

According to characteristics of virtual space of internet and its impact on the view and reading of religion and religiosity between weblog users at this modern era, this article has attempted to classify various readings of religiosity at the Persian language weblogs. In this research, while review of produced literatures in sociology of religion and hegemonic readings about current typology of religiosity, we have studied virtual spaces, such as internet and weblogs, and their relationship with people’s everyday life and religiosity. After exploring dominant typologies of religiousness on the sociological literature, we achieved a different religiosity typology at Persian weblogs. We used the methodology of “Grounded Theory” which is specifically applied for classification and categorization. The sampling framework is all Persianlanguage weblogs, which have some contents relevant to religion or religiosity or can be so interpreted. The sampling unit is post of weblogs. Analyzing religious notes, which posted on weblogs, finally lead us to a triple typology of religiosity: romantic religion, political religion, and social reading. Romantic reading of religion has devoted to itself much more amount of weblogs’ contents than two other types. This integration between religion and romantic elements of everyday life can be seen due to recent modern conditions.