The Religiously Neutral (Sumblog 4)

        The article “Nones” On the Rise by Pew Research really interested me because I consider myself to be religiously non-affiliated. What was interesting for me is learning about how religiously unaffiliated people still affiliated with a higher being or a sense of some other existence. Even some went so far as to agree that God existed and that religion is important in their everyday lives.

          I think that this is interesting because that would not be the same definition that I would give for someone who is religiously unaffiliated. I think that there is a really big tug of war going on about what it means to be religious in America and even all over the world-however I’m going to just focus on America for time’s sake. I see a lot of people say that they are unaffiliated because of multiple reasons; they either don’t like the politicking that religious organizations do. They don’t think that they conform to the Church as much as their Grandparents did. They don’t practice the same as their parents or grandparents. However, I don’t think that this means they are any less religious then their parents or grandparents.

          I think the generations before ours, there was a large push for them to be actively involved in their church services- whether that was going to Mass, participating in communion, being baptized or anything else. Being a part of a church meant you were religious, being heavily involved in a church meant you were extremely religious. I think that our culture has changed over the past 20 to 30 years and pushed that action behind-however the idea that you are religious only if you attend church is still strongly holding onto how we view ourselves. I think that this change is something that needs to be shifted in order for people to feel secure in their beliefs.

          Being religious doesn’t have to the look the same as it did 20 or 30 years ago. In fact, I would argue that the change we see now is for a more individualistic religion but not any less religious. These changes aren’t horrible in fact I think there will always be a need for there to be a church and for people to be attending that and building that community. I just also think that there has been some serious growth in how we express religion in our day-to-day lives.

This is "What the "Religiously Unaffiliated" Believe" it's not a video it is a radio talk show on NPR that is really popular, and this broadcasting is about what religiously unaffiliated people believe in. It's very interesting and closely relates to what the PEW reports found. It is a fairly long video, and is broken into two parts. I hope you learn from it as much as I did!


What the "Religiously Unaffiliated" Believe - Part 1 of 2

What the "Religiously Unaffiliated" Believe - Part 2 of 2