A field survey was conducted to investigate differences in attitudes toward religious changes in a population of church-going Roman Catholics. An attitude scale comprising twenty items referring to changes in the Catholic Church was prepared during pilot studies. Half of the items referred to changes already occurring, and half to proposed or possible future changes. The attitude scale was administered to a sample of parishes in the Roman Catholic diocese of Baker, Oregon. It was administered during regular Sunday services to take advantage of the saliency effect of group membership. A response to an item of the scale indicating the subject's agreement with the change was operationally defined as a liberal response. A response indicating disagreement with change was considered a conservative response. It was hypothesized that churchgoing Catholics would be more liberal or accepting of changes already instituted in the Church than they would be of merely possible changes. The results supported this hypothesis. Total scores on the scale were correlated with the age and education of the respondents. The results support the hypothesis that attitudes toward religious changes covary with age and education much like other social attitudes, as the younger and more educated respondents showed more liberalism or acceptance of change than did older and less educated respondents. A detailed analysis of several items shows a wide divergence between parishoners' attitudes and ecclesiastical dogma. The results of the research also indicate that in the population surveyed there was a great deal of intragroup variation in attitudes toward religious changes.

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A gap exists between the religious ideals of human behavior and the common practices of man. Considerable effort has been expended in attempts to discover how to teach men to behave in ways that would be acceptable to society and still satisfy the ideals of the various religions. This problem is one of the major concerns of religious education.In an effort to solve the above problem among its membership, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has established a program of week-day religious instruction, commonly referred to as the "Seminary program." This organization is currently engaged in an organized effort to develop for its own use a more effective curriculum. This curriculum is being developed around thirty-three directional objectives which were formulated by a committee.The purpose of this study was to examine the general scope and validity of the Seminary's directional objectives. To accomplish this these objectives were compared with the subject areas or themes which have been stressed most often by the nine Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their annual conference addresses since the Church was organized in 1830.

This thesis proposes that human beings by virtue of living in each new present moment are motivated to develop strategies to secure the best possible outcome in their lived experience. A personal account of the phenomenological experience of time is presented and a brief history is given. The implications associated with being thrown into the present moment make apparent the weaknesses of the current assumptions that the slices of the present moment form a continuity of past and future and create a coherent synthesis of life. The assumption that human beings are intentional, goal-directed, and prone to seek meaning in their lives is explored. The ultimate nature of human beings and what their responsibility is in this life is re-examined.A personal experience that enlarged the author's understanding of the tentativeness of the present moment is investigated. In addition, five theorists are selected whose work is concerned with temporal constructs, existentialism, and the intentionality of each human being.It is concluded that a theory of linear time cannot account for the time phenomenon created by human beings being thrown into the present moment. The continuity of the present with the past and future to form a whole life is only assumed, but not explained by current theories. The five theorists cannot account for humanity's intentionality and search for meaning. Implications of the personal time experience are explained. Religious doctrines found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are examined to show how the gaps in the theories of time can be addressed by these beliefs. These doctrines include belief in pre-existence and an eternal afterlife, the reality of God and the Devil, and the power of faith and repentance.In summary, the thesis defends the conclusion that the theorists and humankind all have some level of faith in God, and that the theorists are limited in developing accurate theories about human beings because of the erroneous and incomplete understanding of the character and nature of God. God as the creator understands the whole process and it is only through His revelatory process can we understand humankind. God loves His children and has prepared a way through the atonement of Jesus Christ that all might return to Him.

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