Religion And Religious Identity

I never considered being religious as being strange or special in any kinds of way, or that I need to fit to this part of my identity. It was just part of my identity. A fact, which was obvious. When I grew up, I mostly encounter people, who were just like me, so people who were not religious could be the one who are strange and not the opposite. However, in my psychometry course, I was the only religious.

Is it possible to be a Muslim without believing the validity of the prophecies of Mohammed? Is it possible to be a Christian without believing in the resurrection of Jesus? My definition of religion transformed greatly during my studies the past few months. Even as a religion major at St. Olaf College I thought of religion very narrowly, as a construct of metaphysical beliefs. But I've come to realize that religion runs far deeper than my Lutheran mind previously conceived.

     Religion plays a part in a person's identity structure. It is the search of what one calls faith in one's self and the worship of either one supreme being or numerous beings. But religion comes in different formalities. There are those who were raised practicing their religion, those who were influenced and converted, and those who were brainwashed. People who practice a certain religion will more likely raise their children under that same religion. Being raised practicing a religion creates the virtues and morals for that person's identity from an early stage. It helps parents create a sense of direction and inflict the core values their children need. Some people have

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

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.

We have the religion side being embedded everywhere around us. It might not say it all directly, but between some of the wording can make the connection. Many of our families have been religious that we can understand each other. We all have fears that are within us, so for generations, families like mine are in the Catholic religion. This also includes, when my family did not go to church people always questioned if my beliefs were still there within me.

This non-religion is coming from the new forms of entertainment that back in the 18th century was readily accepted or around. These new ways that technology has influenced the way we see and picture religion has caused people to forget completely about religion as the whole. This is decreased practice of religion is also based on how our society is shaping up now it more about everything you do you do it yourself and no one else helps you not even God, it’s just you and you’re the only one who has made it possible to achieve these goals. These people that still don’t identify themselves with a religion still might but, “religiously unaffiliated adults pray far less frequently compared with those who identify with a religion, and an increasing share of religious “nones” say they seldom or never pray.” The group of non-religious people is slowly growing but they still show some gratitude to God even if they do not have a religion.

     Throughout history, religion has impacted the lives of millions whether at school, work, with friends, or by some tragedy. Religion can change the way people view their existence. Religion also plays a big role in the infiltration of values into the loves of many young people today. In a recent pole printed in the USA Weekend Paper, “34% of respondents [said] Religion plays a powerful role in their everyday lives.” These student respondents “cited religion as the second-strongest influence in their lives outranked only by parents.” Religion also surpassed the world-renounced media as an influence in their lives (Lerman. 1).

Compared to previous generations, Millennials are significantly less religious (Twenge, Exline, Grubbs, Sastry & Campbell, 2015). Since 2010, 12th grade adolescents were seventy-five percent more likely than adolescents of previous generations to say religion was not important to them. Cultural shifts toward higher individualism and materialism has provided a possible correlation to this decline in religious significance. Surveys conducted since 1972 showed incremental increases in the number of American adults claiming no religion at just eight percent, but since 1990 there has been a sharp and steady increase to 20 percent as of 2012 (Hout, Fischer & Chaves, 2013). With each new generation, there has been a decline in support for traditional

I found the analysis in Robert Putnam and David Campbell book “American Grace”, of how much religion has change over the last 50 years most interesting and helpful to understanding how religion changes with the culture. In the book, Putnam and Campbell say America has experienced three seismic shocks in the last 50 years. In the 1960s religious congregants plummeted due in part to the older generations expectations of the younger generations. Then, in the 1970s and the 1980s the country had transformed tremendously in all aspects more for worse than the better giving the conservatives of the time an opportunity to resurrect evangelicalism and gave rise to the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, young people especially have been turned off by

Religion is crap. People are becoming more aware of religion's effects on the word and civilization as a whole. As a result more people are becoming more atheist and agnostic. Christianity is on the decline and Americans are becoming more aware and free thinking.

Parental Influence on adolescence - In many ways most kids continue to practice the religion their parents taught them was right and just.

Youth are moving away from traditional religious practices and more towards spirituality. One of the reasons that youth today are moving away from traditional religion is the way they were raised. In the 1960s there was a peace and hippy movement leading to many people seeking spirituality outside of organised religion. This then lead to their children not being raised to follow traditional religions such as Christianity as had been done in the past making them more accepting of other forms of spirituality.

In selecting a religion, one accepts a label and an identity than defines them as long as they are a member of such a faith. For example, I am a Jain, a follower of Jainism. My identity is quite heavily based on the tenets and history that Jainism has, e.g. nonviolence and desire for knowledge. Similarly, Jews and Christians subscribe themselves to certain identities that then bring about certain connotations about what their worldview is. Identity in both Judaism and Christianity has developed as a result of the ways in which they worship their God. Such worship took shape in the people’s histories and subscription to the rituals that developed lends one to accept one identity over the other. Those subscriptions outwardly mark people as members of one faith and give them the identity of, in this case, Jew or Christian.

Identity is a word that is used very commonly and regularly by people in their daily life. Identity formation is a process of developing distinct, separate identity. “A person’s identity has many attributes. It is a representation of one’s unique personal experience, memory, ethnicity, culture, religious orientation, gender, occupational role, amongst various other factors. Erikson refers to identity as “some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image.”Identity may be defined as one’s consciousness of one self and others’ perception of one’s individuality”, (Yamin, 2008).