nothing's gonna change my world

The studies about religion have been increasing in recent year. In the past 15 years, after the first religious graduate school in Fu Jen Catholic University is founded, more and more religious departments and research institutions have 
been established. Indeed, several field researches have been published to discuss the relation between people and folk religions. For example, Lin Mei-rong (1990) provided a study of religious activities and organizations centered on the belief of Chang-hua Matsu which is the main god of Nan-yao Kung in Chang-hua, and concluded that it is “a religious organization on surface”, but “rooted deeply in its social basis.” Tian-How Yang (1993) conducted a field survey in Wudau Cheng Hwang Temple to explore the faith in Cheng Hwang in Kinmen, and gave a new definition to the traditional faith. Finally, Kang (2006) describes various cult practices, activities of worship, and the exorcising of Fox Spirits, a popular folk god, to reveal how the Chinese people constructed their cultural and social values outside the gaze of official power and morality.

Although considerable research has been devoted to general people’s attitude toward religious belief on some popular folk gods, rather less attention has been paid to the young generation with well-educated background. Therefore, in the present paper, we report a case study in National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), investigating the college students’ perceptions of folk religions.

     The researchers find out that there is always good attendance in the Local God Temple located in front of the North Gate of NCTU. Rumor has it that it is efficacious to worship the Local God in this temple, thus people come here to pray for study, love, destiny, and even for exams. Many students claim that the Local God’s blessing do help them get good grades in their exams. And there are even some whispers between students which say that one can perform better during the exams after worshipping the Local God.

To make a deeper discussion of such phenomenon, the purpose of the survey aims to answer the following questions:

1.                  what percentage of students in NCTU believes the power of worshipping that help them get higher grades?

2.                   Why did people start to worship in this Local God Temple praying for better performance in their studying?

3.                  In what way do they think they are being blessed by the Local God?

 

     The efficacy of supernatural power of religious behaviors such as worshipping or praying have been widely discussed in many different point of views,

     First, from the scientific point of view, the existence of supernatural power itself is illogical. Supernatural forces, if they exist, cannot be observed, measured, or recorded by the procedures of science - that's simply what the word "supernatural" means. There can be no limit to the kinds and shapes of supernatural forces and forms the human mind is capable of conjuring up from "nowhere." Scientists therefore have no alternative but to ignore "claims" of the existence of supernatural forces and causes. This exclusion is a basic position that must be stoutly adhered to by scientists or their entire system of processing information will collapse. To put it another way, if science must include a supernatural realm, it will be forced into a game where there are no rules. Without rules, no scientific observation, explanation, or prediction can enjoy a high probability of being a correct picture of the real world. (Strahler, 1987)

As from the psychological point of view, people tend to have extreme attitudes toward supernatural power. As a result of the research in Audiences' Discourse and Meaning Construction of Supernature: A Study on the College Students, by Shao-Jia Hu (1999), researcher has come to the conclusion that when a supernature statement is told, there are “two dimensions (centripetal vs. centrifugal) of performance between the competing discourses of nature and supernature” among the audience. He said, on the centripetal dimension, people judge by the “science (nature) discourse criteria,” and other explanations are excluded in their considerations. Hu also writes, people’s performance on the centrifugal dimension, science and supernature discourses “supplemented each other,” the audiences’ cognizance of the supernature statement will be “interwoven by belief, life experience and self concept.”

     Last, one sociological view point suggested that how people think shapes the image of a God. Wei-Huah Chen (2005) in his essay, “The economy of spiritual power and the reproduction of society” provides definitions for various terms of folk belief. The definition of”spirit power” is “the ability of God to understand the prayers of people and to respond to those prayers”. For Doctor Chen, whether a God is efficacious or not, depends on the throng to worshipping the God. “People have recognition that the more crowded the temple is, the more efficacious the God is”. In his opinion, if people have the same belief in God, the God will act more efficaciously. Also, if there are more people worshipping, the temple will be Prosperous, so the God will be happier and efficacious. He thinks that “the value of spirit power is revealed by the type of materials, and, that is, displayed by the type of money and manpower”. He believes the spirit power of God is produced by the believers’ mind. In the essay, he conducts an interesting experiment to visit people worshipping with stick. Many people can not tell concretely why they think the God is efficacious, but some people are convinced that throng bring efficaciousness. By the research of visitor and the opinions of general people, he concludes the efficaciousness maybe classified by “mind exchange rate” and “the throng”. In religious view, how people think shapes the image of a God.

 

Data was collected through questionnaires which were aimed to research the NCTU students’ attitude toward the efficacy of worshipping behavior in the Local God Temple located in front of the North Gate of NCTU.

The questionnaire (Appendix A) was divided into 4 parts, Part A, B, C and D, including the close-ended, open-ended, and hybrid questions. In Part A, a hybrid question was listed, and it first asked a yes-or-no question and then required details or reasons in the later open-ended questions. Part B and C consisted of the close-ended questions. All of the close-ended questions adopted a 1-5 Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. And Part D comprised an open-ended question to obtain in-depth information of students’ mind.

The subjects had to answer Part A first, which was set to divide them into two types: have or haven’t worshiped in the target temple. If have, they would be asked to do Part B, answering all 19 closed-ended questions, and Part D. If haven’t, they needed to answer Part C, which contained 5 close-ended questions selected from Part B, and Part D.

26 NCTU students, aging from 19 to 22, were recruited among the researchers’ acquaintances, including 14 males and 12 females. The questionnaires were spread via MSN messengers and returned by the subjects on May 25 & 26, 2006.

 

On the 1-5 scale of the closed-ended questions, a mean of 3.5 or above is considered ”agree” or “positive,” and a 2.5 or below is” disagree” or ”negative.” If the mean is between 2.5 and 3.5, it is considered “neutral”. Findings are presented below in response to the three research questions.

     In this research question, subjects are those who have worshipped in the Local God temple.

Table 1 displays the result of the students’ opinions about the power of worshipping to help them get higher grades.

The mean of the first question is 3.88, representing that most people at NCTU have heard about the efficacy of worshipping the target temple, which implies that the worshipping power is acknowledged around NCTU. However, several unexpected results are shown in the latter two questions. The means (3.10; 2.71) of the latter two are somehow neutral on the chosen scale, suggesting that the students were not in apparent agreement or disagreement with the association between grades and worshipping. That is, the students’ attitude toward the worshipping power is rather reserved and ambiguous when asking for the specific support, here, gaining the grades. Furthermore, from Figure 1, worshipping benefits grades, it’s surprising that only 5% of the subjects agree with such statement. In other words, most worshippers don’t think that worshipping substantially improves their grades. Such low percentage indicates that the reason why people worship in the target temple is not simply because worshipping helps improve grades.

Social-psychological explanations may help to shed a light to such contradictory result; for example, one participant remarked on his worship that “就跟其他的廟一樣。聽說哪樣靈，大家也是一樣就會去一窩蜂的拜，沒什麼奇怪, ” This finding suggests that individual behavior is often affected by the majority.

 

FIGURE 1： The Percentage Distribution of Students’ Believing of the worshipping power that help them get higher grades.

In this research questions, a result is displayed in Table 2 to show the response of the worshippers about three reasons why students worship. To completely answer the question, a later cross analysis (Table 3) is showed to analyze those worshippers who worship for better performance in the exams.

Firstly, the mean of Q4 (2.48) represents that the students were in apparent disagreement about the statement that worshipping is close to their religion. It suggests that religious reason does not affect NCTU students’ worshipping behavior significantly. Secondly, the means of Q2 and Q3 (3.24; 3.19) are neutral, suggesting that the subjects have no strong opinion toward the reasons provided in the questionnaire. It is noticeable that the SD (1.29; 1.16) are markedly high, indicating that the situation is in two extremes. However, according to the answers of the open question, what’s your purpose of worshipping, praying for better performance in studying is not the only purpose for students who worship. Other purposes such as 祈求平安,一切順心,防小人,求姻緣, are also provided by the subjects. Because the purpose of this research is to find out the relationship between exams and the behavior of worshipping, the discussion will only focus on the subjects that hold the agreement attitude in Q2.

   Table 3 displays the result of the relationship between worshipping and grades among the believers.

In the cross analysis, it is noticeable that although subjects are all the worshipers, few (m=3) agreed that worship substantially helps to improve their grades. In other words, although the subjects are worshipping for good grades, they don’t actually think that God will help their grades. We will discuss this phenomenon later.

     Table 4 is to discuss what way they think they are being blessed by the Local God. Three interesting outcomes are listed below.

The mean 3.29 and the SD 0.61 in Q10 shows that students held uncertain attitude toward the declaration that worshipping in the target temple would bring luck for their exams. Comparing with the result of Q12, when it comes to ask for a more specific influence after worshipping, the mean (2.71) is obviously lower then the previous one. It’s clear that people tend to show more positive attitude with an abstract description of worshipping power, like luck, instead of a concrete one, like gaining grades.

First, the means (3.57) of Q13 are heavily high, suggesting that most people believe that the worshipping behavior would help them become more confident while facing their exams. It reveals that enhancing confidence might be one way that they are being blessed by the God, as one student claims in the open-ended question that “寧可信其有，不可信其無。神鬼之說雖然不一定存在，但是至少可以給我們心理上一個增強信心的作用.” Besides being confident, majority (M: 3.76; 3.62) shows positive attitude toward Q15, 17, which state worshipping will help students gain peace of mind while taking exams and perform better in their exams. Therefore, gaining peace of mind seems to be the other way that people think they are being blessed. To compare with the two reasons above and make a deeper discussion, a cross analysis is applied in Table 5, which displays the result of Q15 by people who gain confidence by worshipping. It is interesting to find that there are many subjects (M: 3.85) agree the statements enhancing confidence and relieving nerves are the two main reasons that the students think they are blessed through worshipping.

     In addition, from the mean (1.9) of Q14, which shows most students don’t think worshipping will help one get higher grades without studying. As one student states  that”其實拜拜只是希望自己考試時不要失常，求個心安，而不是認為土地公會讓沒唸書的人考滿分;” it implies the worshipping behavior is not irrational and superstitious believes.

Table 6 displays all the questions about the subjects who hold positive attitude.

From Table 6, it reveals the reasons of worship of the Local God. Among them, three reasons can be identified. First, worshipping Local God is a Chinese tradition. Second, worshipping Local God is a special culture in NCTU, so many students follow the culture. For example, someone says that “覺得是交大景點之一，還滿有趣的！只是在想土地公會不會有想換口味的一天。”, another claims that “有拜有保佑，沒拜倒頭哉，為交大一種風氣，信土地公得好成績。”. And the third reason is the peer influence. By worshipping in the Local God Temple, students seem to become more confident and relive their nerves while facing their exams, as a student states “我覺得心理作用，如果能在考試時，心理上得到一種寄託。倒也無妨，反正並不用花錢.”

 

   Based on the findings, the relationship between students’ worshipping behavior and their performances in exams seem to be a psychological dependence.

Although from our survey, little direct evidence can be found to verify efficacy of worshipping Local God, some indirect social, psychological reasons were found which reveals worshiping behavior may be more complicated than it seems to be. By worshipping in the Local God Temple, students may get comfort to the innermost of their heart and therefore may get an indirect help for their performances during the exams. The prejudice toward worshipping behavior as superstition is not proper. And we should look at such special culture from a more extensive angle.

Chen, W. -H. (2005). 靈力經濟與社會再生產：清代彰化平原民間信仰與地方社會的形成.

Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. National Tsing Hua University at Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Hu, S. J. (1999, January). Audiences' Discourse and Meaning Construction of Supernature: A Study on the College Students. Mass communication research, 58, 29-57.

Kang, Xiaofei. The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Lin Mei-rong (1990). 彰化媽祖的信仰圈. 中央研究院民族學研究所集刊, 68, 41-104。

Strahler, Arthur N. (1987). Science and Earth History. Buffalo: Prometheus.

Yang, Tian-How(1993). 金門城隍信仰研究. Unpublished Dissertation. National Sun Yat-sen   University at Kaoshung. Taiwan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX A: Questionnaire

 

 

 

1、請問您的性別        ： □ 男性    □ 女性

2、請問您的系（所）級為： □ 理工生化(理學院、工學院、電機、資訊、生科院等)。

□               人文社會(客家學院、人社院)

□               商管    (管院)

3、請問您的宗教信仰    ： □佛教  □天主教  □基督教  □道教  □一貫道

□              其他：______________   □無

 

a部分.1.你是否曾經去拜過大學路上的土地公廟呢？

  □是   □否

     

**如果是，請問大約多久拜一次呢？____年 / ____個月 /  ____個禮拜 一次

大多是為了什麼事情去拜拜呢？並請繼續填答B和D部分。

                Ans:

 

 

 

      ***如果否，請問不拜/沒拜過的理由是什麼?並直接填答C和D部分

                 Ans:

 

 

b部分. 針對大學路上的土地公廟，請勾選您對下列問題的看法

                                                非    同    沒    不    非

                                                常    意    意    同    常

                                                同          見    意    不

                                                意                      同

                                                                        意

                                                5     4     3     2      1

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 1、我聽說過土地公廟很靈驗的事。                □    □    □    □    □

 

2、我開始拜土地公廟是因為希望考試表現好。      □    □    □    □    □

 

3、我開始拜土地公是因為同學的建議。            □    □    □    □    □

 

4、我會去拜是由於根深蒂固的宗教信仰。          □    □    □    □    □

 

5、我覺得拜土地公的現象跟宗教信仰很有關係。    □    □    □    □    □

 

6、我覺得拜土地公廟是中國人的傳統。            □    □    □    □    □

 

7、我自己覺得拜土地公很靈驗。                  □    □    □    □    □

 

8、我身邊的朋友都覺得土地公很靈驗。            □    □    □    □    □

 

 9、我相信土地公廟有神。                        □    □    □    □    □

 

10、我相信拜土地公廟會保佑我的考運。            □    □    □    □    □

 

11、我相信拜土地公廟會幫助我考試時的表現。      □    □    □    □    □

 

12、我相信拜土地公廟對我的分數有實質幫助。      □    □    □    □    □

 

13、我覺得拜了土地公讓我有信心面對考試。        □    □    □    □    □

 

14、就算沒準備拜了也會讓我考好一點。            □    □    □    □    □

 

15、只是求個心安才拜。                          □    □    □    □    □

 

16、我拜好玩的。                                □    □    □    □    □

 

17、我覺得有拜總比沒拜好。                      □    □    □    □    □

 

18、我覺得只有拜仙草蜜才有效。                  □    □    □    □    □

 

19、我覺得這是一種交大的風氣。                   □    □    □    □    □

 

 

                                                非    同    普    不    非

                                                常    意    通    同    常

                                                同                意    不

                                                意                      同

                                                                        意

                                                5     4     3     2      1

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 1、我聽說過土地公廟很靈驗的事。                □    □    □    □    □

 

5、我覺得拜土地公的現象跟宗教信仰很有關係。    □    □    □    □    □

 

6、我覺得拜土地公廟是中國人的傳統。            □    □    □    □    □

 

8、我身邊的朋友都覺得土地公很靈驗。            □    □    □    □    □

 

19、我覺得這是一種交大的風氣。                   □    □    □    □    □

 

 

 

每到研究所考試或期末考試的時候 土地公廟香火都特別鼎盛 你對這個現象有什麼想法呢?

 

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