February 28, 2005
Van's topic
1. What is your topic and how does it relate to the overall theme of trends and culture?
My topic will ask the question: why are people religious. Throughout the centuries of time we have turned to religion as a backbone of what we live by and it has shaped how we live today.
2. What is the main controversy? Who are the participants in the debate?
The controversy is whether or not it is valid to have a religion and which religion is the "right" one. Participants would include anybody who has a strong believe in a religion and atheists.
3. Please list all the causes/effects you intend to explore in your essay. Obviously, you might come up with other causes/effects based on your research, but it is useful to know what you have to start with.
Some of causes of devoting our life to a religion would be:
We want to know how we were created.
We want to know what the meaning of life is.
We were born and raised a certain religion.
What are the rewards of being good?
What are the consequences of being bad?
4. What approach will you be using? Please explain if you plan to combine approaches.
I am going to explore the reasons why we adapt religion and how we are supposed to analyze the credibility of certain religions. I probably won't explore the effects of religion because it would take up too much room in my essay.
5. What information will you be looking for as you start researching the topic?
I will start with the psychology aspect of religion and why humans tend to shift to religion. Research on major religions and showing how they are different from each other would be my next step in research.
Van,
Your topic contains a few elements that relate to causes and effects, but is explained in a rather general way. In response to question 2, you seem to want to argue about which religion is the "right" one, which is not a cause and effect argument, but a value one. In order to respond to the assignment, you should find a more focused current controversy related to the causes or effects of religion, instead of comparing various religious traditions. Some of the ways to focus your topic would be to deal with the effects of religion on individuals, on social life, on education, on legislation, etc. Please think of a way to narrow your topic to causes/effects and let me know about it.