Categories
2008 Abstracts Stage 2

Is there Still a Place for Religion in Today’s Society?

Amy Johnson, 2008, Stage 2

The dilemma of whether there is still a place in today’s society is one that still poses a lot of questions, and so I decided to look in more detail at the issue for the basis of my project. I used ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown in order to look at how literature has changed to reflect the decline of religion and faith in society. I realised that due to technological advances, such as developments in medicine, religion and faith have begun to take a backseat in terms of how much influence they still have in people’s lives. Alongside this was the discovery of the fact that religion itself could have changed in that Dan Brown claims that the church itself has been hiding a huge secret: that the Holy Grail is in fact not a chalice as Christians for millions of years have believed, rather it is a woman- Mary Magdalene – and there still exists today the bloodline of Jesus Christ, living descendants. Is it possible that after all this time the Christian faith has been based on a lie? And if that is the case, can it be said that the Christian faith is worth any less? After looking at how religion has changed I moved on to begin to introduce philosophical concepts into my project. I drew on ideas and notions put forward by philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Friedrich Nietzsche: o He did not believe in the divinity of religion, the idea that religion allowed us access to another dimension of reality. o He claimed that science cast doubt on the comfort of religion. o He believed it was fear, not faith that drove people to religion. o He argued that the Christian conception of God was one of the most corrupt images of God to exist. o God is dead. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: He suggested that people were in search of miracles as opposed to looking for a place for God in their lives. He thought that people believed in God because they desired to, not because they truly believed. He advocated a Christianity in which human redemption and resurrection could occur on earth. Every individual has the ability to choose whether or not to believe in God. Throughout my entire project I have attempted to link religion with society, or alternatively assess how society has changed so much that there now is no place in society for religion. The philosophical concepts I used seemed to suggest a change in faith and religion and this is something that I explored in my project. It is evident that religion has less significance in society, and by religion I am referring to the ‘motions’ of religion, such as going to church. However I discovered that many people still call themselves Christians, and so even though religion has declined there is still faith and belief in God, so this led me to conclude that religion might be declining within society, but there is still evidence of God today.

Leave a Reply