Religion Class By David Prothero

Religion is a very young discipline. As young as it is, there is great difficulty in defining this discipline. Various disciplines like psychology and anthropology try to define it but either make it too vague or too specific. All the traditional religions that exist today have been around for years and thoughtful consideration and understanding was put into all of them. In an article by Stephen Prothero, he had his students (which are a part of the millennial generation) create their versions of religion. From the data gathered through this exercise and the group activity I participated in, the millennial generation is losing the connection to religion. In similar fashion to Prothero’s class, I am enrolled in a religion class and I too created

In Prothero’s article, they have no connection to any of the common features of religion. There was an absence of any mention of rituals, sacrifices, the use of totems, and myths. Prothero’s students mostly stated about things that are of the modern age, things that related to them, that is smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, being stress free and have more sleep, and rap music (Prothero, 2). When I was in the process of creating my groups religion, we incorporated rituals. In our religion we used the ritual of a rite of passage stating that a child must kill a crocodile to be an adult. In addition to killing that crocodile, to fully become the adult in our religion, they must wear an article of clothing made from the crocodile. This difference indicates to me that millennials are ignorant to what a religion consists of. The millennials may not understand that religions have rituals and sacrifices, or taboos and rites of passages, or may not even been taught yet on these things. Historically speaking, in our world today, religion has been tainted with stereotypes about each religion, so the students may just want to create a religion outside the norm that everyone can become happy