Religion in the US (Sumblog 2)

During lecture we talked about religion in the US and the roles it plays in individuals' lives. Many people report that they are religious. In fact, 80 percent of Americans identify themselves as being religious. However, even though so many people claim they are religious, only around 20 percent regularly attend church services. This could be due to the use of the word "church" since some religions may not have a "church" service that is important to their religion. Many people may even say that church attendance has nothing to do with being religous and it should not be a determining factor.
 
We also discussed how belonging, behaving, and believing relate to religion in America. A sense of belonging relates to how well a person feels connected to a certain religion. It can be either self-described or researcher described. Behavior is more so how a person acts in a particular religion. Behavior could include frequency of attendance, pray, reading sacred text, donations to the church whether time or money, volunteer work or missionizing, or other various religious activities. Some people may participate in these activities for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons, meaning whether they are doing it strictly for themselves or if they are doing it for status quo. Belief is the person's views in the religion. Things like the belief in a single God or many Gods,, the after life such as heaven or hell, the soul, and miracles. Other things could be beliefs in prophets, sin, or how sacred text is viewed.

Religion is a very important part of the American society. A large majority of the populations identify themselves as religious and plays a large role in how a person acts. While not everyone may think of religion the same way or agree on what it means to be religious, I believe it is important to study the effects it may have on individuals and society.