Features of psychological stability of the youth to new destructive religious movements

Abstract

The article is devoted to the actual problem of strengthening of the negative impact of destructive religious ideas on the minds and hearts of young people. We see that in the religious sphere there are many new religious movements and organizations. The activities of such religious movements, organizations are accompanied by a serious harm to the men­ tal, physical, moral health of human and his personality. These destruc­ tive religious organizations use different methods of monitoring the human consciousness and behavior and creating direct and indirect psychological dependence, inspire feelings of fear, guilt, which often leads to neurotic and mental breakdown, depression, suicide. Thereafter, our young people need knowledge about the causes of the birth of religious beliefs and re­ ligions of their formation and development, the ability to distinguish be­ tween the goals, objectives, role and importance of religion in human life and society. The article presents the results of empirical studies of the psycho­ logical stability of young people to new destructive religious movements. The study was conducted using an author’s questionnaire to determine religious literacy, «Valuable orientations» (M. Rokeach) technique and re­ search methodology of life meaning system. As a result, the survey found that today’s young people from among our subjects do not have a sufficient level of religious literacy and do not have adequate knowledge about religions and beliefs, but there is a signifi­ cant increase in religious activity among young people, especially in the Muslim world. Dominant values of a certain part of the Kazakh youth were identified using the procedure «Value orientations» (M. Rokeach). The priority termi­ nal values are a happy family life and health; in the hierarchy of instrumen­ tal values – high demands, open­mindedness, honesty, a strong will.