Angelina Morales Behind Religion

Although religion is not the universal opium of the people, it helps many escape from reality. Sister Cecilia wants to become a saint, which seems to be her goal in life

An adage everyone has heard at least once in their life is “There is more than meets the eye.” The statement couldn’t be more relevant to those who grew up in religion. There seems to be this lens a religious person sees through based on what they've been taught. A person of faith is finally taught that what they see through this lens and what one has learned is not a concrete and direct reflection of the outside world when their perception of it has been challenged in one way or another. Upon this new realization most often, people would lean towards religion to gain the clarity that is needed. In the case of a child named Antonio, religion only added to his conflict. In the novel Bless Me Ultima by Rudulfo Anaya, Antonio instead turns to a woman named Ultima who stimulates his struggle between secular and spiritual thought, all while simultaneously removing the lens that was placed by narrow-minded thought.

How do we find answers or meaning to the seemingly senseless experiences of violence, death, suffering and adversity? Why do some people turn to religion in times of adversity and suffering? Every day we eye witness or through media see many people who are faced with many types of struggles. These past few weeks the media has been swamp with the injustice and suffering of the families of young black men who are being abused by officers. Overseas we see many men, women and children being killed each day due to war, natural disasters, out breaks of disease and etc. And almost every day we see people who are homeless in the street. Many of which are ex veterans and or cannot find a job, therefore they are forced to live on the street without shelter, food, and proper clothing. Many people might not experience a great magnitude of adversity and suffering, but how can we deal with it and find meaning in it? What is religion really? Why is it that some people feel they can turn to religion? And what is it that turns people from religion The objective of

Her first college was even a Baptist College even though she stated that didn’t really matter to her. She would always turn to her religion during tough times when she was feeling down about killings happening around her and when she was afraid of the night riders is when she would start praying. When she was consistently going to Sunday church she would study hard but I don’t think the influenced her the most. I think she studied hard because that’s what she knew how to do and that’s what came easy for her. It seems to me that she was more forced to join the church and it was the pressure from her mother that made her join but it seems like it didn’t have that much of an effect on her life. It was just a part of her life for so long but it didn’t influence her the most. I think her religion was important in her development and in the way she thinks but it wasn’t the greatest influence on her

The practice of organized religion has been declining greatly since the mid 20th century, but the pace in which religion is dying is not constant in every western country. Ireland is the only country where most people attend a religious event weekly, on the other hand, less than ten percent of Scandinavians attend religious events. Organized religion is dying where it once was common in everyday life, which is bad news for church leaders who want to fill their seats. From 1945 to 1985 the percent of regular church attendees in Canada dropped in half, from 70% to 35%. Although people have stopped associating themselves with a religion, many of them still believe in a creator. Around 32 percent of America’s population attends church weekly, but 66 percent of Americans have no doubt that there is a God, and another 16 percent believe in a God but have doubts (Altemeyer 79). There is evidence that the recent rise of religious apostasy occurred because of backlash against the “Religious Right”, the christian fundamentalists that are known to be anti-homosexual. Many people are turned off by these beliefs and severed their already weak relationships with the church. Children are also not being taught religious beliefs because of parents who have left the faith. Parents have stopped

Religion is man’s answer to the question why are we here. People devote themselves to their God or gods, finding purpose and meaning through their faith. In Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People and A Good Man Is Hard to Find there are several characters who have found their faith and purpose in it, but there are also a few who still are lost. To hide their disbelief in God Manley Pointer and The Misfit created a set of polite mannerisms to fool other people. It is when these polite speeches break that one realizes that the human mind is hard wired to believe only what it can see, but a faith in the unseen is necessary to live a purposed life.

As a child, Angie was content and well-mannered with the occasional angry outburst. She soon learned that the negative attention from her anger was better than no attention at all. Although known to have intense emotions, a stereotype associated with Hispanic women, she quickly developed an extroverted personality. While not a wildly as popular and social as her older sister Lynn, Angie strived to affiliate herself with a

What is a belief? Belief is a trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something. That is what our Lady of Guadalupe is our belief, our confidence, our fight. Also our Lady of Guadalupe is a tradition because there is a lot of people that really belief on her and they celebrate her day and all that thing´s.

Numerous amount of studies have taken place on why new religious movements are so popular. It seems to be people have some mental disorder that leads them to believe that they have no purpose in life and everything they do is just a sham.”recent study by the National Institute of Mental Health found that approximately 20% of the general population has at least one psychiatric

Lovella Mogere is a native of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands who loves worshiping and the company of God’s people. She was baptized at the age of twelve and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the age of twenty. Her testimony is one of grace, as a PK-Kid, she loved the Lord but did everything to fight against the call on her life. She didn’t understand why anyone would go out of their way to obey man’s tradition – but neglect God’s commands. Later on in life she led a destructive lifestyle due to molestation, rejection, and abandonment that caused her to reject the call of God. She did everything to stifle, to sabotage, to kill the voice, the dreams and the vision of the Lord because she didn’t want religion. She took or wore the identity of shame, guilt, resentment and anger that almost cause

Imagine this, one gives all they have to serve God forever. They give up their family and move to a foreign land to give God’s love to savage men. Think about one of their closest loved ones taken away from them forever. One woman experienced just that. “I have one desire now- to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.”

Religion provides hope for those who are hopeless. It aims to welcome those who are alienated and feel that their life has no purpose. Religion served the same function in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as it does today. However, religion was embraced more during the Middle Ages by desperate

Many people believed that religious prayer would save them from their angry god, “Prayer was… a universal response to widespread outbreaks of illness, and many societies had prayers specifically written for such occasions.” (13) From a religious standpoint and not scientific, almost everyone believed that they were divine, and placed on earth by god. These people would attend ceremonies, or marches “in hopes of driving the disease out… ironically, bringing large numbers of people together for public gatherings actually facilitated the spread of contagious illness and may, in fact have worsened epidemics in many cases.” (12) Eventually, families noticed their prayers weren’t working, this confused people, they would repeatedly question what their society was doing wrong. This confusion ultimately lead to the feeling of hopelessness shared among their communities, in some extreme cases of ””” despair, individuals would lose their will to live.””” (113) Oftentimes, the power of colonial societies would be further weakened by an experience where “The introduction of Old World pathogens and the subsequent arrival of Christianity forced native societies to reevaluate and reinterpret their cosmological structures.” (112) The contemplation of switching to a new religion created an internal struggle

Her religious indoctrinations allowed for her subjugation but ultimately, she broke free from her false consciousness and used her faith as a tool to fight oppression. However, this is an atypical response and there is a disconnection between teachings of the church and her own developed religious beliefs that empowered her to fight. The church as an institution can and has been used as a tool of oppression, Menchú recognizes this “Catholic Action and other religions and the system itself have all tried to keep us where we were. But I think that unless a religion springs from within the people themselves, it is a weapon of the system” (Menchú 157). In her own words the church is a weapon of the system, the system of oppression. However in time

In a brief article, Reuters writes about the use of faith to transform criminals in El Salvador’s prisons and break the cycle of violence. Pastor Manuel Rivera, who was formerly a member of notorious gang Barrio 18, strives to use his voice to deliver a message of salvation to rows and rows of imprisoned gang members. According to the article, “by embracing religion, these men can leave their gangs without retaliation” (Cabezas, Jose). In fact, the majority of the inmates have found redemption, which “shows the country that it is possible to rehabilitate those in the Mara Salvatrucha or other gangs”(Cabezas, Jose). It is not unusual for people to “look for God” when going through hardships. However, while it probably exists elsewhere, this