Concepts of Soviet religious studies in contemporary Russian sociology of religion

The author examines some terms of Soviet religious studies in their original and modern implications. Such concepts as “social roots of religion”, “social conditioning of religion”, “social functions of religion” and some others are analyzed. The social roots of religion were derived from powerlessness of people over the natural elements and from the limited relationships between people in the society. Dependence of people in natural-human relations was accounted for, mainly, to the inadequacy of the available objective and practical means for mastering of the natural world, underdevelopment of the productive forces of society. The category of the societal foundations of religion implies relations that produce a lack of freedom and dependence of people on the external circumstances of their life in society. Social conditioning of religion implies the influence of social processes on the religion, in the conditions of which it exists and evolves. The fact of such conditioning is recognized by supporters of various approaches in secular sociology of religion and in religious sociology. Interpretation from confessional positions takes the source of religion beyond the limits of scientific knowledge, and represents the society itself as a derivative of the transcendent principle of being. From the point of view of secular sociology, “social conditioning” arises because of the rootedness of religion in social relations. The social functions of religion are now understood as the interaction of religion as a social subsystem with other elements of the society structure. In the domestic religion studies the worldview, compensatory and socio-cultural functions are customary to be considered as social functions. Their bearers are the aggregate subjects of faith: religious associations, large or small religious groups. The presence of the nomenclature of the Soviet sociology of religion and its modifications in the current scientific discourse shows that the liberation from ideological connotations made it possible to uncover the explanatory potential of the concepts of the social nature of religion expressed by it. The scope of their application is limited, but their application allows us to build up modern research theories using those credible representations that were developed in the framework of a scientific atheistic approach to religion.

sociology of religion, social roots of religion, social dependency of religion, social functions of religion

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