Another study: teens fleeing religion more than ever before

[Malintent]

Knowledge. We have more of it, and far greater access to it. Kids these days can check facts at their fingertips, so the historically successful means of spreading lies and covering up information to protect the numbers of the faithful is no longer viable, and the mass exodus of their tribe is inevitable.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The article was only a study of US teens. Worldwide (Asia, South America, Africa) isn't mentioned so not as hopeful for the world as some here seem to assume. Also from the article it looks like those mentioned in the study are leaning toward libertarianism rather than liberalism - rising individualism rather than joining a "grand community" and commitment to other people.

The linked article:

“These trends are part of a larger cultural context, a context that is often missing in polls about religion,” Twenge says. “One context is rising individualism in U.S. culture. Individualism puts the self first, which doesn’t always fit well with the commitment to the institution and other people that religion often requires. As Americans become more individualistic, it makes sense that fewer would commit to religion.”

Observation or interpretation?

I see the usual claim that young people are more selfish. These are the people supporting Obama and the State protecting minorities.

Of course there is the usual claim that the young are selfish and there has always been a percentage of the selfish but the study said "rising individualism in U.S. culture". I read that as an increasing percentage of individualism.

Is there anything more selfish than living your life so that you can gain an eternal reward that is greater and more wonderful than anything imaginable? You're not sacrificing anything if that's the arrangement. There is nothing more selfish than looking past the struggles and sufferings and tragedies we encounter today so that one can personally profit. Sure, I know religions wrap that up in a bunch of altruistic horseshit but in the end that's all it is. Best we jettison thoughts of a personal payoff and act simply because it's the right thing to do.

 

[Underseer]

The article was only a study of US teens. Worldwide (Asia, South America, Africa) isn't mentioned so not as hopeful for the world as some here seem to assume. Also from the article it looks like those mentioned in the study are leaning toward libertarianism rather than liberalism - rising individualism rather than joining a "grand community" and commitment to other people.

The linked article:

“These trends are part of a larger cultural context, a context that is often missing in polls about religion,” Twenge says. “One context is rising individualism in U.S. culture. Individualism puts the self first, which doesn’t always fit well with the commitment to the institution and other people that religion often requires. As Americans become more individualistic, it makes sense that fewer would commit to religion.”

Observation or interpretation?

I see the usual claim that young people are more selfish. These are the people supporting Obama and the State protecting minorities.

Of course there is the usual claim that the young are selfish and there has always been a percentage of the selfish but the study said "rising individualism in U.S. culture". I read that as an increasing percentage of individualism.

Is there anything more selfish than living your life so that you can gain an eternal reward that is greater and more wonderful than anything imaginable? You're not sacrificing anything if that's the arrangement. There is nothing more selfish than looking past the struggles and sufferings and tragedies we encounter today so that one can personally profit. Sure, I know religions wrap that up in a bunch of altruistic horseshit but in the end that's all it is. Best we jettison thoughts of a personal payoff and act simply because it's the right thing to do.

Yup.

If Christians and Muslims spent less time worrying about what happens to them after they die and more time worrying about what happens to other people before they die, they might actually be as moral as they think they are.

 

[lpetrich]

What I find interesting is that with older atheists, leaving religion is a mostly academic matter. Someone spent years studying the Bible, apologetics, etc., and concluded after much contemplation that the arguments for religion simply don't stack up.

Interesting.

However, when I talk to younger atheists, it seems mostly about moral considerations. Instead of spending years of study trying to figure out what is true, they simply conclude that Christians are immoral and that they would rather not have anything to do with Christianity because of this

What is interesting here is the total abdication of the Religious Left from politics and policymaking. One doesn't see anyone challenging creationists by yelling "The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go!" Or anyone defending abortion by yelling "God has given us sovereignty over our bodies, and that's that."

 

[ronburgundy]

Interesting.

However, when I talk to younger atheists, it seems mostly about moral considerations. Instead of spending years of study trying to figure out what is true, they simply conclude that Christians are immoral and that they would rather not have anything to do with Christianity because of this

What is interesting here is the total abdication of the Religious Left from politics and policymaking. One doesn't see anyone challenging creationists by yelling "The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go!" Or anyone defending abortion by yelling "God has given us sovereignty over our bodies, and that's that."

There really isn't a "religious left", in the sense of being to the "left" on social issues. Those that are sincerely religious and vote Dem or support "left" policies do so largely in support of economic issues that seek to redistribute resources or advance the interests of ethnic minorities. On issues like cosmology, evolution, abortion, etc., the religious people on "the left" are actually on the "right". Those that support science and individual liberties on these issues are rarely sincerely religious and if they retain a religious identity it is largely superficial. This makes sense because the central motive behind the monotheisms that have come to dominate religious views is to promote conformity, authoritarianism, and to justify inequality. As such they are inherently more compatible with the core values of social conservatives and at odds with social liberalism.

 

[Underseer]

Interesting.

However, when I talk to younger atheists, it seems mostly about moral considerations. Instead of spending years of study trying to figure out what is true, they simply conclude that Christians are immoral and that they would rather not have anything to do with Christianity because of this

What is interesting here is the total abdication of the Religious Left from politics and policymaking. One doesn't see anyone challenging creationists by yelling "The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go!" Or anyone defending abortion by yelling "God has given us sovereignty over our bodies, and that's that."

They've been fighting a losing battle against the conservative Christians ever since the turbulent 60s. No matter what liberal Christians argue, conservative Christians can counter with "Hippies openly encouraged pre-marital sex and opposed the war, therefore liberalism is evil!" I guess in Christian circles, that trumps everything.

 

[lpetrich]

“Steeplejacking:” Are Ultra-Conservative Christians Hijacking Our Churches? | Care2 Causes linking to Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right is Hijacking Mainstream Religion: Sheldon Culver, John Dorhauer, Frederick Clarkson, Michael Goldberg: 9780977197286: Amazon.com: Books

Also interesting is From Taoist to Infidel by Richard Carrier. He was raised in a liberal Xian church, something that was a very happy memory for him. But he started reading the Bible, and he found it very inadequate, and he converted to Taoism in his teens. He kept on learning, and he continued to find the Bible inadequate. After reading it once again, he decided that he was an atheist. At the end of his testimony, he describes how cowardly liberal Xians are against the Religious Right, unable or unwilling to challenge its theological premises.

It did no good that most nominal Christians disavow all this behavior, for I discovered all too quickly that hardly any of them had the moral fiber to stand up to it, few make much effort to defend in public their apparently kinder, gentler message of tolerance and love against the Righteous Hoarde, and fewer still would call me ally. Why would they? Jesus himself tells everyone I am damned, and if the most informed, wise and compassionate being in the universe condemns me utterly, deeming me worthy of unquenchable fire and immortal worms, far be it for any mortal to have a kinder opinion of me. Worse, the liberal Christians have no text. In any Bible debate, the liberal interpreter always loses, for he must admit he is putting human interpretation, indeed bold-faced speculation, before the Divine Word of God. And without the Bible to stand on a Christian can be condemned as an unbeliever in disguise. Since being thought an atheist is worse than being thought a prostitute, not many believers are likely to raise their head against Fundamentalism.

Which provoked RC to become a secularist activist.

Why Is America's Most Progressive Voting Block Often Overlooked? | Big Think Adam Lee answers: the atheists, agnostics, and otherwise nonreligious.

It's evident in issues like abortion, torturing people suspected of terrorism, the Iraq War, and marriage equality.

He also notes that the Religious Left has been missing in action.

Even Barack Obama, justly credited as an eloquent speaker and orator, confesses in The Audacity of Hope that he found himself flustered and off-balance when trying to defend his liberal religious beliefs against a scripture-quoting right-wing fundamentalist:

"Take my Republican opponent in 2004, Alan Keyes, who deployed a novel argument for attracting voters in the waning days of the campaign. 'Christ would not vote for Barack Obama,' Mr. Keyes proclaimed, 'because Barack Obama has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.'

...Alan Keyes presented the essential vision of the religious right in this country, shorn of all compromise. Within its own terms, it was entirely coherent, and provided Mr. Keyes with the certainty and fluency of an Old Testament prophet. And while I found it simple enough to dispose of his constitutional and policy arguments, his readings of Scripture put me on the defensive.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, Mr. Keyes would say, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination. Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but he supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.

What could I say? That a literal reading of the Bible was folly?"

 

[ronburgundy]

Interesting.

What is interesting here is the total abdication of the Religious Left from politics and policymaking. One doesn't see anyone challenging creationists by yelling "The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go!" Or anyone defending abortion by yelling "God has given us sovereignty over our bodies, and that's that."

They've been fighting a losing battle against the conservative Christians ever since the turbulent 60s. No matter what liberal Christians argue, conservative Christians can counter with "Hippies openly encouraged pre-marital sex and opposed the war, therefore liberalism is evil!" I guess in Christian circles, that trumps everything.

The conservatives have a far better argument against liberal "Christians", which is that Jesus accepted and endorsed to OT, and the OT transparently and explicitly endorses sexism, racism, genocide, religious war, anti-reason, fascistic authoritarianism, and general violent intolerance. IOW, it endorses everything that conservatives love. Thus, liberal "Christians" are self-contradicting, cowardly, hypocrites who don't actually believe in any of the foundational ideas of Christianity. IOW, "conservative" Christians are actually just Christians and the only way to fight them is to fight the foundational ideas and values at the heart of Christianity. Liberal "Christians" are just liberals too cowardly to admit this, so instead they just bury their heads and occasional mutter incoherent nonsense about conservatives "perverting" Christianity, when all facts show the opposite.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, in order to be a liberal Christian, you really need to do a whole lot more cherry-picking and rationalizing than a conservative Christian needs to do. When you say that the Bible is the basis of your belief system but you really mean that these thirteen various passages that you've found in the Bible which correspond to the belief system you had before you found them are the basis of your belief system then it becomes somewhat awkward when someone points out a fourteenth passage from the Bible which contradicts what you say Biblical morality tells us. The more passages your version of Christianity ignores, the more difficult it is counter those arguments.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But in the Jesus fables Jesus is a rebellious liberal. That's why the conservatives nailed the mofo to boards.

Exchanging bible passages isn't going to change any conservative minds. They love their bible more than they love their Jesus.

 

[Achwienichtig]

There is, I think, a large religious left, but they are not activists. I say this as somebody who once hung out in their ranks. Most of my college mates were Christians who sincerely held both to Christianity and to more socialist ideologies at the same time. I know at least three people who identified as gay Christians (although they didn't tell many others about the gay part, since they did fear being ostracized for it). Quite a few of my friends openly rejected right wing Christianity (one friend even lent me a book called "How to be evangelical without being conservative." I have yet to read it.) For the most part, everybody was non-denominational, and they rejected even the notion that one creed could have all the answers.

I haven't kept up with my college friends well enough to know where they're all at now. Have the liberal ones all rejected their Christianity by now? Do they identify now as left wing Christians? I don't know. The few I do know about are the ones that have cast off their fear of ostracization and are now open proponents of gay rights. But I haven't asked them about how they identify religiously.

 

[Underseer]

But in the Jesus fables Jesus is a rebellious liberal. That's why the conservatives nailed the mofo to boards.

Exchanging bible passages isn't going to change any conservative minds. They love their bible more than they love their Jesus.

Jesus was a "rebellious liberal" who didn't have a problem with slavery, and instructed his followers to kill unbelievers. It's a little more complicated than that.

 

[Dutch_labrat]

Interesting.

What is interesting here is the total abdication of the Religious Left from politics and policymaking. One doesn't see anyone challenging creationists by yelling "The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go!" Or anyone defending abortion by yelling "God has given us sovereignty over our bodies, and that's that."

There really isn't a "religious left", in the sense of being to the "left" on social issues. Those that are sincerely religious and vote Dem or support "left" policies do so largely in support of economic issues that seek to redistribute resources or advance the interests of ethnic minorities. On issues like cosmology, evolution, abortion, etc., the religious people on "the left" are actually on the "right". Those that support science and individual liberties on these issues are rarely sincerely religious and if they retain a religious identity it is largely superficial. This makes sense because the central motive behind the monotheisms that have come to dominate religious views is to promote conformity, authoritarianism, and to justify inequality. As such they are inherently more compatible with the core values of social conservatives and at odds with social liberalism.

I must disagree. There still exists a huge leftist christian movement around liberation theology. Quite a few South American catholic priests are close to Marxist. Heard the new pope lately? Local christian democratic movements in South America, Asia and Africa (spot a trend?) can also be quite socialist.

I often observe that the more extreme and right-wing elements in a group are also often the louder and more visible. This is these days well visible with muslims but is also true of christians. In many congregations and parishes the silent majority are the socially engaged and moderate ones. My experience in the parish where I grew up is that the ones loud mouthing right-wing rhetoric were not the ones around when charity or church maintenance needed hands.

It also works on a larger scale, the huge evangelical mega churches are the ones screaming on the street corner. You don't notice the smaller local congregations handing out meals in the soup kitchen.