The Age Gap in Religion Around the World
pewforum.org
pewforum.org
For at least a generation now, organized religions have been doing a poor job of addressing people's personal spiritual needs, while at the same time being the bastion of various sorts of social conservatism with justifications that often don't hold up in the context of modern scientific knowledge.
Now, I do think this is sometimes quite unfortunate, as it sometimes leaves these people easy prey to even less rationalistic religions and cults. (A certain amount of practice at various sorts of critical thinking may also immunize you against these things as well.)
Aren't they conservative out of necessity? You cannot rapidly change interpretation of the holy texts, and keep the congregation assured that you are true to the hundreds/thousands years of tradition/the words of the prophet.
The fact that the "religious right" is a thing in the US today doesn't particularly indicate that this is the natural order of things. While I'm no longer religious myself, much of my family still is, but identifies as part of the "Christian left," and pushes very strongly against the view that religious must necessarily equal Republican.
I would be more interested in the more general notion of “values.” Every generation goes through some sort of rebellion against its previous generations. I’m interested in the general question of “to what extent does a younger generation hold/cling to the values imparted from their parents, including amongst others, traditions, religion, philosophies about governance and civics, etc.”
We have a tremendous difference in the adoption of religions by age depending on the religion. There is no "average".
When I was a child in the 80's, I have never heard of Ramadan. My children, same age same school know everything about it. Same for hallal food.
When I see people of my age (mid-40) who as Muslims, their religiousness is medium to poor. The next generation is very much different, way more religious.
Atheists are more or less the same.
Catholics are in decline, except in some places where the tradition is strong (Versailles for instance).
So averaging "religion" over a whole country does not yield any sensible results in some countries. In other maybe.
"Another theory is that differences in religious commitment reflect change during the life course. Although young adults often start out less religious than their elders, they tend to become more devout as they age, have children and begin to face their own mortality (or so the theory suggests)."
They have a lot of hypothesis that could all be true - i.e. the younger people who started off with a lower percentage religious as measured would end up with a higher percentage religious if measured as a group later, but still less than the current age group measured right now.
Or maybe this one?
While not ruling out the influence of other factors – such as when and where people live – one research team argued that “life course trajectories may trump generational placement as predictors of religious behaviors and orientations.”
Lastly, they have the caveat that America is kind of special case with several contravening indicators, with some conditions among the best and among the worst.
Secular meditation does have wide appeal, and seems like a much healthier alternative free of dogmatic tradition.
UK passed >50% atheism some years back and is steadily becoming more so going on census. Ethnic minorities seem far more likely to retain some religion and keep the figures up. In my generation most were still given some Christian instruction, sent to Sunday school etc. The majority had grown out of it by adulthood. Church wedding might be chosen for pretty setting. Church school picked for children as it does well in local ratings.
Now I'm middle aged. Over the years quite a few formerly religious friends have become atheist or agnostic - often because life got serious. Of the few people I know who are still religious they are mostly old folks. Surely some of those life events would have triggered a few former atheists to find religion by now?
I just find it hard to believe I occupy wildly unrepresentative atheistic circles.
As an aside we often think the significant part that religion still seems to play in the US rather strange from this side of the Atlantic.
Well, Ireland aside, the UK never had much of a religion to begin with (except back in times of John Fox or in the times of the druids). The English church is as close you can get to atheism while still being called Christian.
Yet Japanese spend routinely 20 000 to 30 000 USD to have a religious (Buddhist) ceremony for their dead family members. Very generic statistics about vague opinions don't explain everything.
that said Japanese are superstitious (in general). not sure if more or less than other places
Beliefs that a person holds deeply, holds on faith without requiring proof, bases their life choices on, and evangelizes as the truth.
By that measure, aetheist San Francisco is the most religious place I’ve ever lived. The religions focus on the right way living or eating, and the evangelism is off the charts.
I would argue that the younger generation isn’t significantly less religious, but rather that they’re all inventing new religions or following scattered and informal tribes online. It’s like a new philosophical primordial soup from which I suspect we will see organized and “formal” religions emerge given sufficient time.
You've constructed a loose definition of religion that approximates the common definition of culture. The term "religion" is generally reserved for "claims to relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements" [1]. (That said, "there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.")
A better term for the behavior you describe might be "zealotry."
Also, I think that while parsing religion from culture would be a handy classification, they don’t really decouple that easy.
Near is not at. Conspiracy theorists aren't religious. They're just zealous. People become zealous about many things. What differentiates religion is the explicit invocation of supernatural causes. That delineation is meaningful, to the person making the claim as well as in society's treatment of the claim. (Particularly in the United States, where the Constitution treats religious zeal differently from secular zeal.)
This should be a clue that your "measure" is a bad one.
I think you're right. But it can be difficult to discuss the topic without either walking on eggshells or throwing caution to the wind and making people upset.
However, if you look at Georgia for example, you'll see that suppressing religion doesn't do much. Even if you took the harshest anti-theist position, you'd have to admit that people simply need to choose to stop being religious. It's difficult or even impossible to force the issue.
So even if you dislike religion, the answer is still a secular society with freedom of religion and a healthy religious tolerance.
Evil people will harness whatever philosophy is convenient to justify their actions.
@Jumpcrisscross: One can make similar arguments for the Crusades.
Then why not make that argument? Remember to put “Deus Vult” in that context.
Of course they did since the pretty much first they did was to imprison in concentration camps the clergy, and destroy all religious buildings as well.
“Pretty much” is doing yeoman’s work there, bravo. I like how it also glosses over the fact that most of what happened was anti-money, anti-status, and anti-intellectual.
Of course they did since the pretty much first they did was to imprison in concentration camps the clergy, and destroy all religious buildings as well. This comment is so incredibly naive.
And you are 100% spot on - evil will use and abuse anything in pursuit of its goals. But those people that we clearly identify as evil - they were utterly convinced of the righteousness of their actions, whether it was Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, or the terrorists of the 21st century.
Stalin himself was educated at a theological seminary. You should also be aware that Stalin drew upon the ideas of divine right that previous monarchs of Russia had used to claim authority. He used the Russian Orthodox church to grant himself legitimacy, and that church never left his side even through all of the atrocities. To this day, they create iconography of Stalin (typically with a halo).
Either way, this is decidedly NOT secularism.
I certainly didn't "gloss over" anything, having given approximately equal time to talking about religion and the suppression thereof. That's entirely unfair, by the way, since it's hard to find examples of the latter, while history is replete with examples of the former.
It's more accurate to say religion was misused by many leaders hungry for power, fame, or treasure.
You seem to forget that what Stalin and Mao did in their respective countries, leading to the direct death of probably in the area of 50 to 100 millions people if not more, was completely anti-religious and can be pretty much considered as the greatest atrocity in History EVER. So, no, religion is probably not the root of all evil.
That is a fake choice, since any hint of criticism led you straight to the Gulag. There's enough books about the period to check what actually happened in Russia and China.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition is perhaps the most well known due to the use of torture. In theory they limited themselves to the baptized, but as baptism occurred so young that's a meaningless distinction.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anusim is interesting as it's a category of forced conversion, but makes no mention of what they where forced to Catholic/Islam/whatever. When communism outlawed other religions it was doing the same thing as occurred in many other times and places.
After really thinking about what I posted really gave me an appreciation of their value.
The second most offense thing is how many people who claim to be “enlightened and tolerant” liberals are openly hateful and bigoted toward Christianity.
The electoral record of Bible-quoting politicians amongst religious voters would appear to contradict your point.
That said -- just because young people don't claim religion is "very important" to them doesn't mean they don't have any sense of spirituality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
I personally don't believe in God nor do I have any objection to other people believing in god except where they think their belief gives them special powers to influence things beyond 'one person, one say' then I get annoyed - fortunately I live in a largely secular country (and becoming more so) so it's not an issue I run into with much regularity.
It's similar to how holders of doctorates say that their achievement makes more clear what they don't know.
There simply isn't any evidence for his/her/its/their existence.
"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you”
The quote I like about questions is from Dawkins (one of the most aggressive proselytizers, sigh): the only unanswerable question is, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
This may be one explanation for why religious adherence is diminishing among younger people.
You’re right in some sense, I think. Young people may have somewhat replaced their parent’s faith based beliefs with their own - in this case it could be something like “if I engage in celebrity worship I could become a celebrity myself”.
Even if that were true, it’s more likely to come true than their parents beliefs!
The old religions have become stale, but the hunger for spirituality persists.
Science has "true believers" too. These prostelytizers proclaim that that there is no need for spiritual hocus-pocus anymore, that Science has explanations for everything now, or at least they'll have it all figured out soon. This has been the Physicalist's sermon for ... maybe 170 years.
Spiritualism maintains that the life force is separate from the physical world we inhabit: the life force is what "animates" the bodies we take on for a while.
YODA: Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.
You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you,
me, the tree, the rock, everywhere. Yes, even between
this land and that ship.
[0] http://www.taxiwars.org/who-are-your-lifelines/
> There is no evidence that any of the experiences people have that can't be explained are a result of supernatural causes.
This is slander for phenomenon which are not very well understood by the present state of knowledge. Radon/radiation poisoning would have been classified as "supernatural" by pre-1896 scientists ("science advances one funeral at a time"; I don't know how long it took for the possibility of 'radiation' to permeate the scientific culture).
That is exactly my point. A lot of phenomena that were once the purview of religion are now explained by science. The reverse is never true (nothing explained by science has subsequently found a better explanation in religion)
1. Scientific explanations are often found to be incorrect.
2. Scientific explanations are often found to be incomplete.
3. Scientific explanations are often found to build on assumptions.
My posts in this thread are not so much about Religion, but about what do you believe. Everyone believes something. Why do you believe what you do?
There's one of your beliefs: that there is an "objective reality". I believe in a shared reality, and that each individual has their own subjective reality too. Everyone has their own experience of an event, and their own inner world (dreams, imagined experiences, etc).
I would also posit that there is no one "Science". Science is a process. Every individual who investigates the world forms their own conception of what has already been discovered, and what is worth investigating. 'Scientific Consensus' is an agreement about what good scientists are to believe. Simple matters are easy to form a consensus about; complex matters are still under discussion.
You don't need to care if they ever figure it all out to "believe in" science.
Quoting Yoda? Hollywood puts a white Anglo-Saxon, Christian, family message in almost every movie. It's also standard movie ending #1.
edit: After I made this comment in good faith I saw you were being downvoted. I just want to make it clear that I do not think your comment is downvote worthy and that I find both the pious and atheist guilty of what I describe.