By reading your essay I should gain an understanding of your faith, how it began, how it has changed and why and when by seeing examples from your life followed by connections to the ideas discussed in the texts. I also want to see how/if your faith informs your current thoughts and behaviors.
Intro: You should start by naming your current faith. If you would classify yourself as religious, begin by saying so and naming your religion. If you are more spiritual than religious then start by saying that and briefly describe what religion(s) influenced your spirituality; for example you could say that your spirituality evolved from christianity, catholicism, buddhism, etc. Same for agnostic or atheistic. This should be a short introduction. Following this opening your essay will contain two parts.
Part 1 Will Narrate and Analyze: I want you to tell me the stories of your faith. Walk me through your life and give me descriptive memories to show me how your faith started, how it changed, why it changed, and what it changed into. Things you should consider for this are: Describe how your first faith began. What was your earliest experience with faith? What was that first faith? Describe your relationship to that first faith. When did you start to accept that first faith? Did it influence your life or relationships? Describe the people or groups who were influential in your belief in that first faith. Were there any influential people or in-groups that encouraged or “forced” that faith on you? If this is still your faith then describe why it hasn’t changed or how it’s grown stronger. If your faith has changed then describe how, why, and when it changed. What experiences or people caused your beliefs to change? When did these experiences occur? What did your beliefs change to and why did you view that as a better choice? If your beliefs have changed multiple times then describe that in detail. What were your multiple faiths? When did you adopt each one? Why did you adopt each one? Why did they make sense to you at the time? What caused each to stop making sense? THEN As you tell these stories from your life you will apply the readings we have done in this unit. Consider the following questions: (You don’t need to answer these in order) Is your faith personal or collective? AKA spiritual or religious. This could connect with Templeton Did religion become spirituality? Was your faith chosen or ascribed at first? Did it become chosen later? This could also connect to Templeton When were you foreclosed, in moratorium, or achieved? Which are you now and why? This connects to Kiesling. What experiences/questions caused your faith to shift over time? This connects to Cognitive Dissonance and Kiesling since that doubt might cause you to enter moratorium Did your moratorium or cognitive dissonance lead you to become agnostic or atheist? This could connect to Smith, Balboa, and Kiesling If you ever became atheist or agnostic, the not-self is incredibly useful in Smith. Your stories and analyses should show me your whole experience with faith from what you first believed, why/how/when that changed, and should end with your current faith. The second part (below) is about your current faith.
Part 2 Will Offer Metacognitive Reflection: As a person today how does your faith guide your thoughts, behaviors, or judgments? Consider examples from your life about the following: Does your faith forbid/chastise anything? If so do you conform? Have you ever judged those who don’t conform? What thoughts/behaviors does your faith encourage or discourage? Do you conform? Do you judge those who don’t? Are you able to associate with those who don’t conform? For instance as an atheist maybe you find it hard to be around overly religious people or vice-versa, or maybe you find certain things repulsive because they are such the opposite of you? How/does your faith offer you comfort? Consider for example what you believe/think about: hardships in life, death/afterlife, divine intervention, t, or anything else that would be an example of your faith offering your comfort or reassurance about your existence. Tips: Review the Study Guide for all the readings Look back at Smith and Kiesling. The way that Kiesling analyzes the individual subjects and the way that Smith provides a path to atheism are great models for this assignment. Smith goes slowly step-by-step which is what I want when you show how your faith changed. Kiesling slowly explains what category people were in, why they were in that category, and what that category means which is what I am looking for as you describe your experiences — start slow by naming a term then explain how it applies and what that means. Don’t be stingy with your stories. I want first person accounts that show me a part of your life. Then I want to see you using author(s) we’ve read to analyze that story. Don’t be stingy with the authors. Choose stories that you know can connect to the theories Cognitive Dissonance happens whenever you learn new things that challenge your current beliefs. Cognitive Dissonance can cause moratorium if you decide to discard some or all of your previous beliefs and search for new ones. Templeton is incredibly useful if you don’t conform to an organized religion anymore. It’s also useful if you aren’t opposed to the idea of God and have made your own beliefs after reflection. Kiesling is incredibly useful for broadly naming the stages of your faith (if it’s changed) before describing how/why/when it changed. It’s also useful if your faith has never changed (foreclosed).
REQUIREMENTS/GRADING: Your papers must use 1″ margins and be double spaced in 12pt, Times New Roman font. A properly formatted Works Cited page for your sources (see my handout) Proper quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing of sources as well as correct in-text citations. Review Harris for assistance. Papers that are not at least 5 full pages cannot receive a grade higher than a “C-” Kiesling link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6708720_Identity_and_spirituality_A_psychosocial_exploration_of_the_sense_of_spiritual_self Smith link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261944898_Becoming_an_Atheist_in_America_Constructing_Identity_and_Meaning_From_the_Rejection_of_Theism PLEASE INCLUDE AT LEAST 1 QUOTE IN EACH OF YOUR PARAGRAPH, THANKS!!
