A Rhetorical Analysis Of Religious Discourse

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Religion is a system of faith that involves some sort of supernatural relationship that affects people’s behaviors, values, and beliefs. Religion is based on transcendence, the belief in something or someone greater than ourselves, such as a God or gods. Often times, this something or someone is beyond what can be perceived with our immediate five senses. The sharing or exchange of these beliefs is religious discourse and what makes this type of discourse different from any other type of discourse (such as political) is that religious discourse is based on explaining things/phenomena that are outside of time and space while other types of discourse do not typically do that. For this reason, transcendence is often a problem in religious discourse. …show more content…
These people sometimes often hold a scientific paradigm view. In other words, “if it can not be seen or measured then it cannot be real.” This is the type of mindset that many religious people encounter when they just want to share the Good Word. Without a doubt, it is fairly difficult to communicate with people that are more scientifically and materialistically driven, which is why it is important to consider the different rhetorical methods that would best capture the attention of these types of people. A good rhetorical method will help the communicator carry their message in a way that would interest an audience and sharpen or create their convictions.
For the purpose of this paper, I will describe how narratives or stories, work really well in ways that other rhetorical methods may not get at. I will specifically apply this method in religious discourse. In addition, I will also describe how narratives, if used extremely well, could also lead to one of the other problems religious discourse faces: