This is my question for you to think about and answer as you read this post.
I am focusing on "The New Individualism" section in Chapter 6 on pages 126-129 and more specifically quest religion because it was interesting to me.
Quest religion, defined by the book (Religion and Popular Culture in America), is religious seeking motivated by dissatisfaction with existing answers.
So, it is an individuals' or a questers' search for answers.
A quester may or may not be a part of an exisiting religious community as they seek for truth by themselves. They're willing to explore the depths of other religious traditions in order to find the truth or answers to their questions.
The book states it well, "questing is a kind of religious indivualism, one that refuses to accept pat answers and accepted dogmas. "
So, I decided to be a quester because I think it is good for an individual to seek out knowledge for themself and to examine their belief system. And the internet is a great way to find, compare and synthesize information, especially in the subjest of religion. For this blog I went to these sites and challenge you to do the same. http://www.beliefnet.com/, http://www.bible.com/, http://www.quran.org.uk/, and http://www.mormon.org/.
Here is my discovery from beliefnet.com. I took the 20 question Belief-O-Matic personality test (it is under the tab for "faiths & prayer"and I have posted my top 13 results for what religion my thoughts and values best matched (see below). I tied with a 100% match for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witness. This was followed by 82% for Orthodox Judaism. Try it yourself.
"Dear Heavenly Father, I am thankful for all of the good foods that You created for our pleasure. They have been a blessing and I have enjoyed them. Lord, help me not to over-indulge and put too much emphasis on food. Give me a desire to eat things that are good for me and deliver me from those things that are not healthy for me. Since You created our bodies, I trust Your wisdom to know what things are best for me to eat. Forgive me for any lust for food, and may I eat those things that will cause me to have a healthy body so that I can serve You without illness and lack of energy. I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen."
This Arabic text was on the home page of the quran.org.uk. It is the scripture of the day.
[27:14] And they rejected those Signs in iniquity and arrogance, though their souls were convinced thereof: so see what was the end of those who acted corruptly!
This was one of the screen shots on the home page of mormon.org:
I enjoyed my quest and will pose my question again: What do you think about quest religion and how is the internet helpful in quest religion?
I think it is a great way for people to really look and research religion. The Internet has amazing resources that can help someone on their quest. However, that being said, there is a lot of information on the Internet that is incorrect, misstated, or down right false and demeaning. Just do a Google search on Mormons and scroll down and go onto next pages. There is a lot of information about the Mormon faith that is completely off based. There is plenty of anti-Mormon propaganda through blogs and websites as well. The same could be said for most every religion. So if a person is going to use the Internet in order to "quest" religion, it is essential that the person only uses sources that are actually from that religion. If they do not, they will get a skewed idea of what the religion is all about. In summary, if a person is looking for religion, that person just needs to be sure the sources they are using represent a true picture of that religion.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of a person not being satisfied with their current spiritual standing, or perhaps not falling in line with the beliefs of their parents is actually something that has been going on for years and years. Missionaries don't have much luck converting those who aren't looking for religion, but instead we are happy to find those who are on a quest to find truth (or solace, happiness, meaning, etc.)
ReplyDeleteBut religion isn't something most people just ask their neighbors about, it's a cultural taboo. So in the age of THE MIGHTY GOOGLE, it makes sense that people would research religion on the internet. But as Casey said in the above response, the internet has many negative messages too.
In the end, it doesn't matter what I think about the internet and quest religion, because quest religion is important, and the internet will be used to help in that quest. Therefore as a missionary, I need to have my voice be a part of the throng.
I think everyone should be a quester, not only in religion but in every aspect of life. We should seek truth, and then rely on the Spirit for guidance on what we should and shouldn't believe after doing all we can to understand. The reason I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is because we have more truth than any other religion I've looked at, and we can back it up. I love that it makes sense, and can be argued but always seems to come around to truth again. And of course, the Spirit confirms what I've discovered.
ReplyDelete