Life's Meaning and Religion in Contemporary Europe

IF 0.4 0 RELIGION

Fieldwork in Religion Pub Date : 2022-12-19 DOI:10.1558/firn.24304

Matija Kržan

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The challenges of modernity in the West have been numerous, affecting even the deepest or existential segments of human being. That the anxiety of the modern era has led to crises has been claimed by many. At the same time religion, in this case Christianity, has undergone notable changes, where its institutional and social roles have been particularly weakened. Since religions seek to assert metaphysical knowledge and answer existential questions, I examine if and to what extent religiosity determines meaning in an individual’s life. A questionnaire was developed consisting of seven scales measuring Higher Meaning of Life, General Meaning in Life, Religiosity, Spirituality, Faith Maturity, Faith in Day-to-Day Life and Social Connectedness. Results show that higher meaning of life and general meaning in life are two separate categories, determined by different parameters. In terms of absolute values, participants have reported significantly lower mean value on the Higher Meaning of Life scale in comparison with General Meaning in Life scale. Further analysis shows that religiosity is not a key predictor of higher meaning of life, nor general meaning in life. As giving meaning and purpose is considered to be one of the essential functions of religion, I conclude that religiosity, and consequently religion, does not fulfil one of its main functions in contemporary Slovenia. However, spirituality has been measured to have a considerable effect on the higher meaning of life.

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生命的意义与当代欧洲的宗教

西方现代性的挑战很多，甚至影响到人类最深处或存在的部分。许多人声称，现代的焦虑导致了危机。与此同时，宗教，在这种情况下是基督教，发生了显著的变化，其制度和社会作用特别削弱。由于宗教寻求断言形而上学的知识并回答存在主义的问题，我研究了宗教信仰是否以及在多大程度上决定了个人生活的意义。编制了一份由七个量表组成的问卷，测量生命的高级意义、生命的一般意义、宗教信仰、精神、信仰成熟度、日常生活信仰和社会联系。结果表明，生命的高级意义和一般意义是两个独立的范畴，由不同的参数决定。就绝对值而言，参与者报告称，与生活中的一般意义量表相比，生活中的高级意义量表的平均值明显较低。进一步的分析表明，宗教信仰并不是生活更高意义的关键预测因素，也不是生活的一般意义。由于赋予意义和目的被认为是宗教的基本功能之一，我的结论是，宗教信仰以及宗教在当代斯洛文尼亚并没有发挥其主要功能之一。然而，精神已经被衡量为对生命的更高意义有相当大的影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Fieldwork in Religion RELIGION-

CiteScore

0.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Fieldwork in Religion (FIR) is a peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journal seeking engagement between scholars carrying out empirical research in religion. It will consider articles from established scholars and research students. The purpose of Fieldwork in Religion is to promote critical investigation into all aspects of the empirical study of contemporary religion. The journal is interdisciplinary in that it is not limited to the fields of anthropology and ethnography. Fieldwork in Religion seeks to promote empirical study of religion in all disciplines: religious studies, anthropology, ethnography, sociology, psychology, folklore, or cultural studies. A further important aim of Fieldwork in Religion is to encourage the discussion of methodology in fieldwork either through discrete articles on issues of methodology or by publishing fieldwork case studies that include methodological challenges and the impact of methodology on the results of empirical research.