Religious Identity

"Religious identity often is conflated with racial or ethnic identity." It is one of the more complicated identities, not determined by but affected by region, practice, lifestyle, and family. Officially, religious identity is the sense of belonging to a religious group. Unfortunately, because of its profound affect on peoples lives, it cannot be confined to just what religion people identify with, but must be expanded to how people's lives are changed by religion and how people's experiences change their religious views.  My cultural experience has been with religious people, and with the help of surveys, interviews and new experiences, I have collected information on how other people's religious identity affects their life.

According to the CIA, 78.5% of all Americans identify themselves with Christianity, putting that religion in the majority. This majority is evident in the United States, but definitely is different throughout the world. In the United States, people who identify with no religions make up only 4% of Americans, and people who consider themselves unaffiliated or are unspecified make up 14.6%. This mere 18.6% can be seen as a minority in many places in the United States. After looking into how religion affects people's lives, one of the more interesting topics I have found is that church attendance is declining. Because going to church is very foreign to me, I looked more into it and found that it somewhat correlates to our nation's prosperity. My overall goal became to further find out how religion affected 79% of Americans and how their experiences changed their view on religion.

After speaking with a number of people, the most prominent characteristic is that regardless of how religious people were, it has made a big impact on their lives. Many people will only talk about it with their close friends, and most people also use their faith as an indicator of moral goodness. Beyond that, it seems that many religious people do not let their religion determine who they interact with and for the most part how they interact with other people. It was interesting to find that lots of people who say they belong to a particular religion have unique and independent ideas on their religion. As far as how religion is affected by their life, one of my interviewees stated that "there is a direct correlation between the amount of time I have spent at a church and the desire to not practice a religion." This person is clearly unique and extreme in their opinions, especially when compared with others of the same religion, it is interesting that the responses that I have received illustrate a spectrum in many aspects in life.

I think that for me, someone who's religious identity involves not having come close to participating in religion, the research I have done on religious identity has shown that it is much more than just participating in a religion. When you try to communicate with someone from a different culture, the religious identity has yet to create a barrier that is impassible. It is also interesting and beneficial to learn more about how the majority of people I've talked to identify with each other and how they differ in their beliefs.

References:
CIA. (2012). The world factbook. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
Frey, B., & Gallus, J. (2011). Religion makes people happy, so why is church attendance declining? VOX
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.