Page 509 - Sociology and You

Chapter 14 Religion 479
Calvin and Hobbes are engaged in a conversation about religiosity. Their beliefs are clashing.
proximately 1,000 members of the Ugandan cult called the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in March 2000. Cults do not usu- ally appear in such an extreme and bizarre form, however. More conventional examples of cults are the Unification Church, the Divine Light Mission, and the Church of Scientology (Clark, 1993).
Religiosity
Sociologists Charles Glock and Rodney Stark are two sociologists who have studied religion and society. Their work has focused on religiosity—the types of religious attitudes and behavior people display in their everyday lives.
How do people display religiosity?
sions of religiosity: belief, ritual, an intel- lectual dimension, experience, and consequences (Glock, 1965; Stark, 1968).
❖ Belief refers to what a person considers to be true. People may, for example, believe that Jesus is the son of God or that there is no God but Allah.
❖ A ritual is a religious practice that the members of a religion are expected to perform. A ritual may be private, such as personal prayer, or public, such as attending mass.
❖ The intellectual dimension of religiosity may involve knowledge of holy or sacred scripture or an interest in such religious aspects of human existence as evil, suffering, and death. Religious persons are expected to be knowledgeable about their faith.
Glock and Stark identify five dimen-
The display of religious affiliation varies widely. Golfer Tiger Woods wears a Buddha image, and a Jewish boy reads from the Torah at his Bar Mitzvah.
religiosity
ways in which people express their religious interests and convictions