Question

How have our social and community trends been influenced by, and in turn impact, our religious institutions?

Answer 1

Religion plays an important role in shaping a person’s personality, attitudes and perspectives because God is considered to be the top most entity in any given society and religion is the institution that helps the existence of God. The scriptures that are considered to be the words of God or God’s words through the prophets, determines the norms of that particular religion. The family make-up, the individual discipline, the role of women and the societal hierarchy are all determined by the religion. Religion is also the reason for people go into superstitious beliefs.

With the advent of science, religion is losing its grip on societies, especially individualistic societies have lost their belief in religion. The advancement in science has questioned lots of institutionalized beliefs that the religions set-up long ago. People have grown and they have become completely human only at the end of the twentieth century. If we look at the White Europeans who held the black people as slaves for a quite long period, we could understand that religion has never stopped them from practicing slavery and treating a fellow human equally. Today, only the collective societies hold religion highly but as those societies also embrace more technological and societal changes, religions are becoming less important in determining the individuals’ and social behaviors.