Religious Orientation of Christians, Muslims and Hindus in Kerala State of India: A Comparative Study
Abstract:
Different ways through which people approach religion have collectively been termed their religious orientation. It involves presumptions about the existence and nature of God or Gods, religious prescriptions about morality and communal and personal spirituality. Measuring religiosity allows researchers to understand how religious beliefs and practices influence various aspects of lives of people. This study was undertaken by WEDO, NGO, Kozhikode, Kerala State, India to analyse the level of religious orientation of people from Christianity, Islam and Hindu reli gions. The study was carried out among a randomly selected sample of 90 each of Malayali Christians, Muslims and Hindus living in Kerala State of India using a questionnaire containing the measure of religiosity containing items, which are mainly oriented towards religious aspects in relation to the psychology/ behaviour of people in their life. The data was analyzed as scores, proportion of respondents reporting and through statistical tests. The results show that Malayali Hindus in Kerala have comparatively less religious orientation than Malayali Christians and Muslims, who get an almost similar and higher total religious orientation score than Hindus. Statistically significant difference observed in the scores of various religious orientation items between the respondents of the three religions also shows a comparatively lower score for the items in the case of Hindus, indicating that the level of religiosity of Hindus for the items is less than that of Christians as well as Muslims. The requirement in both Christianity and Islam to mandatory follow various religious guidelines in life may be attributed to the comparatively higher level of religious orientation observed in the case of respondents belonging to these two religions. However, Hindu religion does not impose any such mandatory guidelines, resulting in less adherence to religious practices, which contribute to more values and principles in life for Hindus. This is where importance is there for the religious Gurus, Acharyas etc. to orient more Hindus about various aspects of their religion and the relevance of following the injunctions in holy texts like Mahabharata, Ramayana etc.in order to achieve better wellbeing in their life.
