After today’s lecture I have learned that Religion is a way of life and religious culture is a form of identity. There are material claims which provide people in need with material resources; claims of community which also provide material rescourses for people of a wider community and spiritual claims which influences its believers live on earth to prepare for the afterlife. In addition the definition of Religious Diversity is that there is differences between religious groups in society and that it has become the a large cause of conflict.

I also acquired knowledge about spirituality that I didn’t know before. I learned that there are different forms of spirituality that aren’t associated with organised religions and this can be defined as a sectular society. These secular societies believe in something but do not belong to an organised religion therefore are outside the churches. Due to sectularisation there has been a decline in religiousness as there is an increase of people not attending church. This can be seen as the west becoming more spiritual and less religious.

In the tutorial when trying to answer exam style questions at the start we found it difficult to expand on the information given and link it in with the scholars to try and achieve the 25 marks needed. Although after group discussion we found it clear how to answer the questions and realised we were going off on tangents and that wider reading plays a major role in fully understanding the concepts which helps answer the questions to gain more marks.

My knowledge developed a lot after today as I had very little knowledge about spirituality and all of its characteristics. I was also unaware that organised religion is on decline and spirituality is on the increase. This knowledge has helped me as I now understand how to apply it to the questions and how to answer them.