Sample Essay On Sociology Of Religion

Nowadays American society is definitely outliving a new phase of its development. Some of the characteristics are a change towards the scientific approach to living and a decrease of the religion popularity. By the religion, I mean all the religions that are the most represented in our world. Despite this fact, people have not stopped believing, they have simply changed the objects they believe in. The quantity of New Religious Movements in America is one of the highest in the whole world, I suppose. The parallel development of secularization and New Religious Movements seems a paradox; however, the appearance of the second ones could be logically explained.
First of all, when we spoke about the birth of many of these new religions, we were mentioning the second half of nineteenth century. After the Second World War the society needed some empowerment and rehabilitation. The old churches probably were not so supportive, plus, their stability was somehow under the threat. I believe that people were searching for the new way to unite and in order to do it, they have created new churches. There is also a chance that these churches were helping the society to believe they are building something new and valuable. People felt free to do what they wanted, there were no restrictions and so it was an opportunity to develop a new system of beliefs.
Other possible reasons are connected with a person itself. There is a chance that the development of the industry and science is so progressive that somehow people just need to get away from the new reality with the help of new religions. The rapid changes in the culture and lifestyle could also have spread this fashion of changes on religion as well. We should not also forget that such New Movements could be used in order to manipulate the people easier and even make money.