THE YOUTH’S PERCEPTION OF RELIGIOUS VALUES: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY

Abstract

The article considers the younger generations’ perception of religion and the role of religious values. The authors argue that in the last decades the attitudes to religion in the Russian society have transformed. Religion determines values of every culture that influence the worldview of different generations. In the contemporary secularized society, religion plays the role of a moral referee, forms a national mentality and a worldview. Younger generations as a dynamic social group do not tend to follow conservative traditional values, which allows to understand further trajectories of social development. The youth’s interpretation of key life values significantly differs from the understanding of the same values by older generations. Younger generations are usually characterized by social dynamism, psychological lability, changing perception of cultural traditions and values, constant search for innovations and revision of the established traditions. Religious values are traditional and conservative by nature, thus they turn people to the past rather than to the future, that is why the youth is often unclear about religion. The data of international and Russian surveys prove that the youth consider religion quite pragmatically, as a kind of psychotherapy. The article presents the results of the sociological research, in which religious values were compared with other cultural values - artistic, scientific, moral and practical. According to the data, the number of people interested in religion and faith issues has significantly increased compared with the late Soviet period but religious values for younger generations are not a priority for other cultural values seem to be more important.