More Young People Are Moving Away From Religion, But Why?

[angi_is_altered]

One-fifth of Americans are religiously unaffiliated - higher than at any time in recent U.S. history - and those younger than 30 especially seem to be drifting from organized religion. A third of young Americans say they don't belong to any religion.

NPR's David Greene wanted to understand why, so he gathered a roundtable of young people at a

Comments

[shadwrayvn]

I've had this conversation with quite a few family members as to why I was pulling away from the Catholic church & I just cant be a part of a religion who covers up for priest who abuse children. Who refuse to accept gay people & gay marriage. I just cant with a religion who placed a former Nazi as their Pope! Not to mention my views on abortion & birth control which has given me horrible looks form the older family members & being called some nasty names for using birth control & admitting I had sex before marriage. I am really not surprised by how many people my age & younger have left their church. My brother feels the same & no longer considers himself a Catholic either.

[emofordino]

IA! My dad and I kind of came to this conclusion around the same time. My immediate family is not very religious. (My mom is pagan, my dad, sister and I describe ourselves as lapsed-Catholic agnostics) but my extended family is very devoutly Catholic and we get a lot of comments about our lack of faith pretty often. Between our social beliefs regarding reproductive and LGBT rights, and being very much into science, and then all the problems with the church itself, it's been difficult to subscribe to their belief system. I can definitely empathize for a lot of these young adults who were interviewed.

[shadwrayvn]

exactly!

[roseofjuly]

Ugh, I get these comments from my mother-in-law about how we need to be in church. She uses it to guilt my husband into going to church when we go home to visit, and I'm stuck going with him at least for their New Year's Eve service (which begins at 9 pm and typically ends around 1-2 am). I want to spend NYE with friends having a good time but we're always stuck at church being prayed at.

[bestdaywelived]

I'm an ex-evangelical who first went to school in 1988, during the self-esteem movement. Because of self-esteem, I felt strongly that I was just as good, if not better, than any boy. I was hurt by and felt rejected by my family's religion because I noticed that all the important people in the bible were men. God was a man, Jesus was a man, the disciples were all men - you get the idea. For a child who wanted to know exactly why women weren't presidents, this was not okay.

I had doubts from the time that I was able to think critically, around age 8. A lesson on prayer requests is what taught me that there was no God. If I prayed, the answer would be like a stoplight, yes, no, or maybe. A light went off in my little brain that the same things would happen whether I prayed or not.

[redstar826]

In many places, it's no longer all that odd to not be very religious. I think that as that social pressure is removed, you will see more people leaving.

I live in an area that is pretty 'average' (suburban area that tends to elect people from both parties and is neither extremely liberal nor extremely conservative) and I know a crapload of people who are fairly unobservant in their religion. I don't know that many people who are upfront about being atheists or agnostics, but I know a lot of people who go to a church or a synagogue either never or very rarely and who don't really talk much about religion.

I'm 32 and I grew up in a pretty small church. The church has since closed but most of us still keep in touch. From my generation, of around 25 people, only about 3-4 still attend church on a regular basis.

[mentalguru]

Leaving religion is never easy- be it leaving the actual community or not but numbers rising in terms of those leaving it is pretty understandable. While discouragement still exists to do so within some religious communities, people have the ability to ask questions more than they ever could before, anonymously even, if they wish it to be so. And heck, even if you don't ask the questions, you can come and lurk on other peoples conversations and see the answers they provide. People convert but also more commonly it seems these days, deconvert on the basis of the various things they're exposed to. Belief isn't exactly a conscious choice in my opinion, but let's face it, exposure changes things.

Heck, the internet had a lot to do with my healing and dealing with the fact I was no longer a christian too. And it probably had a part to play in my actual de-conversion. Even though in the long term I think I'm happier this way in the short-term the various feelings that can come with it were overwhelming in some cases.

[hey_kayla_jay]

I haven't identified as Catholic in years but I still feel bad about leaving it sometimes. Catholic guilt, man. That shit is real.

[emofordino]

It really is!

[hey_kayla_jay]

I feel guilt about EVERYTHING. Just the dumbest shit. I thought it was part of my anxiety but now I think its just leftover from all the brainwashi- err, Sunday school I had to attend for years.

[tabaqui]

Wth, LJ, why did you eat my post? Grrr.

To sum up - atheist and perfectly content to be. Even as a kid, i never thought 'god' was 'really real', and adults and their dumb-ass half answers and stupid behavior never helped to make me feel any differently.