Približavanje sociološkom pristupu religiji u uvjetima hrvatskog društva

Seeking an answer to key theoretical questions, the author attempts to come up with an “applicable” model in line with analytical approaches to the structure of the religious or atheistic consciousness. Laying down its essential constitutive elements and dimensions the author treats them on the same theoretical and methodological level, “positioning" them in their social embedment and reading them in respect of their particularities and importance within the social setting under consideration. With these guidelines the author determines the religious experience and the religious consciousness. Traditional, experiental and rational elements are spread out over an even field wherein it is possible to fathom the roots of religious belief. In this context, a challenging field of social research opens up for investigating the relativising elements not only within the process of the manifestation of religion on the individual and group level but within the process of its transformation, the intensity of its action and, above all, in the socail consequences of the widest spectre.All the challenges we have met in investigating the religious phenomenon draw attention to a preoccupation with either theoretical apriorism or with matriculated empiricism. The overcoming of this state of affairs necessitates the investigation of the specific relation of worldly (social-political) and spiritual (religious) factors, especially in the national and religious domains. With this in mind the author draws the reader’s attention to the rural and urban religious landscape. The investigation carried out in the article can produce a fruitful response, a critical réévaluation of “unqucstionable”theoretical premises.