Young People Aren't Interested in Religion

by leavingwt 13 Replies latest social current

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  leavingwt

  The Church of England has published a new book called "The Faith of Generation Y". 300 young people, born after 1982 were interviewed. One of the authors is Christopher Cocksworth, the Bishop of Coventry. The young people haven't really rejected religion, they simply aren't interested.

  Although often unfamiliar with formal religion, Generation Y are far from unconcerned with ethical issues. Ms Collins-Mayo commented: “Young people today have to grow up quickly and the study showed that they often face a wide range of difficult choices. Consequently they were interested in ethics. The young people drew moral guidance from family as friends, but they also recognised the potential of religion, including Christianity, to provide them with guidelines for living.”

  Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: “This is further evidence that religion has lost its grip on the imagination of the young people of this country. They don’t want it and they don’t need it, but that will not stop the Government and the churches forcing it on them in order to try and make them change their minds.”

  Mr Sanderson said that despite the constant doleful predictions of religious leaders, this was not a dysfunctional or amoral generation. “This new generation has all the splendours and all the flaws of previous generations. They’ve had far more opportunity for education and exploration than any preceding generation, and the result is that they’ve found out for themselves that living a good life without religion is perfectly possible, and maybe even desirable.”

  http://www.secularism.org.uk/new-report-finds-young-people-ar.html

  Some other key points from the study. . .

  • For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living.
  • Results show that less than one in five young people believes in a God "who created the world and hears my prayers".
  • Most adolescents were more likely to believe in the "nicer" parts of religious doctrine than the devil and punishment.
  • Many youngsters today were not looking for answers to "ultimate questions".
  • For most, religious observance stretched as far as praying in their bedrooms during moments of crisis on a "need-to-believe basis".
  • Authors found that for most teenagers today the definitions have changed with a "secular trinity of family, friends and the reflexive self" that gives them an "immanent faith" based on relationships in this world.
  • There was no hostility towards religion as such among the age group, the study found. as "fewer and fewer young people are being brought up in households with religiously inclined parents". But the analysis said that teenagers and people in their 20s are not the rebels of the 1960s and 70s - the so-called Generation X - who rejected both their parents and Christianity, and were hostile to the Church.
  • Pop songs were played at funeral memorial services ''because the young congregation did not know any hymns''.

  http://www.cobourgatheist.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=866:young-brits-dont-care-about-religion&catid=133:international-news&Itemid=76
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  MMXIV

  There was no hostility towards religion as such among the age group, the study found. as "fewer and fewer young people are being brought up in households with religiously inclined parents". But the analysis said that teenagers and people in their 20s are not the rebels of the 1960s and 70s - the so-called Generation X - who rejected both their parents and Christianity, and were hostile to the Church

  Wonder if any JW's formed part of the survey. Because few kids today are forced to go to several meetings a week, go on field service and knock on the doors of their school friends and be an outcast in school. Wouldn't suprise me if there are plenty of generation X's waiting to break out of the Borg.

  mmxiv
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  kurtbethel

  Plus, religion is a snare and a racket, so they would not likely be attracted to it.
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  Chalam

  Religion sucks, it is the "traditions of men". Knowing the Creator rocks!

  Some quotes from Bono :)

  

  

  • I'm a believer, but religion is the thing when God, like Elvis, has left the building. But when God is in the house, you get something else. I'm happy in a Catholic cathedral or a tent show down in the South with gospel music.
  • It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.
  • There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ .
  • Religion can be the enemy of God.
  • I'm not a very religious person. I'm a need to practice much more Christian. I'm uncomfortable in churches because the Christ I love and read about in the Gospels is often not in the churches. Remember, I come from Ireland and I've seen the damage of religious warfare. I am a believer. I don't wear the badge on the outside but it is on the inside.

  Blessings,

  Stephen
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  MMXIV
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  cognizant dissident

  If you think about how we spend the hours of our daily lives, you can see how religion has become irrelevant for all but those raised on it.

  We sleep 8 hours, we work 8 hours, religion has little place in a secular work environment that stresses inclusivity for all and focusing on the task at hand.

  What do we human animals mainly want to do with our other hours of free time. Well, we must shop for food, clothes and supplies, we must cook and feed ourselves and our families, clean and groom our bodies and homes. We have a few hours left over after that, perhaps 4 hours a day or so. We want to spend them enjoying ourselves. We want to spend them, reading, watching plays, either live, or in the cinema, or on TV. We want to listen to music or practice and appreciate our own arts, crafts and hobbies, and sports. We've worked hard all day and we think we've earned it.

  That is our down time, our time for pleasure (oops, almost forgot sex!). We want to socialize with our friends and if we are young people in late teens and twenties, our prime animal motivation is to find a partner and mate. That is all as it should be.

  We don't want what little free time we have to be spent in a stuffy hall, being made to feel guilty, ashamed and bad about ourselves, being serious all the time and being told what to do by others who we know are often less ignorant and less educated than we are.

  Young people often don't have all the superstitions our parents were raised with. They have already been debunked and disproved. They don't go to bed fearing demons and needing talismen to protect them. They don't have a lot of big unanswered questions. If they have a question, they can get an online encyclopedia and have it answered instantly to the greatest degree of scientific knowledge that exists at that moment. If the answer is not yet known, then it is not known and they can accept that, and don't feel the need to go to a church to have a story made up about it.

  Sometimes, older people, whose kids are grown, whose careers have peaked, who are starting to age and deteriorate, begin to get more reflective and muse on spirituality and the greater meaning of it all, if there is any.

  Even most of these older ones, focus more on spirituality than religion. They see the failures of religious organizations over the centuries. People are still interested in ethics which is the practice of social mores, but they are interested in morality that is relevant for the lives we lead today and the problems we face today in our social groups, not the problems faced thousands of years ago by our ancestors.

  This is not a bad thing. This is a natural evolution of society that comes with the information age.
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  debator

  This is a sad but predicted thing biblically.

  The rivers are drying up.

  and religion will become the target for destruction of a now faithless people.
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  cognizant dissident

  There's nothing sad about it, imo.

  Historically, dissenters have often been the target of religionists.

  The article was pointing out that young people are not AGAINST religion. No one is targeting it for destruction. It is dying a slow death from irrelevance in most people's lives. When something is no longer useful, you discard it. As a child learns to grow up and face reality, they discard their childish fairy tales in favor of facts.
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  leavingwt

  The rivers are drying up.

  ESPECIALLY within the WT organization. 67% of their children leave it.
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  jookbeard

  LWT, growth in the whole of Europe is showing minus and zero growth, same for the USA and Canada, not even pockets of Dubs in China and India,billions now live with no idea whatsoever what the canvassing campaign of what The WTS peddle, only growth comes fro the whipping boys of former Catholic strongholds and tin pot regimes in 3rd world Africa, the earths population approaches 7 Billion, how many dubs?