Essay on Why Do People Doubt Their Religions? Exploring Causes of Religious Uncertainty

Introduction

Doubt is an uncertain belief and a mixed state of mind because it varies due to certain knowledge that is infected. People usually doubt their religions several times and at different levels of their lives, with teens being the most drawn away from people from Christianity.

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Why People doubt their Religions

Religious uncertainty is associated with the dissatisfaction of greater life as well as greater religion with more psychological distress. Regardless of how pious an individual is, doubt is usually unavoidable in most cases (Exline et al. 208). People doubt their religion due to various reasons, and in most cases, the doubt begins at a certain age, mainly the teenage. The doubt has a lot of negative effects on an individual, but it leads to new things and a renewal of faith when in doubt.

Most people have, at some time, doubted their religion when they were asked what they believed in God and religion. Such doubt has been in existence, especially in the Christian journey since the period of the disciples (Exline et al. 217). Just like the disciples did, Christians question aspects of the theology they believe in, doubt that God exists, and later mourn his absence during hard times. Doubt is as common as faith among people who believe in religion, and regardless of what many people would think about Christians having doubt, their doubt acts as a catalyst for spiritual growth.

Age when People start doubting Religion

Many people start doubting their religions in their middles school and when they join college. Most of the people in middle schools and colleges are in their teenage years, and their peers easily influence them (Dein 208). Resistance is also a major reason why teens doubt their religions because, at this age, they feel that they should stop following everything that their parents told them when they were children. They feel a need for independence, and they declare that believing and participating in religious activities is no longer part of them. The early part of the adolescent ages is a period where the young people question all authorities from their parents to spiritual matters as they try to learn new things.

Religious leaders often face the challenge of people who experience doubt withdrawing from Churches, prayer, church, and their pastors. The journey from being a strong religious believer to doubting religion affects the individuals' closest relationships, such as family, spouses, and friends (Dein 209). In terms of understanding their children, parents should not lose faith because of the changes in their children after all the religious upbringing they offered to them when they were small children.

As long as they received a religious background when they were small children, that part of them could not be eradicated as it is instilled in them. The teenager can suspend all traditional adherence, but it is hard to separate themselves from the beliefs and values taught. They choose to explore more and create revisions or additions to their religious beliefs (Dein, 212). It is best to treat the atheism declarations as trial changes rather than terminal ones because they can easily reclaim the beliefs they forsake at that age in their adulthood.

Why Teens are drawn away from Christianity

Teens are haggard from Christianity because the adolescence stage is similar to a prodigal process where the young person strongly rebels against family and joins a team of adventurous peers to experiment more alternatives, especially on the forbidden path. The teens are carried away by the desire to gain new experiences and forge an identity for entry to adulthood (Krause and Ellison 293). Rebellion is a normal part of teens, and it causes them to seek more independence, oppose rules, push boundaries, and reject authority. The teens face a process of growth, and they start developing new ideas as they see everything ahead of them more realistically.

The kids also see their parents as flawed beings, and they try to define themselves as a separate entity which is why they resist all values they were taught when they were children. Even though the teens know no other customs since birth, and they seemed perfectly contented and fulfilled by faith, they start questioning what they believed in when they were children (Krause and Ellison 294). The process is normal as it is a rebellion where the teens reject their religion, oppose their practices, disrupt the status quo, and question the doctrines of the church.

In the mid-adolescence ages, the teens may declare that believing and participating in religion is no longer a part of them. They feel that religion is restrictive, and it reduces the number of activities they can take part in when they need to explore the most (Krause and Ellison 296). They also feel that practicing religion is hypocritical and sees no reason for attending worship services or holiday dinners. They even go to the extent of criticizing the other family members who choose to remain strong in the family's religious beliefs. Unless people in their teenage years have a strong youth program in their middle schools and compelling youth ministers, the church is usually at risk of losing many young people at this age.

Struggles that Teens go through to get their Faith when in Doubt

Parents should allow their children to explore and express questions on faith in their high school years. More than 70% of high school going students experience doubts about faith, yet only a small percentage of them share their struggles and doubts with an adult (Powell and Argue). Adolescence is a huge phase for life for all people as they transition from childhood to adulthood in a style where everything seems to be different from the earlier beliefs in the childhood stages. Adolescents discover new friends, try new interests, and create new beliefs about family and faith. Teens face this process to discover their identities, and their parents are required to watch the rise and fall of their children's beliefs (Powell and Argue). The teens are expected to learn how to own their faith as it grows to reach new situations and have the ability to look at their faith from various angles.

The teens go through a season of searching so that they can solidify their faith. They do so by asking questions about the faiths of other people and an investigation of whether what their parents have taught them is real (Powell and Argue). The teens struggle to understand the faith inflicted on them by their parents when they were young, and they wonder whether they should continue with the same faith making it stronger, or they should denounce it and adopt another faith.

The teens may get influenced by their peers and friends to continue doubting the faith, and this makes them more confused despite wanting to turn on to their faith after a period of doubt. The teens have a more advanced intellect than when they are children, and they develop an ability to move from the concrete to the abstract in cognitive processes (Powell and Argue). The teens might have faced a huge period of doubt, and the struggle to answer the questions on evolution, the contradiction of the Bible, and the reason why bad things happen to good people becomes a challenge every time they want to go back to their faith.

The teens may also face struggles going back to their faith after experiencing an experiential doubt after trusting in their religion to change certain personal experiences, but they never changed. They expected God to help them in times when they needed the help the most, but they got no help; hence they acquire doubt about how the situation never ended up as they expected.

Works Cited

Dein, Simon. "Religious doubts: Implications for psychopathology and psychotherapy." Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 77.3 (2013): 201-221. https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/pdf/10.1521/bumc.2013.77.3.201

Exline, Julie J., et al. "The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale: Development and initial validation." Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 6.3 (2014): 208. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b118/be8356de249721f853e8f22380e4cf4b7003.pdf

Krause, Neal, and Christopher G. Ellison. "The doubting process: A longitudinal study of the precipitants and consequences of religious doubt in older adults." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48.2 (2009): 293-312. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2839364/pdf/nihms180615.pdf

Powell, Kara, and Steven Argue. "The Biggest Hindrance to Your Kids' Faith Isn't Doubt. It's Silence." ChristianityToday.com, Christianity Today, 21 Feb. 2019, www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/february-web-only/doubt-parenting-biggest-hindrance-kids-faith-is-silence.html.