Religious Affiliation As A Choice

James Fowler developed his stages of faith after conduction in-depth interviews of 359 people. The sample subjects were predominately white, with equal numbers of males and females and included a wide range of ages, from three and a half to 84 years old. Fowler’s interviews consisted of 30 plus questions regarding the subject’s life experiences, relationships, values, commitments and religion. After analyzing the responses, Fowler placed each subject in one of six faith stages. The responses indicated that as the subject’s age increased, so did their stage of faith (Hutchison, 2015).

What does psychology have to do with the Christian faith? In Psychology and Christianity: Five Views, by Myers, Jones, Roberts, Watson, Coe, Hall, and Powlison (2010) is an introductory textbook for Christian psychology that provides sound arguments for an array of positions on psychology and faith. Each author contributed an essay and in return the other essayist respond by either agreeing or disagreeing by pointing out faults and explaining why.

In the study of religion, one can quickly discern that there are two major differentiations between the anthropological definition of religion, and that of religion in the context of belief systems. Religion, in the context of anthropology, can often be related to social institutions. On the other hand, religion in the context of belief systems indicate faith in something or someone...such as oneself, a god, or object. As identified by scholar Clifford Geertz, the anthropological definition of religion is “a system of symbols which acts to (1) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (2) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (3) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality

Presented with the task of assessing someone’s faith development required the answers to three essential questions. How has social learning played a part in the individual’s religious development? How has attachment played a part in the individual’s religious development? Upon answering these questions we must then evaluate the stages of faith development in which the individual is in according to James Fowler and David Elkind. After thorough evaluation has occurred the question pertaining to the role of doubt can then be answered. With these questions in mind, the theory that religious beliefs and adherence to spiritual faith are ultimately tested and proved during adolescence was the driving thought throughout the process of interviewing

Most of the human ‘Homo sapiens’ is born into a religion. That religion could be Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Atheism, etc, a set of beliefs which someone inherits from his family, and till the death, that man will likely stay with his or her religion because almost every human has tendency to be religious. On the other hand, the reality of the religion does not matter to him unless someone conducts any investigation to get to the religious truth. In the essay ‘Homo religiosus,’ Karen Armstrong says that, today’s religious followers accept the religion into which they were born, without doing the hard work required. This means that someone follows his ancestor’s religion from the beginning for his life and he or she is not able to prove his ancestors were wrong because he or she has faith in his own religion. Faith is the main concept of the religion because people have deep faith in their own religion. In addition, faith is nothing but mere fantasy and faith has no basis in reality. Therefore, people have no ability to conduct investigations to find out the religious truth. In addition, elements and places of religion vary from religion to religion. Religion is one of the most prehistoric institutions which have been noticed to practice in any society past and present even in the ancient world where cave paintings were popular. Institutions, like politics and entertainments, have been greatly influenced by the religious faith. The truth of religion might give

When America adopted the term Freedom, as far back as the country’s founding. To how we as a nation obtained freedom and the patriots who had to fight several wars in order to continue to possess it. As citizens and members of a society, we are extremely fortunate to have several different types of freedoms. Although this is a good thing in some cases, there comes to a point where too much freedom can be dangerous because there would essentially be no protection for the people. To prevent this from happening, we give up particular freedoms and swap it for safety. The freedoms that are most important to me are religion, economic, education, and gun control. With that being said, there should be the same “restriction” on each of the freedoms, no acts of violence will be condoned.

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

We all know that religion is an organized system regarding the spiritual or supernatural along with various practices that give numerous individuals a sense of purpose in the world and allows these individuals to understand things beyond their reach. However, while reading the articles from “Nones on the Rise,” it is evident that there is an increase in the number of individuals who claim unaffiliation to any religion in the United States. “Nones” gives the facts and figures of the Americans who do not place themselves in any religious category, with an approximate one in five of the public claiming no affiliation. But there are some individuals who denote themselves as spiritual or religious in some way. The entire article is an intriguing one because it breaks everything down, from what it means to be unaffiliated religiously to the composition of the unaffiliated, the demographics of the unaffiliated and theories as to why there is an increase in the numbers of the years. It is interesting to see how people view themselves when it comes to their beliefs.

Religion is a species-specific human universal phenomenon, complex, full of paradoxes, and found in all cultures. Social scientists and anthropologists since the late 17th century have attempted to rationally answer questions about religion, and while we can't evaluate the veracity of religion’s claims, we can attempt to understand its functions.

It is impossible to get at the roots of one’s religious attitudes without taking in account the psychological and historical factors that play upon the individual.  (Hamilton 19).

The main idea in Eitzen and Zinn’s article is that religion is shaped by society. The social groups that shares the same norms are connected as they are taught what society portrays as the acceptable way to behave. However, religion is also the leading cause of separation in communities due to believes being imposed upon non-believers whose preferences differ from the mainstream.

James Fowler has suggested that individual religious faith unfolds in a stage sequence similar to Piaget’s cognitive development. He defines faith as “a dynamic and generic human experience that includes, but is not limited to or identical with religion” Fowler’s stages of faith development is composed by seven stages: primal faith (infancy), intuitive /projective faith, mythical/literal faith, synthetic/conventional faith, individualize/reflective faith, conjunctive faith, and universalizing faith.

Religion, whether we realize it or not, is a major element of American society (and also worldwide history). For many, religion is a significant part of their cultural identity. Religion plays a part in all levels of politics and is often an aspect of community events and organizations. Everyday, we all interact with people who have different religious backgrounds and personal beliefs. Children born into religious families are very connected with their religions from birth and this affects the way they will see the world for the rest of their lives. Even those who later explore other faiths or convert to other religious ideas will be affected in

Individual accounts of psychology in the readings, despite negligible difference, are evidence that an individual’s behavior or experience can be reflective of a greater societal trend. Karen Armstrong’s work “Homo Religiosus” analyzes the transformation of the religious institution over time and the various practices performed by individuals and groups. Armstrong describes a spiritual Palaeolithic hunter tradition to transition a boy into manhood:

Religious faith is important to most Americans, with approximately 95% of Americans reporting belief in God and about 50% being active in church organizations (Gallup & Castelli, 1989). Despite the widespread prevalence of religious beliefs in society, some researchers have maintained that religion and religious beliefs are often neglected in psychological research (Jones, 1994; Plante, 1996). This neglect stems from a couple of different factors. First, it is difficult for psychologists to overcome the fact that believers in many religions claim to have unique access to the truth. Secondly, truly theological questions such as the existence of God or the nature of an afterlife are often ignored by scientists. This may be in part a