RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT

Identifying reasons that might lead individuals to make a study of religion

Identifying reasons that might lead individuals to make a study of religion

Introduction

This article interpreting the reasons that how an individual study the religious structure which requires interpreting the antecedents and consequences of religious content and belief, religious and spritual functional life and structure. This paper furthermore needs describing how an existential practice can be deduced in a distinct way as unusual times in life span and with distinct difficulty, approaches and meaning-making capabilities. Lastly, this entails interpreting that how religious development illuminate expansion and producing modification that does not need to deny the common enlightening postmodern society. Our approach is an individual centered in that religious undertakings is distinguished as rooted in the individual who is absorbed in and affected by life events, learning and culture (Keltner, 2003).

Discussion

There are several reasons that might lead individuals to make a study of religion. This involves the increasing relationship between an individual and a particular institutionalized doctrine and tradition associated to a divine being, supernatural other, or absolute truth. Religious development is a convoluted subject, as it involves the development of an individual's capability to enlist with religion. Determining the influence of religion on the lives of people of all ages is undeniable, the dearth of research on religious and spiritual issues for the developing personality understates this influence. We argue that those aspects of personality most relevant to religious development constantly evolve to incorporate new life experiences. During childhood and adolescence, one's motivation to perform certain behaviors and hold specific beliefs has the potential to change dramatically as new demands and challenges are presented. Children and adolescents, as intentional beings, can also alter and shift their everyday goals as they develop. Finally, we contend that these changes in motivation and goals are manifested in the life narratives and stories children and adolescents tell of their lives (Keltner, 2003).

The reasons why an individual engages in religious practices and has religious and spiritual beliefs provide rich information about personality development. Developmentally, the internalization and integration of external regulations into the self is a process. Individuals increasingly tend to internalize external regulations as they age, lending support to the notion that the developing self strives to become more autonomous. It might be expected that as children grow, they also are more able to internalize their religious beliefs, values, and behaviors at higher, more self-determined levels. James Fowler's stages of faith (1981) point to this increasing propensity for internally motivated religious and spiritual beliefs. Moving to a higher stage of faith requires development on an individual in cognitive abilities, and can aid the explanation as to why children have less mature faiths than adolescents and adults. One might expect that, like Fowler's stages of faith, children and adolescents will be more able to internalize religious and spiritual beliefs and behaviors as they age, given that they are socialized in a warm, autonomy-supportive environment. Religious internalization has yet to be examined in children, but there is ...