@ohio-guy i went for 12 years with school. but the high school had priests diddling students. cover up. i represented the arch diocese for a few years in abuse cases. i saw the rico-type steps they took to conceal their behavior. stopped going completely. never go now. my daughter goes once a week with her friend. has for a while now. and my ex takes my minion every week. he goes to a catholic school too. but the church they go to is different. it's the mega church bullshit with a band. horrible.
i think catholic school, the trappings of the church, the community, the traditions, was wonderful looking back. made xmas better. let's kids know they are part of something bigger. another reason for accountability. so many great things about church imo. they messed up big time.
This guy tracks data about religion and writes about it. Lots of data in the article below, lots of ways to interpret it. But I found this thesis interesting: among people leaving religion--obviously up a lot over the last 50 years, the people leaving their religion was a political act--driven by differing political worldviews--further in the past. Over the last few decades, though, it looks like young people are leaving less and less for political reasons, they just stop attending. His framing: The first wave left with conviction. The second wave just drifted out the door.
https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-first-wave-left-with-conviction
I'd be in the older cohort. I'm not sure I would count--I was raised Catholic but was an atheist by age 12 (in a time when atheism was nowhere near as accepted as now). But I have lots of friends who were also raised Catholic and who say they left the church at various times for "political" reasons, although I suspect their faith had already dissipated before that, and that for a long while, they just associated with Catholicism out of habit or tribal affiliation.
Interesting article. Just one problem I have. The trend he notes at the end of the article may not mean anything, as it broadly matches the trend in party affiliation among all Americans when controlled for age group (the slightly steeper trend among the nones could easily be explained by the fact that nones have historically been more liberal as a whole, anyway).
In other words, the trend he identifies may not signal anything about how or why people leave religion; it may simply be a side effect of younger generations being less likely to identify with a party.
Edit: with the help of AI, I just dug through a lot of data from the GSS and the Pew RLS, two of the best sources for religious identity data, and found:
Among cradle Catholics born before 1980, about 30% identify as Democrat.
Among those born after 1980, about 25% identify as Democrat.
Isolating further to only millennials, the number drops a little more, to about 22%-24% depending on your particular dataset.
This trend matches nicely the trend identified by the author you posted, and I think tends to confirm my suspicion - that it likely says nothing about how or why people leave religion, and instead simply reflects how different age groups prefer to identify politically.
First, my family believed itself to be religious, but other than being forced to say a goodnight prayer, I was never taught anything about religion after about 6. No Bible, no church. So once I was old enough, I identified as agnostic up until I met my wife about age 26. I became a member of the ELCA and started identifying as Christian. I am now United Methodist.
My friends who are more conservative in their religion seem to have a different relationship. It may be me, I don't know. But they reference how they can feel Jesus moving in their lives. I don't know, maybe my natural skepticism, but I've never had that feeling.
Which leads to some of the stats in the article. I believe the more conservative churches are more accepting of the "there is one path to Jesus" type of teaching. The old mainline churches are more into many paths. It is easier to rally people around one right answer than many paths. It is harder for someone to leave what they believe to be the one right path.
I suspect for younger generations, the internet plays a role and why that doesn't hold as much. To verify what one was taught in my youth would have been much harder; it involved going to a library, which may or may not have a good source on the subject. I do not believe in inerrancy, but my conservative Christian friends do. There is a lot on the internet to challenge inerrancy (not saying inerrancy is right or wrong, just there are challenges). I think that helps explain some of the conservative curve that has come with the internet generations. The conservative curve still hasn't bent as much as the liberal or moderate curves.
There are stories like the one below that attendance recently has recently increased.
@arthur-dent interesting
a different way to look at it. the preeminent faith-based institution in the united states is a school in chicago called moody bible institute. basically the mit for people of faith. in the last decade enrollment has dropped almost 50%.
@ohio-guy i went for 12 years with school. but the high school had priests diddling students. cover up. i represented the arch diocese for a few years in abuse cases. i saw the rico-type steps they took to conceal their behavior. stopped going completely. never go now. my daughter goes once a week with her friend. has for a while now. and my ex takes my minion every week. he goes to a catholic school too. but the church they go to is different. it's the mega church bullshit with a band. horrible.
i think catholic school, the trappings of the church, the community, the traditions, was wonderful looking back. made xmas better. let's kids know they are part of something bigger. another reason for accountability. so many great things about church imo. they messed up big time.
I didn't go to a non-Catholic school until I started grad school at Ohio State. In some shape or form it'll always be a part of me and I can't imagine what it would take for me to say I was leaving the church.
My ex was not Catholic and if I'm being honest I always felt like she had a silent disdain for the church. She agreed to having the kids baptized, get communion, get confirmed, etc but if it were left up to her none of that would have happened. Church isn't even on their radar when they're with her now.
The first woman I dated post divorce was great, but she went to one of those mega churches. I went with her a couple times and I just couldn't do it. I remember looking around while the pastor was saying something with the band playing in the background and everyone was waving one hand, swaying back and forth, with their eyes closed. He kept calling the congregation 'Church!' Like, "Hey Church - I just want you to know, all the struggles and trials you have...Jesus can hold. Let him hold them for you Church! He loves you!" Stuff like that. It was just so foreign to me. And it always seemed like the pastor must've had an expense account at Patagonia, Marmot, North Face and REI.
I do want to offer the disclaimer that I'm not trying to put that type of church down. It just wasn't for me.
@boogie the current foreign born population is around 16%. In the 1950s the Hispanic population is estimated to be under 1%. Same for Asian population.
30% is the high estimate from AI. Just curious. What did you think it was around?
https://twitter.com/geiger_capital/status/2058931420316238179?s=46
@big-ryan Well I know St Paul’s at IU had a big surge in young women this year. But it was mainly to catch a glimpse of Fernando. 😎
Is there no delete button under edit any more? Sorry my iPad was being wonky
@big-ryan Well I know St Paul’s at IU had a big surge in young women this year. But it was mainly to catch a glimpse of Fernando. 😎
- Inconvenient - no time/busy schedule
- Tragedy - God didn't save someone close, so He must not exist
- Crappy pastor/church - making everything about giving money and/or feeling guilt.
Its an interesting thesis.Because religion is inconvenient. Just like unexpected pregnancies are inconvenient and pretty much all the people closest to you in life are the most inconvenient.
A culture of convenience is an anti-human culture.
Isn’t a lot of PC and woke culture also inconvenient? Why do people buy into that if the driver here is society’s decreasing tolerance for inconvenience?
I don't think I understand the connection. For us normies, dealing with woke/ PC people is definitely inconvenient. I don't think it is for the purveyors as much. It's a simplified framework of morality and replaces actually being a good person with just having to recite the catechisms and follow the practices.
Religion is far more intensive. Strictures on your behavior, time commitments.
Look at Hickory above. He's woke as hell. To him a crappy religious experience or leader is one that makes you feel guilt. As if guilt isn't an important and useful emotion for regulating human behavior. Or that anyone saying something that makes you feel guilty is the bad guy and not your for your own misdeeds.
These are the people we're dealing with. Performative morality, all the way down.
I didn't leave religion because I was never part of one. I've always been agnostic. Looking from the outside, it seems that many people don't arrive at their religion by objectively weighing all the evidence. They're often deeply conditioned, socialized, or indoctrinated into it from childhood, long before they're old enough to evaluate the claims critically. If you're raised being told that one religion is unquestionably true, and you're rarely exposed to serious alternative perspectives, it's not surprising that many people continue believing it into adulthood. I was fortunate to grow up without that assumption being built in, so I've always looked at religious claims the same way I'd look at any other extraordinary claim: I want convincing evidence before I believe them.
So to answer the question, I think people get removed from the influences that 'pushed' them in whatever direction to where they can finally make an objective decision on their own.
@boogie the current foreign born population is around 16%. In the 1950s the Hispanic population is estimated to be under 1%. Same for Asian population.
30% is the high estimate from AI. Just curious. What did you think it was around?
https://twitter.com/geiger_capital/status/2058931420316238179?s=46
How much of that is related to lower domestic birth rates vs. higher immigration?
Is there no delete button under edit any more? Sorry my iPad was being wonky
It's at the top right of your post. Not your Ipad, the website is being shit lately.
This guy tracks data about religion and writes about it. Lots of data in the article below, lots of ways to interpret it. But I found this thesis interesting: among people leaving religion--obviously up a lot over the last 50 years, the people leaving their religion was a political act--driven by differing political worldviews--further in the past. Over the last few decades, though, it looks like young people are leaving less and less for political reasons, they just stop attending. His framing: The first wave left with conviction. The second wave just drifted out the door.
https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-first-wave-left-with-conviction
I'd be in the older cohort. I'm not sure I would count--I was raised Catholic but was an atheist by age 12 (in a time when atheism was nowhere near as accepted as now). But I have lots of friends who were also raised Catholic and who say they left the church at various times for "political" reasons, although I suspect their faith had already dissipated before that, and that for a long while, they just associated with Catholicism out of habit or tribal affiliation.
My biggest beef with the article is the lack of depth around the "religiousness" change. Now, I'm not trying to point a finger or be rude towards the author, but to me, the transition from one religion to another or one religion to agnosticism or atheism is only part of the equation. Many of our parents grew up more religious than we are raising our kids (# of church attendances, confirmation, etc.).
I can't speak for anything other than Judaism, but very few go Reform (least religious) to Conservative (moderately conservative), Traditional (more conservative) or Orthodox (ultra conservative). Far more go the other direction, and even more go from the lower rungs to nothing. They may celebrate a major holiday or two here or there, but they aren't attending a Synagogue routinely or abiding by religious standards (e.g., keeping Kosher). I would imagine that many in the Christian sects are experiencing the same, given the amount of church and mass time and effort I see, despite being in a suburb with the most per capita churches in the state.