@mousy,
Drnaline - I am confused. Are you Jewish? Or a Christian Social Scientist.
What is a Christian Social Scientist?
Is this what you believe?
[INDENT]The
Christian social scientist is confronted by such problems as the imperfect agreement of Christian life with Christian ideals, philosophical-theoretical problems related to social determinism, and the evolution of man. Solutions to these and improved scientific understanding of social processes and structures can help Christians serve God and man more effectively. Empirical social science and Christian faith thus can be partners.
Both empirical social science and Christian faith have rapidly expanding horizons in a world that, from most perspectives of human understanding, is steadily shrinking. We have entered an era of history in which the social sciences are growing at a nearly explosive rate, and their growth is contributing to ever closer relationships between persons and groups in all parts of the world. Concurrently,
thoughtful Christians are becoming increasingly aware of the relevance of personal faith to every detail of life, including scientific endeavor, and are increasingly convinced of the essential oneness of all men that dwell upon the face of the earth. Scientific and Christian horizons are expanding while the surrounding world seems to be shrinking.
Mankind has a host of problems. All of them are at least in some respect social, and many are primarily social. Relationships between man and the so-called natural environment are but one focus of attention of the biological and physical sciences; the social sciences are concerned more directly with man's activities and interrelationships. Their domain is the problems of communication, social control, leadership, production, distribution, social relations, social change, human organization, and many other types of interpersonal and intergroup relationships. These subjects are concerned with men's intimate personal experience, so most people have developed or accepted many preconceptions and prejudices about them. When research findings and theoretical implications of the sciences of anthropology, economics, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology or their numerous sub-disciplines and closely-related fields indicate that traditional answers to men's problems are insufficient to meet the complex demands accompanying expanding horizons in a shrinking world, opposition to the social sciences readily develops.
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