@article{2018,title={Crisis in Modern Thoughts: The Problem of Primacy and Religion as a Mystical Reality },abstractNode={Scientific investigations of tribal communities were considered by some sociologists and social/cultural anthropologists as central to understanding past societies. It was considered a necessity in research as these communities were thought to be primitive despite their existence today and that their beliefs were similar to those of past communities.This problem was quite obvious in the studies of sociologists who did field research such as Durkheim and Malinowsky. With the emergence of modern thought, some sociologists and anthropologists, who were under the influence of positivism, also felt the need to study their work as if society was an object. This emerged in the same way that sociology influenced natural sciences through the stages of scientific thought when it desired to prove itself as a science. The phenomenon of religion constituted the main theme of most of the sociological studies in this period. Some of these thinkers regarded religion as a mystical reality, such as Marx and Freud, while others thought that by studying tribal communities far from European civilization, they could explain the origin and development of religion. In making this assessment, functionalist sociologists generally considered the tribal communities' living patterns to be the same as past communities and thus considered them as primitive communities. The purpose of our study is to carefully analyze this two-way assessment and interpret the origins of the arguments used. Through this interpretation, it will be revealed why contemporary societies were considered primitive by these thinkers, and how religion has disintegrated from being a mystical reality. This study is in general an analysis of the thought that religion is a mystical reality from the perspective of Freud and Marx, Durkheim and Smith who also criticized the idea of primacy of these communities. The study will analyze the similarities between Marx's thoughts and Freud's thoughts and analyze the cognitive idea that religion created a mystical effect on society. Nevertheless, the benefits and problems of the examination of tribal communities through Durkheim will be emphasized and the question of primacy will be assessed in this context. },author={ -Ahmet Özalp },year={2018},journal={Toplum Bilimleri Dergisi}}