It's All Your Fault You Evil Secularists

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Why American Children Stopped Believing in God

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/why-american-children-stopped-believing-in-god/

It turns out that religiosity is usually determined very early in life. All the data suggest that, by and large, kids brought up in religious households stay religious and kids who aren’t, don’t. Consequently, childhood religiosity has been, and remains, the most important indicator of America’s religious trajectory. The story of religious decline in America is not the story of adults consciously rejecting the faith of their forefathers: It’s the story of each generation receiving a more secular upbringing than the generation preceding it. What accounts for this secularization of childhood over time? Taxpayer dollars.

 

[8enotto]

Yup, it works like a charm.

My son just did 1st Communion with no clue as to why mom said it was important. He tried to leave the ceremony early too.

Made me proud. He has rejected religion at age 10.

 

[Meadmaker]

Why American Children Stopped Believing in God

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/why-american-children-stopped-believing-in-god/

The interesting thing is that the article is acknowledging that the only way you can get people to accept religion is to get to them before they can think for themselves.

As adults, we are able to examine evidence, look at all sides, reason about what we know about the world, and history, and the way people think and behave. As adults, darned near zero people suddenly realize that if they didn't start going to church on Sunday they would end up in Hell.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Nonsense.
Kids I know believe in way more Gods than just one (Thor, Loki, Zeus, Poseidon, etc.).
That makes them the most religious ever!

 

[smartcooky]

The interesting thing is that the article is acknowledging that the only way you can get people to accept religion is to get to them before they can think for themselves.
As adults, we are able to examine evidence, look at all sides, reason about what we know about the world, and history, and the way people think and behave. As adults, darned near zero people suddenly realize that if they didn't start going to church on Sunday they would end up in Hell.

Generally speaking, I agree. However, how does that account for people who "find God" later in their lives?

 

[Dave Rogers]

Job well done, if you ask me.

Dave

 

[Craig4]

So the problem is...?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Generally speaking, I agree. However, how does that account for people who "find God" later in their lives?

you mean those court-ordered to attend 12-step programs?

 

[8enotto]

Last good stats I heard any 12 step program has about the same real recovery rate as going cold turkey. About 5%, I would assume the religion sticks equally.

 

[timhau]

Generally speaking, I agree. However, how does that account for people who "find God" later in their lives?

Acquired brain damage.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Generally speaking, I agree. However, how does that account for people who "find God" later in their lives?

They are those for whom "generally speaking" does not apply.

Hans

 

[Thor 2]

Generally speaking, I agree. However, how does that account for people who "find God" later in their lives?

Be interesting if we can see some stats about this. I suspect the number of folk who "find God" later in their lives, would be quite small. I also suspect they may have had some conditioning in childhood, that they suppressed until it welled up in their later years. Such was the case with my brother who "saw the light" when he was 18.

 

[SteveAitch]

Generally speaking, I agree. However, how does that account for people who "find God" later in their lives?

Intimations of mortality - an excess of imagination, allowing them to see the forthcoming 'event' too clearly?

If you see what I mean.

 

[dann]

You should read the whole thing, including the moral of the story:

The time has come for religious parents to take their children back from the state. It simply will not do anymore for faithful Americans to drop their sons and daughters off at the curbside every morning for the government to collect as if they were taking out the trash.
(...)
But the only real road to religious revival is the one that begins with each parent’s first step out of the public school’s doors.

The lack of religious indoctrination in school is to blame for the secularization, so the solution is religious schools!
Thank God this analysis is completely wrong!
I have a feeling the kids sent to those institutions will hate their parents for it.

 

[Meadmaker]

Generally speaking, I agree. However, how does that account for people who "find God" later in their lives?

It doesn't, so obviously the previous statement is not 100% true.

My experience of such people is that most of them are "refinding God", as in they grew up Christian but never really believed, or maybe paid lip service to the belief but never gave it much thought. Later in life, usually after some emotional crisis, they latch onto belief in God as a means of getting them out of the crisis.

Of course, some exceptions apply.

 

[8enotto]

You should read the whole thing, including the moral of the story:

The lack of religious indoctrination in school is to blame for the secularization, so the solution is religious schools!
Thank God this analysis is completely wrong!
I have a feeling the kids sent to those institutions will hate their parents for it.

You would be quite correct in the kids forced into religious schools hating it.

My 3 younger siblings were not as good at dodging it as I was.

My two sisters kinda faked the church stuff enough to pass and my brother did a fairly straight up refusal to participate. He didn't give a ****.

Him getting back into a public school his last year was a nasty battle but he won.

 

[Thor 2]

Why American Children Stopped Believing in God

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/why-american-children-stopped-believing-in-god/

It's noteworthy that the tone of the presentation is supporting all religious persuasions. This is somewhat contrary to the history we know about the harmony between different religions, even different sects of those religions.

 

[Beerina]

The fall of religiousity in Europe was tracked as government assumed the role religion had in caring for the sick, orphans, poor, and so on. Some of the very earliest writings on Christianity not in the Bible itself discuss how attractive it was to converts because of the selfless leading by example in those exact things. No concern even for one's own health when caring for the diseased sick.

As such, politics replaces religion in all but name. You do all these things not for Jesus, but for whatever loudmouth demagogue of the week is yabbering at you.

The form remains the same: gather as many followers as possible so you can seize the ring of power. Then you no longer need rely on mere persuasion to get more followers, but can force everybody to your god. Those at the top continue to live the sweet life for waving their hands and chanting pleasing words, and somehow their family coffers mysteriously fill.

Freedom disappears either way. Freedom is still the goal, and we will not fully have it until the last politician is choked with the entrails of the last priest.

We live in a very religious society. It just doesn't mention God anymore. People still rage, as ordered by their priests, to treat the lay people on the other side as hellbound dupes lead by actively evil demons.

 

[Resume]

We live in a very religious society. It just doesn't mention God anymore.

Jesus Christ, how long have I been asleep? When did this happen?

 

[Norman Alexander]

Every household must, by law, have two nativity scenes set up on their front lawn at Christmas. One for them, and the other for a tragically poor secular family. It will help make it more Christian if they are decorated with thousands of flashing lights, just like it happened in ancient Bethlehem.