In watching the movie we watched in class, I realized that religion is something that overcomes many people at all ages. To me, I think it’s a common misconception that people in their teen years or twentys that are usually the ones who struggle with religion and how they practice it. The film opened up my eyes that even adults, older in age, are still confused in their religion and still second guess it. Both sides of my family have always been so sure about God’s words, have never doubted him, and have never questioned why certain things happened. I thought that most adults thought this way as well, since that is what I’ve only known.

Something I thought was interesting in Chapter four of “Religion: The Social Context”, was how gender roles come into play with religion. He speaks how religions make it seem like men and women are supposed to have certain roles and carry out certain jobs or tasks. I think this gives people the wrong idea of how to live their life and that might be a reason why people turn away from their religion. Especially in this generation, when they are so many types of people that want to make their own decisions and live the way they want to. These ideas clash with their religion and make it difficult for them. I think Susie, from the movie, struggled with what was “expected” from her and began to feel overwhelmed with her religion.

While observing and listening to everyone’s religious lives and how they grew up this past week, I realized that we all had something in common. We all were raised to believe in some sort of religion or no religion and are now beginning to question in what we do or don’t believe in. We all have questions that are sort of unanswered, because religions are not able to give detailed answers or give certain exceptions to people who are in very specific situations. Believing in something that is much bigger than our understanding is hard for a lot of people and that is why people I think struggle with it. In today’s generation, there are a lot of things and ideas that certain religions, like Christianity and Catholicism, do not agree with. Having such strong opinions on whether things are morally correct or not can make people uncomfortable or make them rethink if that religion’s opinion is even correct.  But for others, religion gives people more of a purpose to live and a template in the way that they should live and behave. In chapter 2 of the book, it explains that a person’s meaning system is learned from socialization. It states that religion serves as an important form of legitimation, or justification, for both the individual and their social order, which gives themselves understanding of one’s self. It is something that people cling to, because it helps them understand life just a little bit more.