The Role Of Religion

Religion plays an important role in shaping the way people think and perceive the world around them. Various thinkers examine the extent to which religion should shape the way people think and the way people’s thoughts should shape religious values. This study examines the roles of religion according to Silko, Olsen, and Wiesel alongside the theories of religion explicated by Daniel Pal. The importance of this study is to address the readers about some of the important components of religion, which include culture and people’s thoughts.

To begin with, Leslie Marmon Silko is more concerned about the role of culture and myths and the way they penetrate the society’s religious thoughts. One of the characters of interest in Silko’s piece is Tayo

It relies on an ethnographic research done in Turkey, United States, and Kazakhstan and demonstrates that religion control people’s lives in numerous ways. He examines the spread of different religious groups including Islam and Christianity. The book examines the traditions of secularism, religious market model, and individualism. Through these traditions, Olson (62) informs his readers the way changes in the society affects religious thoughts. In regards to secularism, he points out that modernism undermines traditional change. On the tradition of a religious market model, Olson states that governments in Europe have done much in supporting churches at the detriments of the citizen’s traditional religious preferences. On the third tradition, Olson states that modernism only undermines religious institutions, but not values. In fact, this might explain why there are some tussles between different religious institutions. The most important role of religion in this regard is to shape the way people think about themselves and others around

One of the theories is a rational choice theory, which stipulates people are able to make choices concerning what they think is best for them. In this understanding, Pal (54) states that all the political and social movements, which fail to realize their goals find their ways in religion. This explains the concern by Wiesel. The Nazi government wanted to exterminate Jews community from Germany, but when it lacked a convincing reason, religion was used as a vehicle to go ahead with the plan. Another one is a social model theory, which implies that religion is founded on social implosions. It implies that people tend to spend less time with people outside their religious group. The same way, people tend to get along with those whom they share cultural values and beliefs. This explains why various religious groups are always at loggerhead with each other. Silko communicates the same thing in her work. However, it would be better when the society would be united in the interest of piece to create the world order of unity and