Belief In God Plummets Among Youth

[dawn9476]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012 ... hp?ref=fpb

Hence why conservatives are bluring the lines between church and state more than ever, creating voucher programs to get more kids into religious schools, etc.

[doggie]

because education and strong religious beliefs are not always compatible. Plus kids are not liking the hate that is coming out i9nto the open.

[dawbs]

I also think it's much more 'ok' than it used to be to question such things.

My dad is, eh, probably fundie-lite. (he's also, according to my husband, "one of the people that makes me want to have faith", FWIW :). He always allowed/encouraged us to ask questions and have doubts.

In the 60's when he was heading to college, Dad asked some sort of 'hard question' of his youth-leader who basically threatened to tell his mom and have dad barred from the church. Because that was, of course, good for dad's faith :roll: .

I think we're more OK w/ questions. (and I think that's cyclical)

Although...I don't know how ANY adult can actually say 'no, I don't have doubts' about things that involve faith. If you don't have doubts, you don't have faith.

[doggie]

Without questioning you get monsters. people who think everything they think or have faith is is 100% true are the ones that are easily corrupted or easy to control or are easy to think whatever they think is ok. SO if you think god wants you to kill abortion doctors it is ok because it is what god wants and your faith is pure.

[silvia]

I am agnostic myself, but this study actually gives me quite a bit of hope. It reveals the coming of age of a new generation that's more skeptical than ever before of the hand-me-down wisdom of their elders--and not afraid to question it. When kids just swallow whatever's spoonfed to them, on the other hand, we get ossified fundamentalist dogma occupying the brains of a large percentage of the population, which bodes terribly for the future of the country.

[luckystone]

Phew. It's still really high though.

[Kristelle]

I graduated from high school last year, and I noticed that throughout the four years, more and more of those in my group of friends and outside of it became nonreligious. I went to a very diverse college in NYC, and we had a huge orthodox Jewish population, but most of those who weren't fundie Jewish or Muslim were atheist/agnostic or "very loosely" some sort of the "The Big Three".