Greg Richter -- Birmingham News

-snip first question-

Q. �Are a lot of young people really leaving the faith? Won't they just come back when they're older?�

A. �The answer to the first question is "yes." In the American Religious Identification Survey released in 2009, 18- to 29-year-olds were found to be the least religious age group: 22 percent claimed "no religion." That was up 11 percent from 1990. A follow-up study also found that the majority of these non-religious young people came from religious homes and were described by the study as "deconverts." Other researchers see an even larger exodus. Political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell report that "young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of five to six times the historic rate (30 percent to 40 percent have no religion today, versus 5 percent to 10 percent a generation ago)."

On the second question--whether or not they will return--is where the scholarly consensus breaks down. Some view the exodus from the church as a hiatus, a matter of young Americans "slapping the snooze" on Sunday mornings. They see the trend as a reversible life-phase phenomenon. Once members of the younger generation start establishing careers, getting married, and having children, they'll come back.

I'm not so sure. First, those primary sociological forces that drive adults back to religious commitment are now being delayed late into the 20s and even into the 30s, making an eventual return to faith more unlikely. Plus, as Putnam and Campbell report, today's young adults are abandoning the faith at a greater rate than the young adults of yesteryear. I also think there's been a tectonic shift in the culture. Past generations inhabited a largely Judeo-Christian culture. For this generation, reared in pluralistic, post-Christian America, the cultural gravity pulling people back to the faith has weakened.�

-snip the next 8 questions-

http://blog.al.com/living-news/2010/10/author_drew_dyck_on_generation.html

I am so sick and tired of the hypocrites in the so Christian groups that I can't stomach going to church at all. Christians are supposed to be honest, forgiving and compassionate. But most of them discriminate against the people in this country and the world who do not meet their picture which is of themselves. White and against lesbians and gays, to start with.

They scream and rant about the religious extremist in the Middle East and they are just as bad. They do not have members who go out and set bombs and kill people (yet) but it will only be a matter of time before they start.

For example, in Greek lore, Rhea was mother of Cronus(time)
Same concept as the Word existed in the beginning, all things created through the Word.
It is the same thing. Same story different labels.

"The faith" is Christianity.

I like the teachings of better ideas of love and kindness, and concepts of trying to learn that law without also feeling creates problems, so there are two components to following law, the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law.

Although I don't just find my ideas of Christianity in the Bible, and understand most of that is also context.

It also makes sense why the spirit of God was in a man, that walked the earth as Jesus, why people crucified him, and why he rose on the third day. To save the world not to condemn it.


And it makes sense why reason and faith go together, and are required for the 1st and 3rd defense, as is the love of God, for me, through Christ, the 2nd defense. It makes sense as the Trinity.

Really for me it is pretty reasonable. Although I disagree with parts of many texts, when I can make an argument and that argument is not refuted.

Although the making of an argument should be for learning or improving, not for a feeling of winning or ego, so even argument can be more good or more bad in its usage.

Shrug, but I am still due beer and travel money and many experiences, and nobody has done anything about that, so :shrug: I don't put much confidence in people, even when they say they are on the same side as me or think the same as me.

right wing has taken over its role in government. This is very hard to swallow even for life time Christians - let alone youth. Almost all the problems youth will face in the future are either denied or ignored by the right wing. In order to do anything about these issues we end up having to search very hard for a church that is not an idiot about politics.

When I left home at 16 I stopped going except for a couple of times with my sister and brother in law or weddings or funerals. I have no intention of going back. I never considered it a hiatus. I consider myself a recovering catholic. Once you actually look past what they want you to see, it all falls apart. My dad would ask me occasionally if I wanted to go to midnight mass for christmas or something, but I never did. I guess he got the last laugh while all of his kids stood around him saying prayers with a priest from our old church before he died. None of us actually go to church as far as I know though a few do still consider themselves catholic. But we always had respect for others and this was his choice so we did what he would have wanted. But other than that I have no interest in religon period. WHen I see people who end up going to religion later I find it has something to do with giving up drugs or something or life is rough and they need to have something to keep them going. I remember going to MOPS and after I had my miscarriage some of these folks were telling me that going to church might help me feel better. Like a drug? I said no, going to church wouldn't help me but thanks anyway. I believe in god. I believe there is something out there. BUt i am not religious and I do not believe in religion. I do not however identify myself as a christian or religious in any way.

way. My father sent me to church. I was expected to report on the text(s) the preacher took his sermon from.

I remember my Sunday school teacher instructing us to bring our Catholic friends to the Baptist church so they could be saved for if they weren't saved they would go to hell.

The Southern Baptist preacher would always yell about hellfire and brimstone, and tell us if we danced, went swimming in mixed company (boys and girls) and other such nonsense that God would throw us into the eternal fire.

I remember wondering, when I was about 8 or 9 years old, how God or Jesus, who were supposed to love us, would send us to hell for silly things like that. And why would God care which church we attended? My questions were never satisfactorily answered.

In my teen years, I began going to other churches with friends and family members. These included Methodist, Assembly of God, and Lutheran churches. None of them answered those, and many other questions. So if all those different churches couldn't agree on what was required to get into heaven, then I decided that I was wasting my time with them.

Over my 67 years I've read and studied many books, including the Bible. I finally realized that many, if not most, of the protestant churches take their beliefs and sermons from the judgmental God of the old Testament. There's little of the loving and forgiving God that Jesus spoke of.

I do not believe in religion. Religion is man-made. It's only purpose is for power and control over other men. I do believe there is a Higher Power, and we find that power deep within.

wants to make you go through him to get to where you are going. i definitely agree they are all about power and control. as a kid i was taught that jesus loved us all and how he turned his cheek and forgave those who put him on the cross. he helped hte sick and befriended those that were considered bad. i think if he were here today, he would not have anything to do with any of the religions and would rail against them as he apparently did of the churches back then. that is always assuming he was a real person.

when i went to church they didn't like us asking questions. i had a lot of them after my mom died. i was pretty mad. there were some nice nuns. i never blame the ones in the trenches. i believe most of them are there for good reasons. when i see the pope on tv and his minions, though, i am disgusted. they act like royalty. how anyone can participate in something like that is beyond me. and i refuse to participate in any enterprise which seeks to place me beneath anyone else. and i don't want my kids exposed to that either. i have three girls and i want them to grow up to know that they are equal to everyone else and are not second to anyone else.

treated like royalty. The crown, the golden ceremonial robes and chalices, it's so disgusting. It goes against everything that Christ taught. The protestants also have their need for ceremony and elevated attitudes along with promoting fearful messages. Insisting that their way is the only way. There are only two churches that I've found a somewhat similar affinity feeling.

Unity and Unitarian have positive messages.

The idiotic mind-control fundamentalist churches are increasing in numbers.

off the top of my head, Christian Science. Used to be doing pretty well. Nowadays not so much. One told me "We'd pray, and then they'd die."

Discouraging after just so many repititions, IMHO.

And then you'd hustle pretty hard to come up with a Puritan, a Shaker, and so on.

The fundamentalist evangelical megachurches are starting to shed college-age youth as well. Speculation I've seen was that this is a reaction to church stances on gay marriage and such and others are migrating to emerging church groups, which seem to my eye to strike a balance between the megachurch "born-again-ness" and more mainline theology. Don't know if I'd consider them "progressive christian churches" but I find I agree with people like Jay Bakker and Rob Bell a lot more than disagree.
I know my liberal mainline church is actually growing exponentially and its by welcoming those who have been rejected by other religious traditions (mostly Catholic and Presbyterian).

"...young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming encouraging rate of five to six times the historic rate (30 percent to 40 percent have no religion today, versus 5 percent to 10 percent a generation ago)."

:thumbsup:

(from the second to last Answer in the article)

Wow, maybe the author should ask why God chooses to to let so many other Christians go?

Why is God so picky and choosy?

I wonder if alot of it has to do with the naked hypocrisy and overt hatefullness that exists amongst the most vocal "Christian" groups in this country right now.

- The metaphor of religionists whistling past the graveyard has never been more apt.

:sarcasm:

SARCASM!

are less religious than older folks.

That's probably just about always been true.

It's part of coming of age to question things and challenge them.

It's part of getting older to realize that there may be some validity to them. Or not.

Superstitious, anti-intellectual Bronze Age goatfucker values are not adequate for the 21st century.

kept telling the youth of Athens. In so many words, of course.