Religionists are going to lose their shit when they read this: a new Pew poll conducted recently found that today’s younger generations aren’t as religious as their parents, and that a full 1/4 of those interviewed identified themselves as either atheist, agnostic, or simply “non-religious”.
I’m not entirely surprised by these results, although I did like how the CNN article tries to reassure readers by saying that people tend to become more religious with age. It kind of sends the message that “well, they’ll wise up eventually and embrace God”, but I think they underestimate just how non-religious we really are. The reality is that without religion being shoved down our throats, fewer and fewer individuals are subscribing to it. If it’s up to 25% now, what happens when these young people have kids? I’m not suggesting that it’ll mean the end of religion, but it’s interesting to consider just how fast people are jumping off the religious bandwagon.
Does that mean that within my lifetime a significant portion of the population will cease to believe in fairy tales? Probably not, but it’s good to know that we’re all getting a little bit wiser.
February 18th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Hallelujah!!!!!!!!
February 18th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
The joke is that old people get more religious because they’re cramming for their final exam. Hey-o!
February 20th, 2010 at 8:26 am
This seems to be the general trend in my family! My grandparents are strict Catholic. My dad and his brothers and sisters are religious, but fun and don’t let it rule their lives. My brothers and I are all atheists. I married an atheist with the exact same family structure (although his brother is not completely atheist yet, he’s just wising up!) and I’m pregnant with a (hopefully) heathen child.
February 21st, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Its a good job as the religious have more kids than atheists – if their kids followed the parents beliefs verbatim then we would be overrun by the religious in a few generations!