Observing religion through social media

Religion has a unique role and is portrayed through different lights in each individual and within each culture.  Within our current social standards, I was interested in a healthy debate sparked by religion. I was curious if a majority of people would be as comfortable speaking out about their religious beliefs as they would their daily routines on social media. Fortunately, the result of my three questions varied greatly in answers and leaves me with the ability to analyze the questions and answers in my convenience sample group. To gather enough information to analyze the effect of religion, I reached out to my friends on Facebook and asked the following three questions:

1. Where do religious beliefs come from? Where did your personal beliefs come from?

2. If people from different religions are each told conflicting information by their respective gods, should any of them be believed? Why?

3. A theory called Berger’s Sacred Canopy claims that religion is a sacred canopy stretching over society, providing a shield that protects people from the uncertainties, meaninglessness and pointlessness of life, by helping them interpret and make sense of the world and their position in it. This sacred canopy contributes towards the maintenance of social stability. Do you agree or disagree with how this theory represents religion? Why?

            A majority of responses to the first question at hand were along the lines of, “Religious beliefs came from those before us.” This statement is true, but vague. This raises the question; do many people know the roots of their own religion? Religion and the teachings of a specific religion has been passed through time, but the earliest recorded religion only dates back 4,500 years – which is just a blink of human existence. Religion has not always been passed down, but had originated at a certain point in time and evolved. One response that created a new page of thought was:

“Religious beliefs develop came from humans trying to explain occurrences and actions in the natural world without evolved scientific thinking. And then humans started attributing meaning to those natural events as evidence that there was existence of supernatural powers / beings. That evolved into religious beliefs.”

            The second question had a response that really captured my attention was as follows:

“I believe that is up to the individual. I personally believe that God has many names and has presented himself to many cultures differently. Jesus, Allah, Buddha, are all different sides of the same coin for different societies. All teach the same basic lessons. Be kind, love everyone, do what is right and just.
As for the tomes/books of each religion, the were all books written by man. Changed many times throughout the centuries. I believe some things were changed to suit the writers. Each society throughout the ages has always had one main God, called by many different names. Some call him The Creator, God, Great One, just to name a few. I do not believe that God would send millions of people all over this great Earth to their doom for not believing in God the same way.”

The overall idea of this response being that all religions have different figures of worship, such as deities within Hinduisms or Allah with Muslims, but the core of every religion is practicing positive values and being rewarded with a level of spiritual bliss. It goes to prove that we are moving close to multiculturalism as an effect of globalization. We are currently learning to coexist with so many different religions.

            The third question, which touches on Berger’s Sacred Canopy theory, had many quick to disagree with the theory. This theory makes their faith feel of less importance to be a “shield that protects the people from uncertainty. This level of defense only proves the theory to be that much stronger. This is seen in the following response:

            “I disagree- I think that it takes a lot of courage to stand up from what you believe and follow your faith.”

            Upon reading these responses, Karl Marx’s idea of religion being “opium for the people” came to mind. In a counterargument, wouldn’t it also take a lot of courage for an atheist to stand up for their disbelief in a predominately religious community? The idea that following a religion is courageous is an idea that has be transcended through religious texts and spiritual stories. This helps give the faith a level of desirability and comfort, as Berger’s Sacred Canopy theory suggests.

            Amongst all responses, the common ground was these individuals acknowledging in their statements a group unity that religion creates. Terms like our, us, around me, etc. were used in nearly every response on the post. My three questions prove, there is not one answer that is right or wrong, and there is not one answer that proves why religion exists. Religion is individualistic in belief, but is a social unity when the faith is voiced and practiced.  

I was very pleased with the openness of my friends and the results of my self-motivated experiment!