Anthony Giddens

• religious cosmology is undermined by increasing scientific knowledge but he argues that traditional ways of life rather than religious beliefs are more affected by this shift
• as tradition loses its grip on individuals, they become increasingly reflexive and increasingly question what they should be doing with their lives
• individuals face problems constructing their own identity for two reasons:

  1. scientific knowledge may have taken over from religion but different experts provide conflicting views on how to live
  2. seriously ill, dying and mad people are separated from every day life and hidden away in institutions - these are precisely the kind of people that would make us confront existential questions
• people suffer from ontological security: they dont really know who they are or what to do with themselves
• individuals now have to choose for themselves what religion to follow which could be anything