Young people's faith problems in terms of the perception of God and their own suggestions for solutions

The perception of God is one of the most important factors that positively or negatively affect one's outlook on life, personality, search for meaning, and happiness, and it is the most important basic thought and constitutive element that determines one's attitude, position, and perspective towards religion. Young people want to intellectually grasp the subtleties of the belief in God they adopt and to reconcile them with the life they live. For this reason, they question their belief in God, which forms the basis of their philosophy of life. At this stage, they may occasionally experience some doubts and related problems. When it comes to belief, the problems experienced are not only limited to the issues in the context of the perception of God, nor are these problems experienced only by university students. However, our study is limited to the concepts of perception of God and youth to illustrate more effectively the scientific aspects of the dissertation. When we examine the literature on the perceptions of God, the belief orientations that develop depending on these perceptions, and the problem-based interpretation of these orientations in society, we have observed as a deficiency that young people, who are the main actors experiencing the problem themselves, are kept away from the field in the process of producing solutions to the problems. This situation inspired us to conduct our research. The fact that young people, whose ideas are consulted only at the stage of problem identification, are excluded from the solution stages is a problematic issue for the environments where the student-centered education approach is accepted just like it is adopted in our country. Accordingly, we aim to contribute to the literature with our thesis indicating that the opinions of the young are also important and that they can be active, willing, and successful in solving the belief problems they experience in the context of their perception of God, with the concern to eliminate the habit of devaluing young people by seeing them as the source of all kinds of corruption in society. Our study consists of four sections. The first and second sections focusing on the theoretical aspects of the study elaborates on the developmental areas of the youth period, the concept of faith, faith education in the youth period, young people's perception of God, and the faith problems they experience depending on their perception of God in line with the reasons and orientations of all these issues. In the third part of the study, a scale was developed by conducting reliability and validity analyses on the Questionnaire for Solving Belief Problems Related to the Perception of God (TAISÇÖ). Internal consistency coefficient, item-total score correlation coefficients, explanatory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and convergent validity analysis were calculated in the statistical evaluation. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the 28-item version showed adequate fit, and that Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.935 in the internal consistency analysis. The scale has a four-factor structure: theological and spiritual solutions, collective (assisted) solutions, external/environmental solutions, and cognitive/rational solutions. In the last section of the study, a face-to-face questionnaire was applied to 586 undergraduate and graduate students at Ondokuzmayıs University and the University of Samsun. The data obtained from the questionnaire revealed the relationships among the respondents' perception of God, their problem-solving skills in terms of their perception, and their socio-demographic characteristics.