Why does religion matter

Why does religion matter to you? Religion shapes our individual identity and it influences legal systems across the globe. Share this post. Religion Matters 24 Aug, Visit the course. Why Religion Matters 19 Apr, I found the content interesting and relevant to my own past and present interest in school as a teacher at a Great Course 18 Apr, Really interesting course, gave Really interesting course, gave me a lot to think about. Lot of ideas to think about 02 Sep, Interesting first step to be closer to religion topics.

Religion and Change 17 Apr, Great course, learnt lots 05 Apr, As a Christian, it was good to be reminded that people from Religion matters Religion shapes our individual identity and it influences legal systems across the globe. Our communities have been shaped by religious beliefs and practices. Religions are implicated in some of the worst of human violence.

Religion inspires some of the highest ethical ideals and behaviour. In an increasingly interconnected, global world, understanding religion — and how to interact with it — is more critical than ever. This complexity moves the question away from Why religion? What in each tradition promotes peace instead of war? Tolerance instead of contempt? Self-criticism instead of smug superiority? And these questions, far from abstract, are in fact being forced on religions by world conditions.

Indeed, it is the shift in world politics — in demographics, in patterns of ethnic dispersal, in the explosion of information technology — that has transformed the situation of religion, especially of the formerly dominant religions of European imperialism. Today everybody is the next-door neighbor and spiritual neighbor of everyone else in the world. Absolute claims are the issue. The challenge for religions of all kinds, but perhaps especially for religions based on narratives of divine revelation, is to make positive assertions of faith that do not simultaneously denigrate the different tenets of faith held by others.

Religious denigration is a source of violence. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions. There will be no dialogue between the religions without the investigation of the foundations of the religions. The new condition of world politics that has brought so much trouble with it is also the source of hope, because formerly triumphalist traditions now have no choice — precisely because of religious elbow-rubbing — but to encounter the truth claims of others.

That means that the foundational assumptions of every religion must now be the subject of reexamination. Just such a thing is going on inside Roman Catholicism. And if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. Since the Holocaust, fundamental tenets of Catholic belief have been called into question — especially aspects of the faith that have spawned the Christian anti-Judaism, which was so powerfully laid bare by its mutation into Nazi anti-Semitism.

The apology in by Pope John Paul II for various sins of Catholic triumphalism, especially Catholic contempt for Jews and Jewish religion, is an emblem of this process, and one that marks its beginning, not its end.

Adjustments must follow in claims made for Jesus, in notions of who God is, in the way sacred texts are understood and taught, in the very structure of thought about what it means to be a Catholic. Even in the throes of crisis, the Church is invigorated by a fierce debate — and it is a debate with itself.

It is for adherents of each faith to define, but some version of this grappling with fundamental belief can be seen to be occurring in other religions — certainly in Judaism, where the question of what it is to be a Jew is being asked with new power. And so with Islam. These major aspects of life provide an insightful portrait of the success of returned missionaries in the various roles of adulthood.

Part of this assessment was to identify similarities and differences between men and women in their lives after a mission. The second question we set out to answer is, Are missionaries who returned home three decades ago as committed to the gospel as those who have returned more recently? We wanted to ascertain whether the so-called secularization of American society has reduced the faithfulness of returned missionaries Lechner, ; Yamane, Over 30 years ago, John Madsen surveyed a large sample of returned missionaries; we compared the religiosity found in the Madsen study to that of the returned missionaries in our study.

We anticipated that the religiosity among returned missionaries has at least remained comparable or has perhaps even increased. Finally, the third question is, What can parents, Church leaders, and the returned missionaries themselves do to ease the adjustment of returning home after a mission? We identified the challenges returned missionaries face; how they cope with these challenges; and what their parents, bishops, elders quorum presidents, Relief Society presidents, and others can do to assist in the adjustment back to life at home.

We especially focused on the continued Church activity of the returned missionaries. This is a very large proportion of the young men in the Church, and little is known about them. We anticipated that many of the young men who had not served a mission later met an active LDS young woman, married her in the temple, and raised a family in the gospel.

We also collected information about schooling, career development, family life, and Church activity from young men and young women who did not go on missions but were the same age as the returned missionaries we studied. In other words, we examined the activities and accomplishments of young men and women who would have been back from a mission 2, 5, 10, and 17 years, just like their returned-missionary counterparts of the same age.

The transition and maturation experiences of LDS teens and young adults we focused on in our year research program included avoiding delinquency; enhancing academic achievement and educational aspirations; strengthening feelings of self-worth; serving a mission at the appropriate age; keeping the commandments; attaining an education; realizing greater self-worth in college; and finally dating, marrying, and establishing an eternal family in a gospel context.

This chapter gives an overview of our research program, including specific descriptions of our various research projects, the different factors we studied, and how we gathered the data. The chapters that follow are in-depth discussions of the various studies and our specific findings. We have organized the book so that each chapter discusses a different aspect of religious influence in the lives of LDS teens and young adults.

Chapter 2 describes the overall religiosity of high school students, college students, and young adults under the age of 40 years. We assess the acceptance of religious beliefs, attendance at church meetings, and other public behaviors; the performance of personal prayer and similar private behaviors; participation in religious experiences such as feeling the Spirit, family home evening, and other family religious practices; and acceptance among fellow Church members.

LDS youth with high levels of religiosity are compared to those with lower levels. Chapter 3 demonstrates that religiosity may be a deterrent to delinquency. How religiosity enhances feelings of self-worth or self-esteem is demonstrated in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6 we discuss the importance of religiosity to sexual purity. In that chapter we examine those factors that appear to be most directly linked to moral cleanliness in teens. Latter-day Saint young adults are the primary focus in Chapters 7, 8, and 9.

The findings discussed in these chapters are drawn from large samples of young adults throughout the United States and from Brigham Young University students at the three campus sites—Provo, Utah; Laie, Hawaii; and Rexburg, Idaho.

The role of religion in dating and marriage is the focus of Chapter 7. Factors affecting the postponement or avoidance of marriage are examined. Chapter 8 examines the role of religion in the establishment of families among LDS young adults. We look at the relationships among temple marriage, marital satisfaction, divorce, and the rearing of children.

As a result of this statistic, we felt it important to also understand the religiosity of that group. Thus, the chapter also reports the religiosity, educational accomplishments, family life, and careers of young adults who did not serve. Chapter 9 explores the religiosity, educational attainment, family life, and career development of men and women who have served full-time missions for the Church.

Information is included about the Church activity, family life, and careers of returned missionaries who have been home for 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, and 17 years. Considerable media attention has focused on antidepressant prescriptions being exceptionally common in Utah.

Many point to the demands of LDS Church membership as the source of deep guilt and associate this guilt with depression in Utahns. Chapter 10 compares rates of depression among members of the Church and the general population. In addition, it explores the relationship between religiosity and mental health. The final chapter summarizes the myriad of findings reported in this book to illustrate the pervasive influence of the gospel on the lives of LDS teens and young adults.

Over the years, our findings from these different studies have been published in a variety of venues. Many of these previously published articles are not easily accessible to the average reader. In addition, some of the results have never before been published and made available to a general audience. The purpose of this book is to bring all of this research together in a single volume that is accessible and understandable. It is our hope that this work will give a comprehensive view of the role of religion in the lives of Latter-day Saint teens and young adults and help parents, friends, and leaders to better understand what they can do to help young people face the challenges of our modern world.

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