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This chapter examines how people acquire religious beliefs and protect them even when they are irrational. It integrates insights from psychology (Festinger on cognitive dissonance; Hinde on the persistence of religious beliefs), anthropology (Evans‐Pritchard on primitive religion; Boyer on evolution and religion), cultural history (Marsden on ‘creationism’), and social theory. It examines existential, social, and emotional functions served by religion, and how theology develops (unconvincing) bulwarks against challenges to religious beliefs. It analyzes defense mechanisms of believers, and eleven attitudes towards ‘truth’ of fundamentalists of the Abrahamic faiths, and notes similarities between theology and magical beliefs. The chapter debates a religious philosopher who is a critic of ‘evidentialism,’ and discusses the role that evidence and reason should play in making religious commitments about how to lead one's own and how to educate one's children. The chapter considers eighteen factors that can contribute to the loss of religious belief and faith.

This chapter explores some of the many facets of religious commitment. That commitment is not a matter of faith alone, but has volitional and other attitudinal elements. The commitment may be very deep and govern much of the person’s life, or it may be fragile and relatively shallow. It may be enhanced and guided by vital narratives and aesthetic elements, and it may be private or embedded in institutional activities such as the life of a church.

This chapter examines the development of the different forms of religious commitment expressed by women who lived in the Byzantine Empire between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD—a development predicated on their gradual exclusion from displays of public religiosity. Over this long period, as the church consolidated its organization through an administration grafted on to Roman imperial government, the ecclesiastical hierarchy of male bishops effectively excluded women from prominent public positions. This development can be traced through canonical rulings laid down at ecumenical and local church councils, which defined the Christian practice appropriate for women. It is also documented by women's participation in religious activities as recorded in a variety of sources, especially the lives of female saints.

At a time when all professions are under intense public scrutiny, mentioning religion and professional ethics together might bring to mind a series of well-publicized scandals, from tax evasion to sexual harassment, molestation, and pedophilia by priests, rabbis, and ministers. Such gross abuses of religious authority are widely condemned by the religious communities affected as well as by the general public. What is the proper role of religious commitments by individuals and groups in providing professional or profession-like services, especially within authority relationships? This chapter examines religion ethics and discusses Margaret P. Battin's Ethics in the Sanctuary. One might think that religious professions would be the one place where personal commitments would be fully appreciated. Yet, while Battin deserves much credit for establishing this new branch of applied ethics, her book manifests the same tendency to underappreciate personal commitments in professional life. Issues of faith, consent, and decency are also considered, along with science and religion, medicine and religion, and government service and religion.

The conclusion reiterates the intent, focus, and parameters of the book, and revisits the distinction between animal welfare and animal liberation. The conclusion offers two formal arguments based on information presented throughout the book, affirming both the religious requirement for a vegan diet and encouraging animal activism and animal liberation. After offering an explanation as to why few people are aware of the animal-friendly nature of religious traditions, the conclusion outlines five compelling reasons to change our consumption habits and adopt a plant-based diet. The book concludes by affirming the positive power of religious commitment.

This chapter lays out a typology of emerging adult religious approaches into which most American emerging adults seem to fit. It identifies a limited number of religious types — defined by their religious commitment, knowledge, consistency, and interests — that describe well certain key underlying commonalities shared by different religious sets of emerging adults today. The religious and cultural themes described in Chapters 2 and 5 explain, in part, the features of these types. The typology itself helps to illuminate the multidimensional complexity of religious life among contemporary emerging adults.

This chapter examines the experiences of Traditionalist American teenagers and their parents in order to determine how the separation from the media influences teen interpretations of the supernatural. It explores the question of whether teenagers who expressed a serious level of religious commitment are interested in supernatural beings, power, or practices. It also analyzes the tendency of the traditionalist teenagers to be guided by an overarching concern with personal morality that framed their understanding of the media and of religion.

This chapter focuses on the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court moves away from the use of the legal regime to a more integrated scheme of observing justice to encompass the rights of religious believers. With this in mind, it might mean that the needs of the state will then be congruent with the necessities of society eradicating the problems between religious commitment and legislative authority. Two examples were illustrated: that of Goldman v. Weinberger, and Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association. Constitutional agnosticism, as a conclusion, contends that disputes of one's religious beliefs should not be readily discarded; instead, this thought crosses the gaps between an individual's actual doings and social customs, and his/her religious dispositions.

This chapter distinguishes rationality from justification and connects both with reasonableness and knowledge. It also explores rationality and other normative notions in the aesthetic realm, which is, in some ways, a model for understanding them in relation to religious commitment. It concludes with a position on how these different epistemological notions—especially rationality, justification, and knowledge—apply to the appraisal of religious commitments.

This chapter explores the nature and implications of the most important properties commonly attributed to God in the theology of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: especially being all-knowing, all-powerful, and wholly good. Do these attributions lead to paradox? And is the rationality of religious commitment undermined by the disagreements common among religious people, even if they belong to the same faith? This chapter defends the possibility of rational religious commitment despite the challenges these problems present.

A century ago, the question of religious belief would have been relatively simple to address in at least one respect: belief was indeed the salient question, and what people believed could largely be summarized in terms of assent to particular doctrines, creeds, and teachings. One of the significant developments of the 20th century is that the role of belief in religious commitment has become problematic. In considering the doctrinal challenges that lie ahead in the next century, the necessary starting point, therefore, must be a consideration of the character of religious orientations themselves. Social scientists, including sociologists, anthropologists, and students of comparative religions, generally conceive of religion as a system of symbols that evokes a sense of holistic or transcendent meaning. Aside from the nature of religious orientation, this chapter also tackles the different kinds of religious belief, consequences of religious outlooks, influences on religious belief, and aspects of religious pluralism.

This book explores the dynamics and consequences of changes in religious identification in the United States since the early 1970s. Drawing on empirical data from large-scale national studies, it analyzes Americans' religious identifications, shifts in religious beliefs and commitments, and participation in religious organizations. It also examines how religious affiliations changed from 1972 to 2012. As an introduction, the book considers the definition of religious commitments, paying special attention to religious traditions, religious denominations, identities and attachment, sect, and church. It also discusses the relationships between social status and religious affiliation, along with the differences between religious groups and classification schemes for religious denominations.

Some claim that maintaining robust commitment to one’s favored religious outlook is likely to be compatible with following strong conciliationism even if strong conciliationism rules out having controversial religious beliefs. This is because there are nondoxastic forms of religious commitment that do not require confident belief in the religious outlook to which one is committed. This chapter challenges such optimism about the compatibility of religious skepticism and religious commitment. It is argued, first, that those who adopt impartial credences and follow a cost-benefit approach to religious decision-making are likely to find that their approach to decision-making requires adopting a highly unpalatable form of religious commitment. A second argument concludes that no religious commitment is rational if strong conciliationism is correct. According to this argument, the normative uncertainty required by epistemic impartiality brings about a “deliberative vertigo” that prevents rationally motivated engagement any religious or irreligious way of life.

This chapter assesses change in individual levels of religiousness—discovering who increased or decreased in religiousness during their adult years. A sample study of some individuals that is highly stable as a group can show a lot of individual variability as long as increases in religiousness among some of the members are offset by declines in religiousness among other members. The data of the study of the individual differences of religiousness presented here indicate some distinct patterns of individual stability over time. Although a high proportion of the study participants who were highly religious in adolescence continued to be religious throughout adulthood, they were not universally so. Rather, a large number of individuals who were highly religious in adolescence became less religious in adulthood and, conversely, a substantial number of nonreligious adolescents became religious later in life. In short, adolescent religiousness is a robust, but not an overwhelmingly strong, predictor of religiousness.