An Awareness Of A False Consciousness

In fact, Census (2013) shows that in Australia, 15% of the population claimed they had no religion within 2001, this has risen to least 22% today. An influence which has been addressed is that, the wealthier nations are becoming more content and assured as they have developed progressively indifferent to religious morals. Despite wealth being a catalyst of the decline of religion in Australia, CBC News (2012) asserted that the one of the main factors for the deterioration of religion in the Western society is ‘existential security’ meaning that individuals live in a somewhat unchanging, democratic society. This has resulted to countries such as Australia alongside having a solid social security having the least religious individuals (CBC News, 2013). These concepts are generally supported in the survey findings with most respondents claim that Australians see organized religion as "out-dated" in Australia and not needed in the society. In addition to this, another factor argued to the reason why religion is declining is the age. In fact, the investigation specified earlier which showed that age thought to be a vigorous stimulus in faith in God (by National Opinion Research Center, 2017). This has been further supported to surveys claiming that “in the society that majority of people who believe in an organized religion are elderly and less teens.” This establishes that there are various other influences of decline in religion within Australia despite of the countries’ separation from religious

In the wake of slavery, the black body is constantly under attack. The hold co-exists within the wake of slavery. According to Christina Sharpe, college professor, author of In the Wake on Blackness and Being, (2016) “The wake; a state of wakefulness and a state of consciousness” (pg. 5). Being in the wake of slavery means one still faces the negative effects it and is aware of the negative affects it has on the black community. The hold co-exists in the wake of slavery and the black body is inhibited by this hold. Sharpe defines the hold as, “A large space in the lower part of a aircraft in which cargo is stowed (of a ship or aircraft); keep or detain (someone)” (p. 68). In the hold, the black body has been introduced, taught, ingrained and continues this idea of the language of violence. Through the actual hold of the ship during the Middle Passage, to the perception of blacks which also holds the black body, and to the engrained idea of the “masculine black body” which keeps queer black bodies in their own hold. In this paper, I will examine the intersectionality of blackness and queerness which is being held in the wake of slavery.

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center as part of a broader Religious Landscape Study, 78 percent of people who do not identify with any religious group were raised in a faith system and then left as adults. Further, about half of those people said that a lack of belief caused them to leave their faith, citing, among other things, "science" and "lack of evidence" as reasons for this skepticism.

Nella Larsen, a luminary of the Harlem Renaissance, explores the nature of racial identity and double-consciousness in her novella Passing. W.E.B Du Bois’s theory of double-consciousness is characterized in The Souls of Black Folk as a sense of “twoness,-- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” (Du Bois 2). Irene and Clare, Larsen’s novella’s primary characters, both lack a “dark body” which allows them to oscillate, by choice, between playing the part of the white “American” and the “Negro”. The appeal of racial passing lies in how it provides disenfranchised minorities access to otherwise unattainable

Huffington post says, “religious practice and affiliation has greatly declined in the united states in the last 50 years”(Blumberg). Change has happened and it’s not bad but its evolved into something different from the

Another challenge concerning the Millennials is that a lot of these young adults are growing up without attending church. The Barna group calls them the unchurched segment and report that this segment has increased in the last 10 years, from 44% to 52% (5 Reasons). This is a problem because it decreases the chances for new members to join the church. The majority of people that follows a specific religion learned about that religion in early childhood. Students of human behavior believe that “The most significant borrowing occurs in early childhood. Family is thus an important factor…” (Wuthnow 106). If the number of the unchurched segment continues to grow at this pace, in the next few decades, this will continue to be a major concern for church leaders across the Americas. It is a lot harder to try to reach those people that have never attended church or don’t come from a religious background than try to reach those that belong to a church or have been brought up in the faith.

29% said they came from an unspecified Christian family, 27% said Catholic, 26% were Protestant, 9% said none and a small 6% said they were atheists and their parents were atheists. They asked when they decided to stop their belief and 13% said they never believed, 29% said they did when they were less than fifteen-years-old, 37% said they decided to become atheist between the ages of 15 and 24 and 21% said they did past the age of 25. Finally they asked why they did become atheist. Almost half, 47%, said that it didn’t make logical sense to them, 12% said that it didn’t comply with conventional science, 9% said it was because of a negative experience when they were young, 15% said it was because of the hypocrisy of religion and the church, 3% said that God didn’t meet an expectation they had, and a surprising 6% said they couldn’t remember. Finally 21% gave very specific reasons why, saying that college opened their eyes or that there was a person in the sky watching them but also how patriarchal the church is and its obsession with obedience and punishment. This shows a trend in why most left religion. One is that it didn’t make sense nor does it work with science, or they did liked how the church felt or worked which pushed them away to soon become atheists.

What is certain however, is that young people today are far less likely to have a religious socialisation from parents and schools. They have grown up in a consumerist, materialist society and look for satisfaction through these things rather than a future in heaven- implying that consumerism could be the new religion of our time. Moreover, one cannot just assume that it is the young generation that is losing importance over religion, secularisation trends show that it is the whole of society. This is because of desacralisation and the development of science in which more people are turning to science and rational thinking. Young people are just more prone to this due to

Clearly today’s patterns are very different from those of the past. How then to explain them? There are two fields of thought here. Secularists take the simple opinion: lack of attendance and reduction of belief means a

The decline in religion across America is most likely related to the increase inIndividualism, among many Americans in the 21st century. “The decline in religions practice has gone down 29% from the Silent generation to the younger Millennial” (Decline of mainline Protestantism and Catholicism). Many argue that culture influences, portioning to college and other environments, would be the greatest factor in the big question as to why Americas on a religious decline. However Individualism seems to be the greatest contributing factor. Individualism highlights selfish motives, only caring about ones self, and laziness. All things that religious believes takes away from a individual.

But, as so many people resoundingly reject the hypocrisy, hate, homophobia, and misogyny of the Christian church, they also often leave behind the spiritually nurturing aspects of religious life and find themselves adrift in a post-church world.

While the majority of Americans (almost 80%) identify themselves as Christians, religion in the United States is characterized by both a large diversity of believers and variable attendance and adherence levels (Eck, 2002). However, an August 2010 poll showed that almost 70% of Americans believed that religion was losing influence in everyday life, yet most feel that is a negative thing even though politicians continue to discuss religion while campaigning (Religion Losing, 2012). In light of these statistics, many religious scholars have turned to more quantitative methods to establish ways to both improve service attendance, solidify the financial health of churches, and establish a faith-based understanding of current psychographic trends. One of the predominant ways this is happening is through people like George Barna.

Talking of the number of the “unchurched” people in Northern America alone, there has been an increase of compared to the 15 percent increase in the general population. Large churches which used to be filled with multitudes of followers in the 1950s currently have a small fraction of their initial capacity.

But American religiosity is diminishing. Other forces like materialism, globalism, humanism, and science continue to push the world into a new frontier. Between 2007 and 2014, adults who are religiously affiliated dropped 6%; though, 77% percent of Americans are religiously affiliated and 58% find religion very important—and those who identify strongly with religion continue to have the same intensity in belief.

Christianity has been facing many obstacles from all the non religious world views. There has been a lot of contemporary influence in this modern churches and Christian gatherings as they try to fit in and accommodate the changing world views. Due to all this influences, everything about Christianity is being questioned especially on issues of sex, divorce, marriage and birth control. There has also been a rise in non denominational churches started by individuals or a group of people with no ties or relationships to already established churches