Category: Uncategorized

  • Trade Dispute

    Legal Definition of Trade Dispute The term "labor dispute"is a broad one and can refer to, at least, two different groups of conflicts. The first one includes any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in […]

  • Natural Law

    A typical definition of natural law which overstressed the universality of the concept was provided by Olivecrona (1971: 8): In contradistinction to positive law, 'natural law' generally means a law that has not been posited. Even if it is ascribed to the will of God, it is supposed to […]

  • THEOLOGY

    THEOLOGY The scholarly and critical study of religious beliefs. There has been an increasing use of the social sciences within academic theology during the twentieth century. Traditionally, theologians have related to the dominant philosophies of many ages and cultures and, at least since the […]

  • THEOLOGY

    THEOLOGY The scholarly and critical study of religious beliefs. There has been an increasing use of the social sciences within academic theology during the twentieth century. Traditionally, theologians have related to the dominant philosophies of many ages and cultures and, at least since the […]

  • Sociology

    Introduction to Sociology Sociology may be defined as the scientific study of human social relations or group life. See more definitions of Sociology in the Legal Dictionary. Other disciplines within the social sciences-including economics, political science, anthropology, and […]

  • GREEK AND ROMAN RELIGIONS

    GREEK AND ROMAN RELIGIONS The religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Greeks and Romans have not attracted social scientific investigation to the extent accorded either the major world faiths or the religions of band and tribal peoples. Notwithstanding that one would be hard-pressed to find a living devotee of Zeus or Athena, Janus or…

  • Religious language

    Religious language Religious language, especially language about God, is subject to two opposite dangers: that of associating creatures too closely with their Creator and that of stressing so far the difference in sense of the same terms as applied to God and creatures that apparently one might infer that God could as well be called…

  • WELLNESS

    WELLNESS The healing arts and religion have experienced ambivalent and, at times, conflicting relationships. The ancient Greeks were aware that the whole/”well” person was a balance of different “temperaments” and was simultaneously influenced by several internal and external sources—ecology, lifestyle (including diet), drugs and herbs, and the body’s internal fluids—”the four humors.” The individual was…

  • WITCHCRAFT

    WITCHCRAFT, WITCHES (WICCA) Witches and witchcraft are associated with some of the most horrifying episodes in western European and American history. Some historians estimate that upward of one million people were put to death for allegedly being witches during several centuries in Europe, with the major persecutions occurring in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries (Johnson…

  • MAX WEBER

    MAX WEBER (1864-1920) German political economist and sociologist, originally trained in jurisprudence. Faculty member, for most of his life adjunct, at the University of Heidelberg, and from 1904 editorial director of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik . Author of a prodigious corpus, including the essays The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ,…

  • VOLUNTEERISM

    VOLUNTEERISM Volunteering is the main mode by which religious and service agencies in pluralistic societies staff the so-called independent, voluntary sector and implement its basic programs and goals with a maximum of part-time, unpaid, nonprofessional “volunteers” (even though many might be former, retired professionals). Tocqueville noted that the “New World” adopted a pattern of denominational…

  • VIOLENCE

    VIOLENCE The (usually intentional) use of harmful force; studies involving religion include examinations of international religious violence (e.g., Indian and Pakistani tensions), violence between groups and society (e.g., the Sikh nationalist movement), violence among groups (e.g., Protestants versus Catholics in Northern Ireland), violence among members (e.g., members’ murders of other Jonestown followers), and violence against…

  • VATICAN II

    VATICAN II The Second Vatican Council in Roman Catholicism, 1962-1965, which was the first “ecumenical” church council of Roman Catholics since Vatican I in 1869-1870, was convened by Pope John XXIII with the explicit purpose of aggiornamento , that is, updating the church to function in modern society. According to Roman Catholic teaching, an ecumenical…

  • VALUES

    VALUES A value is a normative proposition; it meets a need that seeks to satisfy or that finds its meaning in a universal truth, accepted by the subject. At the same time, it is made up either of an object of particular importance for the subject agent or of a higher truth; it has a…

  • ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

    ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE (1805-1859) French social theorist and politician; the outstanding classical interpreter of religion’s role in modern American democracy and prerevolutionary France. The son of an aristocratic and monarchist family, Tocqueville’s travels in America, England, and Ireland led him to a reformist political stance in support of democratic institutions. Before traveling to America and…