BACK TO THE CLASSICS - THE RELATION BETWEEN SOCIAL EXPERIENCES AND RELIGIOSITY

The thesis of this article is that changes in religious views are causally related to changes in social realities. In arguing for this, references are made to the classics; the main inspiration, though, is Mary Douglas and her grid/group-model. She explicitly intends to reveal the importance of social experience for the individual's religiosity. Douglas' model has further been the starting point for the formulation of formal hypotheses to be tested. To accomplish this task a questionnaire was designed and sent out to a sample of the Swedish population. The hypotheses were to a great extent confirmed. The original thesis, though, had to be altered since it was found necessary to take the individual's primary role in society as producer or consumer into account.