my.. progress?

My original idea for this paper revolved around the psychology of God. How religion may have been used to influence people’s ideas and actions. In doing so, I hoped to contrast the role of God in the lives of individuals in western culture today. What I did know for sure was that I didn’t want to make this a paper on religion, but rather psychology.
The problem: how broad my topic was. This research paper requires me to conduct surveys and interviews; therefore I need a group of people I can observe and question. My topic eventually became “The Role of God in the Lives of Students at St. Thomas University”. At first, I was satisfied with the topic because it still centered on my general idea: the psychology of God. But when I began doing research, I became not only uninterested, but annoyed with it. I found that the UCLA was conducting a very similar study nationwide entitled: “The Spiritual Life of College Students: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose”. The surveys they’ve conducted could serve as a sort of blueprint (or should I say guide) for the questions I could provide in my own survey.
I remember the analogy used in one of the first readings for this class, the one comparing a research paper to a conversation in a parlor. Upon entering, you realize the conversation has begun. You listen and learn enough until you’ve acquired enough knowledge to form your own conclusions and take part in the discussion. However, whenever I’ve tried to work on this topic, I just wanted to leave that parlor.
Some of the questions in the UCLA survey consist of the students’: interest in spirituality, search of meaning/ purpose in life, having discussions about this with their peers, attending religious services, belief in God, and prayer. Another part of this survey sought to find correlation between the students who reported high engagement in religious/spiritual activity and their support/opposition for: legalized abortion, casual sex, same-sex marriage, legalizing marijuana. Furthermore, another section analyzed these students’ views on issues of race, the rights of criminals, women’s roles, and gun control.(http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/news/Spirituality_2003-11-21.pdf)

The people I would interview for this research paper would be students attending this university. My interviews would consist of, not only these students, but also the faculty here, especially those in the ministry department, such as Carter-Waren. I know she is a professor who is very engaged in dialogue with her students and should thus be somewhat familiar with their views and how altered in the past few years.

Dr. Dvorak recommended the movie Religulous, but at the time it had not been released on DVD yet. It is out now, so I plan to rent it when I get back home tomorrow.Today, I was looking around the STU library books for sources for another paper and came across a book entitled “The Death of God” by Gabriel Vahanian. I started reading it and became really interested in it. This got me thinking about my research paper and my original idea for the topic. I want to find a way to incorporate this book and that movie into this paper. Maybe I should change the topic somehow or alter certain aspects of my research.