Impact of Religion on Youth

“India has never been a symbol of unity of Hindu-Muslim civilization. It is not possible for the British Government to create homogeneity between Hindu and Muslim culture and civilization as the two systems are distinctively opposed to each other. There is no way other than the partition of India”

p. Religion caused turmoil for India, but as long as they all wanted the same thing as Indians, then they are able to get along today in the modern age.

In an effort to explain the meanings and differences that exist between spirituality, theology and psychology, the author

Dean has written a disturbing yet thought-provoking book on the current religious state of America’s teenagers. The background research for this book was the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). This was one of the largest studies ever of the religious views of teenagers. Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls “moralistic therapeutic deism.” In other words, it’s a watered-down faith that depicts God as a “divine therapist” whose primary objective is to boost people’s self-esteem.

Hinduism is one of the most diverse religions still practiced today. They are an adaptive religion, often taking in the local Gods of its followers, leading to many branches of the religion that occur much like dialects within a language. Although it is difficult to catalog all of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses, there is estimated to be over 300 million of them. It is common for people unfamiliar with the religion to generalize all those living on the Indian subcontinent as “Hindu”, since they are usually not aware of the many religions that are practiced in India, and how similar they can be. This generalization can trace its roots back to imperial British rule of the country. In an attempt to offer their colony representation in Parliament, a census was taken of the colony to offer representation based on religion. The census did not allow for the diversity of belief that occurs under the Hindu

India is a country full of mysteries and differences. It has a long history, a profound yet unique culture, with diversified nationalities, races, religions, languages and a huge population. The pursuit of secularism and inveteracy of sectarianism have brought huge influence to the Indian society. As the mainstream culture in India, Hinduism plays an important role in the Indian society and has dominated almost 2000 years of its history. Although in the following years since, the Indian culture gradually becomes a combination of different races, religions and languages, Hinduism still remains to be the key to dig into the development of the culture and society of India.

This French article discusses the current cultural and religious conflict in India. The author cites various individuals who argue that Muslims are purposely blamed for violence that affects both communities. As well, it stresses that the government is lacking actions in order to resolve the conflict. This article applies to psychology.

The “establishment” or “religion” clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (Education Week, 2003, para. 2). It is from this clause that the idea of separation of church and state comes. It is also the basis for much of the debate regarding the practice of religion in public schools (Education Week, 2003). One of the big questions regarding the religion issue is where to draw the line between separation of church and state and religious freedom. The practice of religion in public schools can balance these two ends by allowing students to individually

After a dynasty, empire, or society falls, it must rebuild anew after evaluating its recent political, cultural, and social influences. South Asia from 600 BCE to 600 CE, as well as Western Europe from 300 CE to 800 CE--both in stages of reformation-- were constructed in similar ways religiously with a present aspect of self-denial, and socially with the subordination of women partly due to religion. Yet, the two realms differed politically in that South India was more stable, and there was an evident contrast of how South India explored education in ways broader than solely religious ones.

This series draws to a close with the modern view of Hinduism and how it is currently practiced. If there is a dominate theme that characterizes Hinduism is its connection to the world today. Islam and Western culture has had a huge effect with the effectiveness of Hinduism. The Southern religion of India consist of the majority of Hindus. However, in the region of Northern India resides a large Muslim population. Both have stark differences in beliefs. With that, violence and opposition has resulted in much of the area. Not to draw a line, but Islam is partly a reason to this violence. To the Hindus, Islam is simply another caste of people. It is also important to note that the relations amongst these two religions has had its positive moments.

According to our text, “The religion of the overwhelming majority of Indians is Hinduism, the fourth largest in the world with about one billion adherents. Hinduism is both more and less than a religion as the West understands that term: It is a way of life, a philosophical system, an inspiration of art, and the basis of all Indian political theories in the past. But it is not a rigid set of theological doctrines.” (Adler & Pouwels, 2011, p. 51).

I created an online survey of seven questions and posted the URL publicly. The results of the survey were anonymous, and the participants were not made aware of the thesis statement of the essay in order to reduce bias. The results of the study were somewhat surprising and a bit counter-intuitive to my mind. The majority of people surveyed (62.5%) felt that religious studies should not be included in public education. Additionally, a slightly larger majority (65%) felt that faith and religion should not play any role whatsoever in influencing public school curriculum. Even more respondents (67.5%) felt that it was extremely important for science classes to teach material based on generally accepted scientific principles. Furthermore, an overwhelming

In order to fully understand how religion and spirituality are different, as well as how religion is exploited, one must first have an effective definition of the two terms. Religion is a certain mode of orientation towards reality (Howerth, 1983). This definition encompasses many things, and therefore personal beliefs cannot make up the whole of religion. Oftentimes, religion is seen as a moral standard for humans to evaluate their lives against. However, if one looks deeper into the reasons behind moral values, one finds that values that are virtuous are those that contribute to the development of society, and values that are dishonorable are those that impair the development of society. Religion consists of organized bodies that congregate with the purpose of creating social order (Bharati, 1971). When one looks at any religion, one can see this, but a blatant example is the religion of Hinduism. An integral part of this religion is the caste system. From an outside perspective, the caste system seems very cold and uninviting – the exact opposite of what the general public takes religion to be. However, the caste system served the purpose of organizing a society for many years (Mathur, 1974). According to the working definition of religion, the caste system of Hinduism is

Throughout history religion has been used as means to justify actions and to control people. The two earliest examples are Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. The time frames that will be discussed will be the reign of Cyrus, 521 to 486 BCE, and India from 1500 to 500 BCE, before the Persians had a direct effect on India. The Persian religion is thought to be Zoroastrianism or a derivative of it, called Achaemenian. (For this paper the Persian’s religion will be referred to as Zoroastrianism.) However, Cyrus did not strive to spread his religion he introduced his self into other religions as a divine figure. Hinduism is a religion whose origins are unknown but are speculated to have been initiated by the Aryan people. The development of the

In this essay I hope to look at the issues of conflict in South Asia focusing on India and in particular the continuing Hindu-Muslim tensions, and look at possible reasons for the continuing conflict which appears to have escalated since the withdrawal of British Rule from India. Multiple events had shaped the Indian subcontinent with