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Sects and New Religious Movements, Jehovah's Witnesses
HOVJACKÁ, Veronika
Religious groups are societies, which aims to transcendental realities, but are realized among particular people and in particular time and society. It is interesting to study the relationship between society as a whole and these sub societies. One way of how the main society expresses its relationship towards religious groups, in a broader sense, is the registration of these groups as a state recognized religion. This status is desired and appreciated by the religious groups as it can change their position in public eyes. This thesis is a reflection about how difficult, and maybe even deceptive, is looking for criterions for registration or not registration. It is simply about describing borders between the terms ``sect{\crqq} and ``church{\crqq}. Intuitively, this border is something quite clear, but when we need to decide for or against registration, intuitive criterions by themselves are not enough.
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Public opinions about the problem of new religious movements and their possible danger in the regions of Ceske Budejovice and Klatovy
JINDROVÁ, Markéta
The problem of new religious movements is quite a current topic. Therefore, I have decided to write my thesis about this subject. The theoretical part contains the definitions of the basic terms, the characteristics of new religious movements, their catagories and characteristics of their victims, the context of new religious movements and the law, as well as the connection of religious groups and socially-pathologic phenomena. Each of the phenomena is attached to concrete examples of the social groups involved. Both qualitative and quantitative research was employed in the practical part. The methods that have been used to obtain this information were a survey and and interview, as well as the anaylsis of the data and content. One of the files for the survey was collected in the Klatovy Region, while the other was gathered from the people of the Ceske Budejovice Region. Thus, the acquired data were compared in order to reach the aim of the work. The two aims were set based upon the secondary data and one hypothesis was declared for each. The first aim, which was `to find out the public opinion on the problems of new religious movement{\crq}, was connected with the hypothesis `although the public is not sufficiently informed about the religious cults in the region, they are perceived as negative{\crq}. The other aim was to map the socially-pathological phenomena connected with the activity of the movements in these particular regions. Regarding that research, which was qualitative, the hypothesis was declared on the ground of the acquired data. Hypothesis No. 1 was verified. Based on an interview with local policemen, the other hypothesis was set: Although information about the socially-pathological phenomena connected with the activity of the movements reached the public, the Police of the Czech Republic do not have evidence of any crime of that character in the given regions. A booklet was put together, based upon the acquired information, giving the overall information about new religious movements, their characteristics and possible risks. In my opinion, the aim of my thesis was met. The research showed that the public awareness of new religious cults is rather low and the information is mostly distorted. The results of my work may serve as further insight into this problem and, threby it may become a stimulus to raise the state of awareness in this sphere.
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NEW RELIGIONS AS A SPECIFIC VARIANT OF HUMAN PARTNERSHIP
HOLÁ, Michaela
Among with many changes brought to us by the modern times, we may also find changes in current understanding of religions. In spite of the strong deconsecration trend the experts agreed on growing popularity of new forms of religions and divergence from the traditional religions on the other side. Many alternative religions occur. Groups are diversified by their confession, establishment, methods of finding new members, behaviour models and relationship to the traditional religions. The phenomenon of new religions establishment itself can not be overlooked anymore and to me it seems interesting to learn more about possible reasons, why individuals choose this way. The objective of my research was to identify what motivates people to join alternative religious groups. The research includes a quantitative and a qualitative section. In order to collect adequate data for the quantitative research method of e-mail inquiries was applied as well as questionnaires. The questionnaire was designed for the determined objective of the research and was intended for experts in organisations involved in religious issues both in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. Specifically responses were received from employee of the Association for Study of Sects and New Religions in Prague, the Centre for Prevention in the Area of Religious Sects (CPoNS) in Olomouc and from o.z. INTEGRA - Centre for Prevention in the Area of Religious Sects, based in Banská Bystrica. I had three hypothesis determined for this part of my work: the Hypothesis I (Phenomenon of new religions popularity is related mainly to younger population, which is more sensitive to era changes), the Hypothesis II (Decision of an individual to join a new religious group is subject to expected satisfaction of currently unsatisfied needs) and the Hypothesis III (Psychological methods misused by the alternative religious groups play a significant role in individual´s decision to joint a sect). The above hypothesis has been confirmed upon analysis of collected data. In addition I used a quantitative method as well, consisting of semi-standardized interviews with former members of some of the alternative religious groups. The research group included three individuals, who shared their experience with a specific religious group. Considering the small number of respondents it was more a complementary type of method in addition to the quantitative research. The subject bachelor work may be used for more detail research of the given subject and extension of knowledge related to the phenomenon of the alternative religions. The work may be also used for description of processes taking place in the current society and affecting distrust to the traditional religions. Results of this research may be also considered when searching for an effective solution for prevention of sect impact.
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