Max Weber
The Economic Ethics of the World Religions

Weber's work in the field of sociology of religion began with the book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It continued with the book series The Economic Ethics of the World Religions, which contained The Religion of China, The Religion of India, and Ancient Judaism. However, his work was left incomplete as a result of his sudden death in 1920, which prevented him from following Ancient Judaism with studies of early Christianity and Islam. The three main themes within the books were: religious ideas' effect on economic activities, the relationship between social stratification and religious ideas, and the distinguishable characteristics of Western civilisation. His goal was to find reasons for the different developmental paths of the cultures of the Western world and the Eastern world, without making value-judgements, unlike the contemporaneous social Darwinists. Weber simply wanted to explain the distinctive elements of Western civilisation. Weber also proposed a socio-evolutionary model of religious change where societies moved from magic to ethical monotheism, with the intermediatory steps of polytheism, pantheism, and monotheism. According to him, this was the result of growing economic stability, which allowed for professionalisation and the evolution of an increasingly sophisticated priesthood. As societies grew more complex and encompassed different groups, a hierarchy of gods developed. Meanwhile, as their power became more centralised, the concept of a universal God became more popular and desirable.
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