Posted on 04/12/2005 3:28:46 PM PDT by TBP
Most young Americans strongly believe in having choices, an attitude that is likely to shape their identification with traditional religions, a study says. The big question is how traditional religions will respond to a new generation of Americans who value choice, informality and personal expression, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at insider.washingtontimes.com ...
An interesting breakdown of the religious preferences of Americans and interesting information for church marketers.
***Most young Americans strongly believe in having choices, an attitude that is likely to shape their identification with traditional religions,***
OK, here's a choice...
And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, CHOOSE this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Joshua 25:14
The only choice that matters.
Speaking as a Gen X-er, I think that a lot of people in my generation are finding their spirituality later in life. (I know I did) We were the first generation to go thru school without EVER having prayer in school and I think that's why we might be slower to finding our beliefs than previous generations. (plus, there were also a lot of hippy parents giving birth to the Gen Xers) Also, the secularists got more and more into the mainstream and people of faith were ridiculed...referred to as "holy rollers" etc...especially in the MSM.
The figure for other Western countries would even be much higher. The figure for all of New Zealand is 26% and for my generation (I'm either Gen X or Y depending on how you count poeple born in late 70s) it is very well likely to be over half for European New Zealanders (whites). (Almost all Christians I know are either Pacific Islanders or Asians - most European friends I know say flat out they are not Christians)
I can't vouch for politics, but the thing is there are conflicting reports saying today's university students in America are becoming more politically right-leaning than previous generations of students. And people do change political orientation once it they get to the stage of earning dollars and cents.
Perhaps the trend to marrying later has something to do with it also. Married people tend to be more interested in religion, as well as tending to be more conservative in their politics.
I'm starting to feel that one of the most useless things the world ever has is opinion polls. This is from someone with engineering degree and had done university level statistics courses.
That's definitely a possibility. (I'm not married, but I think I'm one of the exceptions, as I've always been on the conservative side, politically) Age, life experiences and working in the "real world" has a lot to do with it, too. I think as people get older, they tend to "wise up" more and realize that they're not immortal and think about where they want to be in the grand scheme of things...well, at least that's what happened to me, anyway. ;)
An interesting aspect of human psychology is the tendency to formulate a concept of God based upon your relationship with your parents. Since a large portion of baby boomers jobbed out the raising of children to daycare and school, it would seem only natural that their children would believe that God is absent from their lives, just as their parents were.
Which may explain why, as one of the former ministers at my church said some years ago, any atheist can give you a detailed description of the God he doesn't believe in.
Of course, if you give them another way to look at it, it boggles them.
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