Can you do theology without faith

The survey was conducted in April and November of Minimal statistical weighting was used to calibrate the sample to known population percentages in relation to demographic variables. Millennials : Born between and Gen-Xers : Born between and Boomers : Born between and Elders : Born between or earlier.

Practicing Christia n: Those who attend a religious service at least once a month, who say their faith is very important in their lives and self-identify as a Christian. Evangelicals : meet nine specific theological criteria. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent on church attendance, the denominational affiliation of the church attended or self-identification.

Spiritual but Not Religious 1 : Those who self-identify as spiritual but say their faith is not very important in their lives. Spiritual but Not Religious 2 : Those who self-identify as spiritual but do not claim any faith atheist, agnostic or unaffiliated. About Barna Barna research is a private, non-partisan, for-profit organization under the umbrella of the Issachar Companies.

Located in Ventura, California, Barna Group has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since The spiritual but not religious hold much looser ideas about God, spiritual practices and religion. Click To Tweet Demographic Trends: Southwestern and Liberal These two groups equally make up around 8 percent of the population combined, they make up 11 percent of the population—as there is some overlap between the two.

Millennials : Born between and Gen-Xers : Born between and Boomers : Born between and Elders : Born between or earlier Practicing Christia n: Those who attend a religious service at least once a month, who say their faith is very important in their lives and self-identify as a Christian. Your cart. Footnote Martyrdom is a sacrifice, why would I do that? In the in-depth interviews with natural and social scientists at 21 top U. He tries to explain that, the strangeness of something is the work of our position in the universe as opposed to emanating from the supremacy or inaccessibility of that thing.

Each of these orientations are reflections of the need to belong to a transcendent cause, and this makes it right for us to take these individuals into the dimension of doubt. From the perspective of the present study, most of them believe in God in some way. Jung: Now!? Difficult to answer. I know.. I know. Just beyond the cognitive chaos that starts at the limen of the vortex, belongs an absolute certainty created by that chaos, wrapped by it, and has even become an inseparable element of it.

It arises from an expansion of the conscious-Ego carried towards the unconsciousness. This expansion creates its own footprint on the conscious. One dimension of this expansion should be related to the divine, according to Jung , p. Those who have discernment, the knowing group, may transform the interpretation of the fundamental suppositions dogma of their dogmatic map, so that it matches the newly added scientific informations. They dare transform their dogma because they feel that the new interpretation is compatible with the wishes of God.

However, the doubtful believers cannot perform this, or they show insufficient performance. I believe that such people are hypocrites. When a confirmation needed, they prefer not to touch to culturally presented forms. Nevertheless, there are exceptions to be examined later. However, the knowing individual accepts his dogma or the essence of it as it is, and basically attempts to prove his mind to his dogma.

Skeptics may be contented to doubt the religious rules because they may not want to surrender to these rules when rules contradict with their desires. For example, the deist M53 was asked about the difference of God he believes from the God of theists. Descartes Popkin, , p. According to Descartes, doubt is always about faith, even though strong skeptics may not be aware.

The skeptic is certain of his reason because he may confirm it by his own suspicion, but the dogma is behind a curtain. As Legare et al. A skeptic may not have a dogma to put his hearth and soul for the sake, but he still has the deepest need of humankind: to endeavor for the sake of a great cause. According to Maslow when other needs are satisfied, the individual connects his Ego to an entity that is greater than his being or beyond the material world.

This fundamental need is deeply held; while other needs are still being felt and answered. Because, the dogma that was previously suspected is more valuable now. Dogmatic map consists of two parts: a Dogma and b Information Sets.

There is also a c Deeper Dogma see Table 1 which is not part of the dogmatic map, but its character there is a God versus I am the god and the relationship the believer establishes with it I know the God versus I believe in God without knowing It Footnote 15 affect the interaction between dogma and information sets.

In the case of knowers, deeper dogma serves as a reference point for which parts of dogma can be re-considered to adapt to the changes in the information set.

In other respect, it also serves as a reference point for clarifying, which parts of the dogma are untouchable. There are also ontological and metaphysical issues that can be dealt with under the title of c Nature. Cosmogony, creation, space and earth are among them. M32 is a good example for this situation. Current dogmatic maps are subject to creative destruction if there is an information entry into the system, because new information needs to be added and it often does not fit the existing map.

For the individual with little knowledge, this dogma becomes his dogmatic map, explains the truth while demonstrating how he should relate to the world. Intellectual acquisitions must be integrated appropriately into this prototype. When such loss of internal consistency appears in the dogmatic map the person experiences a cognitive conflict. According to Festinger , such mismatchs causes a tension between what is actually happening and what it supposed to occur.

In order to solve this conflict, the dogma and the new information set should be integrated into each other.

Ashforth gives an example from Africa which unprotected sex is regarded as a proximate cause of AIDS whereas witchcraft is regarded as the ultimate cause e. Since dogma is a simple proposition witchcraft leads to AIDS in this example, its position in the cause chain could have been changed easily. However, dogma can be complicated like the 10th versicle of Surah of Luqman. In this case a knower may re-organize the original wording of the verse to eliminate the contradiction when needed.

On the other hand, Prof. Re-organizing dogma is one of the techniques to resolve the conflict. Another way is to re-evaluate the information set by a distorting it in a way that does not conflict with current dogma there is no example for this option in this article or b by re-conceiving it under the light of the current dogma. Subject M52 did the latter.

M52 did not discuss the dogma, did not reject it or did not ignored the resulting conflict, but began to see the information set targeted by dogma from a new perspective. His previous point of view was based on one of the concepts proposed by Kahneman , p. According to our theory, the operation performed by M52 requires discernment because it is cognitively exhausting, there is a need for reason to endure it. If the dogmatic map cannot be re-constructed easily, and a if the individual has discernment, then the resulting conflict would be ignored in favor of the current dogma , in the hope of a future solution.

However, if the individual is a skeptic b then the resulting conflict generally appears as a suspicion towards the current dogma. When dogma contradicts the scientific knowledge, scientific knowledge has an advantage through evidence but there is no insight to support dogma.

Some skeptics of this study went through a similar process and became deists. Such intellectuals generally augment their suspicion by reaffirming it. The dogmatic map may lose its internal consistency completely or this process might reverse to create a stable dogmatic map again. In this case, it is an issue about what extent the dogmas of the new stable map are compatible with the norms of the society or to what extent they are fed by discernment.

Let us examine this systematically:. Skeptic M31 got a new information. When I was studying the myths, I saw that the Biblical Flood has been considered by many different societies such as the Sumerians, the Egyptians and the like. Now he needs to re-build his dogmatic map in a consistent manner by selecting one of these options. I started to understand that the societies which lived with their fears created an image of help. Which one will M31 choose? This study claims that dogma and axiom concepts have internal consistency.

Their internal consistency means that the assumptions they contain do not contradict with each other. The internal consistency of the dogmatic map means that, it is not based on more than one founder assumption set.

The dogmatic map without internal consistency has at least two constitutive sets of assumptions as dogmas and originally obtained axioms. If an information that contradicts dogma, added into this set like 3 drinking wine about a glass per day offers some benefits Sobel, , a conflict arises: This can be resolved in four ways: a The conflict ignored in favor of the dogma by a knower.

New set-a: Total harm of alcohol is more than its total benefits. New set-b: Even if it is completely usefull to human body, it is still completely bad because God has forbidden it Footnote The value or goodness-badness of things has an intrinsic resource Footnote 20 as well as extrinsic Hood and Bloom, It is plausible to assume that strong skeptics would feel the aforementioned Maslowian need as a strong negative feeling Footnote 21 or a kind of dissatisfaction.

The existence of this need depends on the existence of the external subject in which the individual wants to be exhausted. In this respect, it is theoretically expected that atheists do not feel this pain like knowers. Indeed, Buggle et al.

These informations also support us for the idea that belief and disbelief are exclusive paradigms. As a matter of fact, the atheists M22 , M30 , and M34 declared that they used to be afraid of the afterlife, but now there was no trace of fear and they have no unrest. A large number of atheists who write about existential crisis on the forum of the Richard Dawkins Foundation , May 5 gave similar statements with our subjects.

But these statements contradict the statistics: Suicide cases have a significant prevalence among atheists Stack, ; Stack and Lester, ; Kanita et al. Based on the discussions in the forum above, the author thinks that some atheists are able to develop cognitive mechanisms which prevent them from returning to existential questions and to focus on the right points in the external world.

But some of them are unsuccessful. Study of Schnell and Keenan with atheists supports the argument that there are two different groups in terms of having success with existential crisis. While believers resolve all possible unknowns with the image of God, atheists seem to be divided into those who successfully compensate unknowns or who cannot. Those who cannot, are likely to be responsible for high suicide rates.

But this may not be the only cause for such a jump. Rambo , pp. This factor is one of the two opposing forces that manipulate skeptics on their path. A personality trait may also make conversions easier.

Individuals prone to be un-doubted, are prone to great devotions. But the power of having consent for pain, can rapidly turn into the power to abandon the Maslowian need for self-actualization.

It is logical to argue that, individuals who can give up this need could be strong skeptics and get ready to be an atheist. Zuckerman et al. The unfulfilled need to explain the unknown would create a sense of dissatisfaction during stages of crises in atheists. It would not be easy to bear it. As Jeffrey Lang experienced, the paradigmatic shifts from disbelief to the pit of knowing, would emerge, because the individual-god could not explain the unknown. He would then search for what he wants to burn out for.

Because he cannot not burn out for himself except for suicide. Although this information has various projections, it actually emerges from a singular source.

We have the right to make this assumption because, first, there is an absolute truth God for those who belong to the belief paradigm and second, some people act or believe as if there is an absolute way of knowing it God. According to the central limit theorem, people are normally distributed in terms of many features. It means, this absolute knowledge can be intuited or represented by some of the believers. On the other side, skeptics reject a metaphysical source that converges people cognitively.

He believes there is. When we say yes, everything we attribute to It is an imposition, is a bad suspicion. There is anger, arrogance, selfishness and fantasy in it. Whereas, according to a knower, the reason for this is that man has broken ties with the God. Atheists perceive religion as an externality produced by culture. They cannot or do not perceive a supraliminal source for religious thought. This questioning led M30 to abandon his religion.

His ability to ask this means that he never had any kind of insight. That is, people do not believe for a benefit, people believe in just because they believe Primmer, M30 has attended the Dhikr rituals of Muslims, the rituals of Christians and the rituals of Assyrians.

At the end of his interview, M30 opened a picture of a cartoon on his cell phone. In the cartoon, a group of people are walking with their umbrellas in the rain. One of them closes his umbrella, and the sun starts shining only on his face. Fifty-three persons participated in the study; of those 21 were academicians from Hitit University and Erciyes University in Turkey. The remaining 29 participants were engineers, public servants, doctors, or businessmen and 3 of them were students.

There were 46 male and 7 female subjects. A structured interview was conducted with each participant face to face; 49 of 53 have been used directly in the article and placed in Appendix. The mean age of Appendix was: This study aimed at working with intellectual individuals and achieved this in some manner, but the study did not bear the cost of defining intellectuals precisely, due to the fact that high intellectuality is not a prerequisite for the development of the dogmatic map, but it nourishes the process.

Satisfactory results from interviews confirmed this decision. Nevertheless, efforts were made to ensure that most of the subjects had the following criterias: a to have an intelligence above average and b to make considerable amount of reading. Snowball sampling method was used, and subjects were picked on the general opinion of their friends about whether they met these criterias or not.

The opinions of two or three friend were taken for each selected subject. If these opinions were matched, the subject was accepted to the study. The CV of each subject, projects they worked on, the level of their reading and their education level were questioned during the interview, but in order to protect their identity, most of this information had to be kept confidential.

It was determined that 37 of the 53 participants were in the first 30 thousand people in the university exam they attended before the age of This means 37 of them have entered the qualified universities of the country.

The last criteria were c keeping the age between 30 and 55 years as far as possible. The lower limit was about 30, because at this age, the individual was expected to reach an adequate level of knowledge and life experience. The higher limit of age was 55, because it was assumed that individuals beyond this age would be more inclined to spirituality as they were closer to death and the data set was not wanted to be divided into two segments. Since it was understood that even primitive intellectual achievements or some life experience was sufficient to observe religious shifts, a downward age limit was not sought for some subjects.

Due to this, there are two individuals over 55 years old and six individuals below 30 years old. The researcher spoke face to face with the subjects and asked them whether they believe in God or not. For example, were you more religious in the past, or now you are more religious? In terms of my faith in my heart I can say that there is an increase in that aspect. Based on the explanations made in the introduction section, the researcher focused on the belief part and asked the reason for the increase or decrease of their faith.

The answers to these questions were not directed to any domain and were naturally divided into two: The change in the increase or decrease was either a the result of a change in the social network of the subjects or b was a result of the intellectual gains they acquired over time. The interviewer focused on the second cause because this study deals with mental and intuitive activities of individuals rather than social, despite these two types of activities cannot be completely separated from each other.

Individuals were encouraged to talk about the relationship between their intellectual acquisitions and their religiosity. These additional questions were frequently used during the chat: a How did your picture of God change?

How did you deal with such conflicts? The answers in Appendix are largely the result of these series of questions. Also, atheists were asked why and how they abandoned their faith in God. Most of the atheist participants had declaired that they believed God in the past.

They were also asked how they explained the problem of existence Why existence exist? Some of them were asked whether they felt a spiritual emptiness or not. Some subjects were returned during the research period. The available demographic information from the interviews is shown in Table 5, Appendix. Under this heading present theoretical discussion will be tested by referring more to our subjects and by taking an analytical attitude.

Soon, we will examine the various attitudes that believers took when reconstructing their dogmatic maps, but first, we will try to distinguish knowers and skeptics in a more objective manner. In the later stage of the study, 17 believers were returned, and the following statement was addressed to them:.

They were asked to choose the option which suits them from a likert scale: 1 strongly disagree, 2 disagree, 3 neither agree nor disagree, 4 agree, 5 strongly agree. Those who declared that they have re-constructed their dogmas are shown with shaded images M27 , M32 , M40 , and F Studying theology means taking on challenging questions about the meaning of religion. It also requires being able to compare the different religions in a knowledgeable, balanced way. Likewise, you can be from a certain faith but study other beliefs.

A theology degree may cover a variety of different religions, or may specifically look at just one or two, depending on the course requirements and the module choices of the student. Any theology degree is likely to include modules on the history of one or more religions. Instruction on a religious text, such as the Bible, Torah or Quran, and how to interpret it, is a major part of most theology degrees.

Students will discuss the significance of these religious texts, answering questions such as: to what extent are they open to interpretation? Are they the word of God? In order to better get to grips with the texts, some universities offer students the chance to learn their original language, such as Arabic, Hebrew or ancient Greek.

While some courses will accept students working with translations of the texts, for others it is a requirement of the course to learn an ancient language. Theology degrees cover some of the most challenging philosophical and ethical discussions of all time, delving into the minds of the great theological thinkers of the past. Depending on the course, students may also study the relationships between the church and different social groups, such as women or indigenous people.

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