The Strategic Place and Role of Religion in Future Societies; Sociological Studies of Religion with Emphasis on Religion as a Rational Choice

Religion has played an important role in history of sociological thought and there have been difference of opinions about the future of this phenomenon. Most of sociologists who have contributed to sociology of religion agreed that religion was losing its social and cultural significance and so secularization was inevitable. They have believed that religion was nothing but illusion of man's mind, and finally rationality and science will dominate the world. Not only classics but also modern sociologists have made important contribution to this idea. On the other side, what happened in real world also verified their idea. But some events gradually happened that secularization thesis was unable to explain them. The religion was getting his power back. So there was a need for a new paradigm and new theory for explaining the resurrection of religion. So the paradigm of "religion as a rational choice" has emerged. Sociologists who contribute to this paradigm use economical metaphors for explaining the religious behaviors of people. They reject the secularization thesis and state that religion will retain his pivotal role in human beings life. In this article we want to describe this results and implications.