Generation Z Has Double the Percentage of Atheists
Each passing generation is less religious than the one before. Teenagers today, called Gen Z, are twice as likely not to believe as their parents. Generation Z is defined two ways, those born between 1996 and 2010 and those in the study, born between 1999 and 2015.
The skepticism of Gen Z in different than that of old people like myself. In older Americans much of the resistance to the faith comes from hypocrisy and judgmentalism. In Gen Z the young people refer to the dilemma of evil and poverty existing at the same time there is supposed to exist a loving God. They hear no compelling explanation of how this could be. Certainly there are explanations provided but they do not register as logical to Gen Z.
Also mentioned often in the survey were policies of some parts of Christianity against LGBTQ and immigrants. I don't see anyway the faith can win over this cohort and remain hostel Gen Z on these policies.
Gen Z then remain in embrace of relativism. They are not necessarily happy to be in this vague place, they would like to find more certainty. Perhaps they are vulnerable to some future explanation much different than what now exists.
It seems to me leaders in the faith have been thinking only short term and not long term. Short term is to embrace a literal god and a literal history from the Bible. It is also bowing to those people in the faith who hate homosexuality and abortion. They have allowed the tail to wag the dog. They have been behind cultural change instead of out in front of it.
As with all cultural change no one can predict the future. But indications from Gen Z suggest there is some catching up to do.
Jon's claim, "Each passing generation is less religious than the one before."
ReplyDeleteLet's put this claim to the test.
If one looks purely at Christianity, it started from zero about 2000 years ago. Exactly when it started is open to theological debate.
Now, Christianity stands at about 2.4 billion people, more than existed at the time of Christ by hundreds of millions. So, taking 0 A.D. or thereabouts as the time for measuring the decline of the Christian religion, we find the exact opposite of Jon's claim.
Islam came along after Christianity and stands at 1.9 billion people today.
The entirety of secular/atheist/agnostic/unbeliever stands at 1.2 billion people (about 15% worldwide) today followed by Hindu at 1.15 billion, Buddhist at 521 million, and about 10% for other religious believers.
Worldwide, the growth/decline of religious belief is shown here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_religion One can see a large percentage growth over the last 100 years.
I know it is very chic to state that religious belief is on the decline but the facts state otherwise. Therefore, the conclusions one reaches based upon a false fact (fake science?) are also highly questionable. There is no doubt that certain small pockets of the world have seen some religious shifts which support Jon's conclusion. However, one never extrapolates a small subset to reach conclusions about the entire world.
Matt--Thanks for reviewing those numbers. The only disagreement is over what they mean for the future and no one knows for certain about that.
DeleteAs for the future, I believe most Catholic theologians concluded that the 20th century was going to be the bloodiest century of all time. Certainly, we saw much of that with WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao, the various African warlords, Planned Parenthood and its worldwide affiliates.
DeleteThe 21st century has started out more peacefully than most, notwithstanding the 9/11 massacre, global jihad, China, NK, and continued African warlord activity. Abortion has been on a steady decline but is still not outlawed.
With China, Russia, Iran and NK still bad actors on the world stage, there is still a chance for WWIII but I think cooler heads will prevail. No one can plausibly accuse Trump of being a hawk. He has been tempted many times but always found peaceful solutions. Meanwhile, the nations of appeasement have seen jihad and terrorism rise in their countries, mostly European.
Matt "Meanwhile , the nations of appeasement have seen jihad and terrorism rise in their countries, mostly European."
ReplyDeleteI don't know what is meant by jihad and terrorism, but if you mean crime this is inaccurate. I looked up Europe. Robberies are down 24% and homicides are down 19% since 2008. As you mentioned, all the school shootings and 9/11 crime has been falling steadily in the U.S.