Paper short abstract:

Ten years after peace was established in Angola, many consequences of the war can still be found. This study´s purpose is to verify if there is a relationship between the trauma, caused by the thirty years of civil war in Angola, and religiousness.

Paper long abstract:

Ten years after peace was established in Angola, many consequences of the war can still be found. The displaced populations who suffered directly from the armed violence were the most affected. Due to the war, the religious phenomenon has increased considerably all over the country, and there has been an explosion of new churches, besides the traditional ones.

This study´s purpose is to verify if there is a relationship between the trauma, caused by the thirty years of civil war in Angola, and religiousness.

The results indicate a relationship between the level of symptomatology of PTSD (trauma) and the level of religiousness, as well as between the reasons for displacement (war and others) and religiousness: the more traumatized and dislocated people are the ones who show greater religiousness. The results further show a relationship between the reason of displacement and the level of trauma: those displaced because of the war are more traumatized than the others.

Based on these results, we can have to try and understand the meaning of the relationship between trauma and religiousness. Since religion is a factor of preservation of the community and this is in turn a factor of protection of its members, the more religious individuals should be the less traumatized. However, the results show exactly the opposite.