ABSTRACT
Sociology of religion has sometimes been insulated from general sociology, and it is an explicit aim of this book to bridge the sociology of religion and general sociology. This chapter begins with a presentation of some of sociology's features, and some similarities and differences between sociology and other human sciences. It presents some trends in recent sociology of religion and highlights how sociologists of religion usually approach religious phenomena – as social phenomena, without discussing the truth claims of religion. Sociology offers several arguments against individual explanations. Sociology has constituted a significant part of the trend in modern thought that social phenomena are viewed to be man-made and socially determined, rather than effects of ingrained qualities given by birth, nature, or God. The sociological approach of interpreting human life and social conditions as made by humans and changeable carries an inherent moral potential that can be used to criticize and change society.
