'The beliefs of New Religious movements have little meaning for people in the 21st century' A02

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  • Created by: Kelseyb
  • Created on: 18-05-16 18:52

'The beliefs of New Religious movements have little meaning for people in the 21st century' A02

Advantages

  • Religion in general has little meaning for people in the 21st century (e.g. decline in Christianity to 59%)Beliefs of NRMS are more extreme and involve apocalyptic and eschatological teachings which would be irrelevant to people who were not religious.
  • Little place in society now science explains most things that were previously accepted as being the work of God (e.g. big bang, evolution etc) so unlikely to have extreme, fundamental, literal beliefs.
  • Change of legislation and religions becoming more liberal e.g. homosexual marriage, people in the 21st century now more accepting.

Disadvantages

  • However, this decline may mean that NRMS have more meaning for people as in response they want to follow traditional, fundamental religion.
  • NRMS have more relevance then ever as apocalyptic ideas have particular relevance in times of war, famine and global warming.
  • However, often religion cannot provide definite answers to moral issues (e.g. the catholic church on homosexuality is a very complex issue) so it seems the certainties of NRMS are what some people crave.

Evaluation

NRMS clearly are very important to the members however as a whole they have always had 'little' meaning for society as a whole but they are always going to have significant meaning to members as they require alot of commitment and often take over lives. 

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