Özet:

In the current study, religion and religiosity perceptions of the modern youth through their religious inquiry and doubts are investigated. The aim of the study is to determine the importance of religion and religiosity in the semantic world of the Muslim Turkish youth in the world that has evolved from modernism to post-modernism. In this study that has a qualitative pattern, the data was collected through participant observation and free conversations. The obtained data was analyzed with the techniques of descriptive analysis and content analysis, and then was interpretted depending on the phenomenological tradition. According to the findings, young people make harsh criticism against the religious principles of religion its aspect of Islamic jurisprudence (ibadah/prayers and sharia practices), devout people, congregation and sect leaders. The criticism of the young contains intense religious doubts and sometimes even partial denial tendencies. However, most of the young either seek peace by taking sanctuary in traditional religion or questioning religious beliefs and practices, evolving from imitation to verification belief. It is observed that the worship behaviour decreases among the young and the needs based religiousness increases. In this research, young people have been grouped into nine different types: "traditional devout people", "faithful interrogators", "resentful believers", "uninterested people", "purely spiritualists", "quiet people", "skeptics / indecisive ones", "deist-oriented" and "atheists". Stuck between their religious beliefs and secular pleasures, young people are experiencing an identity and value crisis. In this sense, the young have been evaluated through four different types which are “unpeaceful devouts”, “personal spiritualists”, those on a quest”, and those with denialist tendencies. Findings show that young people's relations with religion are not monotonous and one-dimensional, but rather complex and diverse.

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