RELIGION IN HUMAN SOCIETY: HOW HAS ITS MEANING, ROLE, AND ADAPTATION EVOLVED ACROSS ERAS?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14456/tmsr.2025.4Keywords:
Religion, Human Society, Meaning-making, Social Structure, Religious DynamicsAbstract
This interdisciplinary review meticulously examines the evolving understanding, multifaceted roles, and adaptive capacity of religion across historical epochs, drawing insights from the humanities and social sciences. Defining religion broadly as a system of beliefs, rituals, and communities that connect individuals to the transcendent, the article first explores its crucial function as an individual meaning-making system, offering existential resources and coping strategies amid life's uncertainties. It then analyzes religion's powerful role as a social structure, fostering solidarity, shaping collective identity, and influencing political landscapes, acknowledging its dual capacity for cohesion and division. The review traces religion's dynamic historical trajectory, from its deep integration in premodern life to the challenges of modernity and secularization theories, and its complex contemporary manifestations, including digital adaptation and the coexistence of resurgence and non-affiliation. Ultimately, the article concludes that religion's trajectory is neither a linear decline nor a simple revival, but rather a continuous interplay of change and persistence, highlighting critical research gaps in non-Western contexts, measurement harmonization, mechanistic explanations, and the "dark side" of religion.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Watcharin JOEMSITTIPRASERT, Panisa BUNMON, Tanapon VIPAPORN, Vinay KUMAR
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