Since the beginning of the scientific revolution, even if religion as a social phenomenon draws the attention of philosophers including Kant and Hegel, it has affected social theorists as a subject matter in parallel with the development of sociology. Sociologists who have contributed to the establishment of sociology as science such as Comte, Durkheim, Weber, and Marx put religion at the center of their social theories. However, the main problem of those sociologists is how religion is defined and analyzed in all its dimensions. Those theorists base their ideas on religion and specific philosophical bases. Thus, they are tried to be studied on some certain categories such as intellectualist, functionalist, and rationalist. Because, for some of them, religion is a product of an endeavor based on cognitive processes. For some others, religion is a set of practices based on an action which is preceded by cognitive processes. These general categories do not mean that all these sociologists defend that religion in a similar vein. It is obvious that they have also reached similar conclusions about the origins of religion. Therefore, it is necessary for the study to divide sociologists into three categories because of the fact that it should be studied on the basis of the results of the studies by sociologists. These categories are classified as intellectualist, functionalist, and rationalist categories. In this study, the most basic purpose to reinterpret the definitions of religion and religious beliefs from the point of sociologists mentioned above.
Since the beginning of the scientific revolution, even if
religion
as a social phenomenon draws the attention of philosophers including Kant and Hegel, it has
affected
social theorists as a
subject matter
in parallel with the development of sociology. Sociologists who have contributed to the establishment of sociology as science such as Comte, Durkheim, Weber, and Marx put
religion
at the center of their social theories.
However
, the main problem of those sociologists is how
religion
is defined
and analyzed in all its dimensions. Those theorists base their
ideas
on
religion
and specific philosophical bases.
Thus
, they
are tried
to
be studied
on
some
certain
categories
such as
intellectualist
, functionalist, and rationalist.
Because
, for
some
of them,
religion
is a product of an endeavor based on cognitive processes. For
some
others,
religion
is a set of practices based on an action which
is preceded
by cognitive processes. These general
categories
do not mean that all these sociologists defend that
religion
in a similar vein. It is obvious that they have
also
reached similar conclusions about the origins of
religion
.
Therefore
, it is necessary for the study to divide sociologists into three
categories
because of the fact that
it should
be studied
on the basis of the results of the studies by sociologists. These
categories
are classified
as
intellectualist
, functionalist, and rationalist
categories
. In this study, the most basic purpose to reinterpret the definitions of
religion
and religious beliefs from the point of sociologists mentioned above.