Religion and Deviant Behaviors



Annotated Bibliography

Clinard, M. B. & Meier, R. F. (2011) “The Nature and Meaning of Deviance” Sociology of Deviant BehaviorThis book talks in detail about the deviant behavior of an individual. The causes of deviance and an individual's inclination towards it are also addressed. The basic theme of the book deals with the understanding of deviant behavior in an individual, as the deviant behavior is also human behavior.

Bramlett, D. M. (2012) “Godless Americans: How Non-Religious Persons are Labeled as Deviant in a Religious Society” San Jose State UniversityThis research paper explains how atheists are labeled and have to face discrimination due to their ideas and beliefs. The history and origin of atheism have also been covered in this research paper. It also addressed how atheists are viewed as morally flawed in the American society and how they are said to be least trusted.

Foster, P. (2014) “Is America losing faith? Atheism on the rise but still in the shadows” The Telegraph This article was published in The Telegraph UK. It mainly talks about the growth of atheism in America but also addresses the concerns of the atheists in America. It discusses how people are reluctant to share their identities with their families and friends.

Grewal, D. (2012) “In Atheist We Distrust” Scientific AmericanThis article discusses about how the atheists are among the least liked people in America. It discusses several instances where tests were carried on participants belonging to different religions with results indicating that almost all of them expressed their lack of trust and belief on the atheists.

BBC (2009) “Reasons people choose Atheism and Atheist criticism of religion” Religion BBCThese articles were published on BBC's website. They present the people with the arguments of the atheists, their beliefs and their criticism on religions.

Pew Research (2012) “The American-Western European Values Gap” Pew Research Global Attitudes ProjectThis article expressed the difference of ideas and values that prevail in the American and the Western-European societies. Primarily, it talked about the following of religions in both the above mentioned regions.

Langer, G. (n.d.) “Poll: Most Americans Say they are Christian” ABC NewsA research was conducted by ABC News about the religions of the majority of the population of America. The results indicated that majority of the population belonged to Christianity. The reason of this research was to know the influence of religions over certain aspects of life.

Religions and Deviant Behavior

Introduction

The topic for this research paper is “Religions and Deviant Behavior”. This paper will discuss in detail how members of non-normative religious groups are considered to have deviant behaviors in our society. But before we do that, a brief detail about non-normative religious groups and deviant behavior would be given to have a better understanding of the topic.

The term non-normative refers to a practice that differs from the normative values of the society. Anything that is not considered common in the society may fall under the category of non-normative values. Since we are talking about non-normative religious groups and deviant behavior, any religious group ...