Arquivo da tag: religion

How Luther went viral: Social media in the 16th Century

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Five centuries before Facebook and the Arab spring, social media helped bring about the Reformation

[The Economist, Dec 17, 2011] IT IS a familiar-sounding tale: after decades of simmering discontent a new form of media gives opponents of an authoritarian regime a way to express their views, register their solidarity and co-ordinate their actions. The protesters’ message spreads virally through social networks, making it impossible to suppress and highlighting the extent of public support for revolution. The combination of improved publishing technology and social networks is a catalyst for social change where previous efforts had failed.

That’s what happened in the Arab spring. It’s also what happened during the Reformation, nearly 500 years ago, when Martin Luther and his allies took the new media of their day—pamphlets, ballads and woodcuts—and circulated them through social networks to promote their message of religious reform. Continue lendo →

Going Godless: Does Secularism Make People More Ethical?

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Non-believers are often more educated, more tolerant and know more about God than the pious. A new wave of research is trying to figure out what goes on in the minds of an ever-growing group of people known as the “Nones”.

[By Hilmar Schmundt, Spiegel Online, aug 11, 2011] Barry Kosmin is a different kind of market researcher. His data focuses on consumers targeted by companies like Lifechurch.tv or World Overcomers Christian Church TM. The sociologist analyzes church-affiliated commercial entities, from souvenir shops to television channels and worship services.

But the most significant target of Kosmin’s research is the consumer group most likely to shy away from such commercial products: secularists. “The non-religious, or Nones, hold the fastest-growing world view in the market,” says Kosmin. “In the past 20 years, their numbers in the United States have doubled to 15 percent.” Continue lendo →

American women are happier going to church than shopping on Sundays — Ben-Gurion U. Study

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A new study conducted by a Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researcher, together with a researcher from De-Paul University, reveals that women in the United States generally derive more happiness from religious participation than from shopping on Sundays. Additionally, the repeal of “blue laws,” which allow stores to open on Sundays, has a negative effect on the level of religious participation of white women and therefore has a negative impact on their happiness. Interestingly, the authors did not observe any significant decline in reported happiness of other groups whose religious participation was not significantly affected by repeal.

The research also reveals that when Sunday blue laws are repealed, women who choose secular activities, such as shopping, are not happier. The repeal of blue laws decreases the relative probability of being at least “pretty happy” relative to “not happy” by about 17 percent.

According to Dr. Danny Cohen-Zada of BGU’s Department of Economics, “We found that there is direct evidence that religious participation has a positive causal effect on a person’s happiness. Furthermore, an important part of the decline in women’s happiness during the last three decades can be explained by decline in religious participation.”

The authors speculate that respondents did not return to attending church as much even after they noticed that they were happier before the repeal because of a problem of self-control or the need for immediate satisfaction.

“People choose shopping, like watching TV, because it provides immediate satisfaction,” Dr. Cohen-Zada explains. “That satisfaction lasts for the moment it’s being consumed and not much longer than that. Religious participation, on the other hand, is not immediate. Instead, it requires persistence over a period of time.”

The researchers analyzed data from the General Social Survey (GSS). They selected respondents who either live in states where there was a distinct, clear and significant change (repeal) in the prohibition of retail activity on Sundays (10 states) or where there was no change at all (six states).

Within the states, they used data for Catholics and Protestants because they were the most likely to attend church on Sundays. Non-Christian religions and respondents with no religion were excluded.

The measure of religious participation is based upon a question in the GSS on church attendance. Respondents were given nine possible responses to a question on their frequency of attending religious services, ranging from never to several times a week.

Source: American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

www.esciencenews.com

aug 31, 2010

La Generación X es más leal a la religión, señala un estudio

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La diversidad de opciones reduce el número de personas sin afiliación religiosa alguna

Los miembros de la Generación X – nacidos en la década de los 70- son menos propicios a dejar de tener una afiliación religiosa que sus padres y antecesores. Esto es lo que afirma un estudio realizado por un sociólogo norteamericano en el que fueron analizadas las respuestas de unos 37.000 encuestados. El origen de esta tendencia podría estar en la diversidad religiosa de la sociedad actual, que permitiría a la gente optar por una u otra fe en lugar de abandonar por completo la religión, explican los expertos. Por Yaiza Martínez.

El término “Generación X” suele utilizarse para “clasificar” a aquellas personas nacidas en la década de los años 70 y que vivieron su adolescencia durante los años 80 y principios de los 90.

Algunos rasgos que se dice caracterizan a esta generación son una suerte de rebeldía conformista y el rechazo a las tradiciones o a los patriotismos. Se suele afirmar, además, que los individuos que pertenecen a la “Generación X”, término popularizado en 1991 por el escritor canadiense Douglas Coupland en su novela “Generación X”, no creen en Dios y rechazan la religión.

Sin embargo, en lo que a este último rasgo generacional se refiere, un estudio reciente realizado por un sociólogo de la Universidad de Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), en Estados Unidos, ha revelado algo muy distinto: los miembros de la Generación X serían sorprendentemente leales a la religión.

Según publica la citada universidad en un comunicado difundido por Eurekalert, la Generación X sería, concretamente, entre un 40% y un 50% más fiel a la religión que los miembros de la generación precedente: la del Baby Boom (compuesta por los individuos nacidos entre 1946 y 1964).

A medida que los miembros de la Generación X maduran, esta lealtad religiosa se está traduciendo en una estabilidad social religiosa en Estados Unidos, afirma el autor de la investigación, el sociólogo de la UNL, Philip Schwadel.

Para su investigación, Schwadel analizó las respuestas de más de 37.000 americanos recogidas entre 1973 y 2006 en la llamada “General Social Survey”, que es una encuesta sociológica que se realiza en Estados Unidos para recopilar datos sobre las características demográficas y las actitudes de los habitantes del país.

Dicho análisis se centró en dos aspectos del comportamiento religioso de los encuestados: la no afiliación (el porcentaje total de americanos no afiliados a ninguna religión particular) y la desafiliación (con la que se mide el número de individuos que, mantuvieron alguna afiliación religiosa durante la adolescencia, para abandonarla posteriormente, en la edad adulta).

Afiliaciones duraderas

De esta forma, se constató en primer lugar que la proporción de americanos sin afiliación religiosa se dobló en los años 90 y ha continuado aumentando en el siglo XXI.

Por otro lado, el análisis demostró también que se ha producido un declive de la desafiliación religiosa entre los individuos de la generación posterior a la del Baby Boom o de la Generación X. Este declive, según Schwadel, podría hacer que el porcentaje de americanos sin afiliación religiosa alguna deje de crecer pronto.

Otro dato arrojado por la revisión de los datos de la General Social Survey es que, a pesar de que las afiliaciones religiosas de los miembros de la Generación X son relativamente duraderas, esta generación parece más propicia que las anteriores a no tener preferencias religiosas.

Schwadel atribuye este último rasgo al llamado “efecto de 1960”: los americanos que eran niños y jóvenes adultos en la década de los 60 tendieron de manera desproporcionada a abandonar la religión, en comparación con generaciones anteriores.

En consecuencia, muchos de estos baby boomers (hijos de la generación del Baby Boom) criaron a sus hijos – de la Generación X- en un entorno no religioso.

De cualquier forma, los miembros de la Generación X que sí crecieron en entornos religiosos son considerablemente menos propicios a abandonar su afiliación religiosa que sus propios padres, afirma Schwadel.

Mayor libertad de elección

¿Por qué los miembros de la Generación X tienden menos a desafiliarse de su fe que sus antecesores?, cabe preguntarse.

Según el sociólogo de la UNL, por un lado la escena religiosa americana es actualmente más dinámica y variada que en los años 60 y 70, por lo que ofrece más opciones a las generaciones jóvenes: si cualquier individuo no se siente a gusto con una religión particular, puede encontrar fácilmente una fe o religión de sustitución, en lugar de abandonar la religión completamente.

Schwadel declara: “Los sociólogos han señalado que lo que se denomina el “mercado religioso” se ha expandido enormemente en las últimas décadas. Históricamente, se ha creído que este pluralismo religioso iría en detrimento de la vitalidad de la religiosidad americana. Mientras que algunos especialistas aún mantienen esta idea, otros sugieren que un aumento de las opciones en realidad está propiciando una afiliación y compromisos religiosos mayores”.

Los resultados de la presente investigación han aparecido publicados en The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Expresión pop

El fenómeno de la religiosidad en la Generación X fue analizado anteriormente, en 1998, por Thomas Beaudoin, del Departamento de Estudios Religiosos de la Universidad de Santa Clara, en Estados Unidos, en un libro titulado Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X (“La Irreverente Búsqueda Espiritual de la Generación X”).

En este libro, Beaudoin trató de encontrar elementos de expresión religiosa o espiritual en las distintas manifestaciones de la cultura pop en que se movió dicha Generación: en la moda, los videos musicales o el ciberespacio. Para este autor, la Generación X llegó a tratar la teología de una forma radicalmente diferente, pero no menos potente y válida que sus antecesores.

Fuente: tendencias21.net – 1 sep 2010

The Moral Naturalists ~ by David Brooks

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Where does our sense of right and wrong come from? Most people think it is a gift from God, who revealed His laws and elevates us with His love. A smaller number think that we figure the rules out for ourselves, using our capacity to reason and choosing a philosophical system to live by.

Moral naturalists, on the other hand, believe that we have moral sentiments that have emerged from a long history of relationships. To learn about morality, you don’t rely upon revelation or metaphysics; you observe people as they live.

This week a group of moral naturalists gathered in Connecticut at a conference organized by the Edge Foundation. One of the participants, Marc Hauser of Harvard, began his career studying primates, and for moral naturalists the story of our morality begins back in the evolutionary past. It begins with the way insects, rats and monkeys learned to cooperate.

By the time humans came around, evolution had forged a pretty firm foundation for a moral sense. Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia argues that this moral sense is like our sense of taste. We have natural receptors that help us pick up sweetness and saltiness. In the same way, we have natural receptors that help us recognize fairness and cruelty. Just as a few universal tastes can grow into many different cuisines, a few moral senses can grow into many different moral cultures.

Paul Bloom of Yale noted that this moral sense can be observed early in life. Bloom and his colleagues conducted an experiment in which they showed babies a scene featuring one figure struggling to climb a hill, another figure trying to help it, and a third trying to hinder it.

At as early as six months, the babies showed a preference for the helper over the hinderer. In some plays, there is a second act. The hindering figure is either punished or rewarded. In this case, 8-month-olds preferred a character who was punishing the hinderer over ones being nice to it.

This illustrates, Bloom says, that people have a rudimentary sense of justice from a very early age. This doesn’t make people naturally good. If you give a 3-year-old two pieces of candy and ask him if he wants to share one of them, he will almost certainly say no. It’s not until age 7 or 8 that even half the children are willing to share. But it does mean that social norms fall upon prepared ground. We come equipped to learn fairness and other virtues.

These moral faculties structure the way we perceive and respond to the world. If you ask for donations with the photo and name of one sick child, you are likely to get twice as much money than if you had asked for donations with a photo and the names of eight children. Our minds respond more powerfully to the plight of an individual than the plight of a group.

These moral faculties rely upon emotional, intuitive processes, for good and ill. If you are in a bad mood you will make harsher moral judgments than if you’re in a good mood or have just seen a comedy. As Elizabeth Phelps of New York University points out, feelings of disgust will evoke a desire to expel things, even those things unrelated to your original mood. General fear makes people risk-averse. Anger makes them risk-seeking.

People who behave morally don’t generally do it because they have greater knowledge; they do it because they have a greater sensitivity to other people’s points of view. Hauser reported on research showing that bullies are surprisingly sophisticated at reading other people’s intentions, but they’re not good at anticipating and feeling other people’s pain.

The moral naturalists differ over what role reason plays in moral judgments. Some, like Haidt, believe that we make moral judgments intuitively and then construct justifications after the fact. Others, like Joshua Greene of Harvard, liken moral thinking to a camera. Most of the time we rely on the automatic point-and-shoot process, but occasionally we use deliberation to override the quick and easy method. We certainly tell stories and have conversations to spread and refine moral beliefs.

For people wary of abstract theorizing, it’s nice to see people investigating morality in ways that are concrete and empirical. But their approach does have certain implicit tendencies.

They emphasize group cohesion over individual dissent. They emphasize the cooperative virtues, like empathy, over the competitive virtues, like the thirst for recognition and superiority. At this conference, they barely mentioned the yearning for transcendence and the sacred, which plays such a major role in every human society.

Their implied description of the moral life is gentle, fair and grounded. But it is all lower case. So far, at least, it might not satisfy those who want their morality to be awesome, formidable, transcendent or great.

Source: NY Times -  july 22, 2010

Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the divine

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richard dawkinsLIKE revivalists from an alternative universe, 2500 hardcore believers in the absence of religion packed into the Global Atheists Convention in Melbourne last weekend to give a hero’s welcome to the high priest of belief in unbelief, Richard Dawkins.

The bestselling author of The God Delusion was similarly fawned over by the Australian media, which uncritically lapped up everything he said.

This was even after (or perhaps because) he referred to the Pope as a Nazi, which managed to combine defamation of the pontiff with implicit Holocaust denial.

By comparison, Family First senator Steve Fielding may feel he got off lightly when Dawkins described him merely as more stupid than an earthworm.

For someone who has made a career out of telling everyone how much more tolerant the world would be if only religion were obliterated from the human psyche, Dawkins manages to appear remarkably intolerant towards anyone who disagrees with him.

The fact is, however, the shine has come off Dawkins. For sure, he remains a superstar for the legions who loathe religion. But, nevertheless, a strong feeling has developed in less credulous quarters that he has gone too far.

While he was writing about the “selfish gene” and the “blind watchmaker”, he received a respectful reception even from those who might have disagreed with him but were nevertheless impressed by the imaginative brio and dazzling fluency of his argument. But then he left biology behind and became the self-appointed universal crusader against God. Flying the flag of Darwinism, he went to war against religion on the grounds that any belief that did not follow the rules of scientific inquiry was prima facie evidence of imbecility or insanity.

He became the apostle of scientism, the ideology that says everything in the universe has a materialist explanation and must answer to the rules of empirical scientific evidence; to believe anything else is irrational.

A second’s thought tells one this is absurd. Love, law and philosophy are not scientific yet they are not irrational. So it is scientism that seems to be irrational.

As for Dawkins’s claim that religion is responsible for the ills of the world, this is demonstrably a wild distortion. Some of the worst horrors in human history – the French revolutionary terror, Nazism, communism – have been atheist creeds. And although terrible things indeed have been done in the name of religion, the fact remains that Christianity and the Hebrew Bible form the foundation stone of Western civilisation and its great cause of human equality and freedom.

Through such hubristic overreach, Dawkins has opened himself up to attack from quarters that, unlike the theologians he routinely knocks around the park, he cannot so easily disdain.

Books taking his arguments apart on his own purported ground of scientific reason have been published by a growing number of eminent scientists and philosophers, including mathematicians David Berlinski and John Lennox, biochemist Alister McGrath, geneticist Francis Collins, and philosopher and recanting atheist Anthony Flew.

These have itemised his many howlers, sloppy assertions, internal contradictions, unscientific reasoning and illogicality. His responses to these stellar intellects are fascinating. He claims they cannot possibly have meant what they wrote, or they are senile, or their scientific credentials are somehow obviated by the fact they are practising Christians.

Indeed, he seems almost to believe that, since everyone who believes in God is stupid or evil and Christians are stupid and evil because they believe in God, those who oppose him must be Christian and can be treated with contempt.

I had first-hand experience of this when, addressing an audience of US atheists, he accused me of “lying for Jesus” by misquoting him. This came as something of a surprise since I am a Jew. Moreover, far from me misquoting him, which was not the case, he had in fact ascribed to me words that had been written by someone else.

This anecdote raises in turn the most intriguing question of all about Dawkins. Just why is he so angry and why does he hate religion so much? After all, as many religious scientists can attest, science and religion are – contrary to his claim – not incompatible at all.

A clue lies in his insistence that a principal reason for believing that there could be no intelligence behind the origin of life is that the alternative – God – is unthinkable. This terror of such an alternative was summed up by a similarly minded geneticist as the fear that pursuing such thinking to its logical ends might allow “the divine foot in the door”.

Such concern is telling because it suggests a lack of confidence by the Dawkins camp in its own position and a corresponding fear of rigorous thinking.

To stamp out the terrifying possibility of even a divine toe peeping over the threshold, all opposition has to be shut down. And so the great paradox is that the arch-hater of religious intolerance himself behaves with the zeal of a religious fundamentalist and, despite excoriating religion for stifling debate, does this in spades.

An illuminating example was provided by an atheists summer camp for children last year in Britain that Dawkins backed. The children who took part were to be taught to be critical thinkers, yet all discussion of religion was ruthlessly excluded.

Far from opening young minds, this was shutting them in the ostensible cause of reason.

Such indoctrination is a hallmark of the fundamentalist who knows he is not just right but righteous. So all who oppose him are by definition not just wrong but evil. Which is why alternative views must be howled down or suppressed.

This is, of course, the characteristic of all totalitarian regimes, including religious inquisitions. Which is why Dawkins can lay claim to being not the most enlightened thinker on the planet, as his acolytes regard him, but instead the Savonarola of scientism and an intolerant closer of minds.

Melanie Phillips’s new book, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power, will be published by Encounter, New York, on April 20.

Source: Melanie Phillips
From: The Australian – March 16, 2010

Catholic Church, and religion in general, losing Latinos in USA

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Latino population growth over the past two decades has boosted numbers in the Catholic Church, but a new, in-depth analysis shows Latinos’ allegiance to Catholicism is waning as some move toward other Christian denominations or claim no religion at all.

A report out today by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., finds Latino religious identification increasingly diverse and more “Americanized.”

The analysis, based on data from the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, compares responses to phone surveys in 1990 and 2008 conducted in English and Spanish. The 2008 sample included 3,169 people who identified themselves as Latinos.

“What you see is growing diversity — away from Catholicism and splitting between those who join evangelical or Protestant groups or no religion,” says report co-author Barry Kosmin, a sociologist and director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College. Among findings:

•From 1990 to 2008, the Catholic Church in the USA added an estimated 11 million adults, including 9 million Latinos. In 1990, Latinos made up 20% of the total Catholic population, but by 2008, it rose to 32%.

•Those who claimed “no religion” rose from fewer than 1 million (6% of U.S. Latinos) in 1990 to nearly 4 million (12% of Latinos) in 2008.

“As Latinos or any other ethnic group assimilates to American culture, they pick up the values of the broader American culture and are somewhat less likely to identify with the religious identification, or any other identification, that marked their parents or grandparents,” says Mary Gautier, a senior researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

The new data send a clear message, says Allan Figueroa Deck, a Catholic priest and executive director of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, a program of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“The biggest challenge the Catholic Church faces is the movement of Latino people not to other religions but rather to a secular way of life in which religion is no longer very important,” he says. “We really need to ask ourselves why that is and what response the church can develop for this challenge.”

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY, March 16, 2010

¿El boom del ateísmo?

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religious lady

¿Está de moda ser ateo? A juzgar por algunos acontecimientos en varias partes del mundo, la respuesta podría ser afirmativa.

En el Reino Unido esta semana abrió un campamento de verano un tanto particular: a Dios no le está permitido entrar.

Es que no lo organizan los scouts ni grupos religiosos.

Camp Quest es el primero pensado para jóvenes de padres ateos. La idea es fomentarles el pensamiento crítico a niños de entre 7 y 17 años y que disfruten un campamento “libre de dogmas religiosos”.

Está “dedicado a mejorar la condición humana a través de la investigación racional, el pensamiento crítico y creativo, el método científico… y la separación de la religión y el Estado”, aseguran los organizadores.

Los niños también jugarán, claro.

¿Nueva militancia?

La idea de este tipo de campamentos, que ya se realizan desde hace 13 años en Estados Unidos, coincide con una necesidad expresada por Richard Dawkins, biólogo evolutivo británico y uno de los principales defensores del ateísmo.

El primer campamento ateo en el Reino Unido abrió sus puertas esta semana.

Dawkins, conocido por su beligerancia antirreligiosa, ha escrito el libro “La Falsa Ilusión de Dios”, un manifiesto sobre la no existencia de un creador divino, y “El Gen Egoísta”, entre otras obras.

Dawkins aboga por una nueva militancia que defienda el derecho de las personas a expresar libremente el hecho de no creer en Dios. Y que esto se traduzca en una mayor presencia de los no creyentes en la sociedad.

Ha emprendido campañas a favor del ateísmo y el libre pensamiento como la Out Campaign (Campaña para darse a conocer), donde se insta a los no creyentes a que “salgan del clóset” y se “liberen” porque, se asegura, “los ateos son más numerosos que lo que la mayoría de la gente piensa”.

Pero no se trata solamente de darse a conocer. La idea es tener voz y voto en las discusiones sobre aspectos fundamentales en la sociedad. Así como cuando se hacen consultas para resolver dilemas se llama a grupos religiosos para que participen en el debate, cada vez más personas en todo el mundo están señalando que hace falta el punto de vista de quienes no tienen a un dios como punto de referencia de su código moral.

Esto además de asuntos más pragmáticos. Tradicionalmente las religiones han tenido un monopolio cuando se trata de acompañar a la gente en momentos cruciales de su vida. Los ateos están buscando una alternativa que le pueda ofrecer a quienes piensan como ellos una alternativa que no choque con su forma de pensar. Se trata, por ejemplo, de hacerle fácil a una familia en duelo marcar el momento con algún tipo de ceremonia que no les genere un problema moral.

Ateísmo sobre ruedas

“Probablemente Dios no existe así que deja de preocuparte y disfruta tu vida”, eso se podía leer en los autobuses.

El Reino Unido ya había mostrado estar a la vanguardia de estos movimientos cuando el año pasado los tradicionales autobuses de Londres empezaron a circular con un llamativo afiche.

“Probablemente Dios no existe así que deja de preocuparte y disfruta tu vida”, podía leerse.

La campaña atea fue organizada por The British Humanist Foundation (Fundación Humanista Británica) y apoyada por Dawkins.

La idea fue imitada en algunas ciudades españolas, con Barcelona a la cabeza.

El promotor en la capital catalana fue Albért Riba, presidente de la Unión de Ateos y Librepensadores de España, que agrupa a siete asociaciones en todo el país.

“Parecía que éramos dos o tres”

El “bus ateo” recorrió las calles de Barcelona a principios de 2009.

Riba le dijo a BBC Mundo que el objetivo de la campaña fue “darle visibilidad a los ateos, que parecía que éramos dos o tres en España y debatir cuál era nuestro papel social, posicionarnos”.

Aseguró que la Unión busca “transmitir que la moral de un ateo vale lo mismo que la de un católico. Eso la ciudadanía lo está empezando a entender pero la estructura eclesial, no”.

Riba explicó que los objetivos son “defender la libertad de conciencia, luchar por un Estado laico y difundir el pensamiento ateo”. También se “pretende pararle los pies a las religiones que tienen un alto grado de agresión y buscan imponer su forma de pensar”.

Consultado sobre si existe una nueva militancia del ateísmo, Riba dijo: “No queremos ni podemos salvar a nadie, ni vamos a enviar misioneros para decir que la salvación es el ateísmo. No vamos a hacer militancia en ese sentido, sino para crear puentes de diálogo”.

¿Qué pasa en América Latina?

La región cuenta, por ejemplo, con las dos mayores feligresías católicas del mundo: Brasil y México. Y otras religiones también mantienen una sólida presencia.

En Colombia, un Manual de Ateología, escrito por 16 personalidades que niegan o dudan de la existencia de dios se convirtió en un éxito de ventas, toda una sorpresa en un país donde el 90% de la población se declara cristiana.

Sin embargo, en una zona tradicionalmente fértil para la creencia divina, el movimiento ateo avanza, lentamente, y ya cuenta con algunas organizaciones e iniciativas.

En Colombia los ateos han empezado a salir del clóset.

El “Manual de Ateología”, escrito por 16 personalidades que niegan o dudan de la existencia de Dios se convirtió en un éxito de ventas, toda una sorpresa en un país donde el 90% de la población se declara cristiana.

En tanto, en Argentina, el año pasado se organizó el primer congreso de ateos.

Fernando Lozada, presidente del Congreso Nacional de Ateísmo, delegado de la Asociación Civil de Ateos en Argentina y promotor del evento, le dijo a BBC Mundo que “ahora la gente se anima más a decir que es ateo. Pasa lo que pasó con los grupos gays, la gente se anima a luchar por sus derechos, pero estamos en los inicios”.

Lozada explicó que se busca, entre otras cosas, “lograr que el ateísmo no sea mal visto en la sociedad, que logre el respeto como cualquier otra ideología o religión”.

Ahora la gente se anima más a decir que es ateo. Pasa lo que pasó con los grupos gays, la gente se anima a luchar por sus derechos, pero estamos en los inicios

Fernando Lozada, presidente del Congreso Nacional de Ateísmo de Argentina

Y le contó a BBC Mundo que en marzo de este año fue parte de una apostasía (negar la fe recibida en el bautismo y renunciar a la Iglesia Católica) en la que participaron 1.500 personas. “Como puede pasar con cualquier partido político o equipo de fútbol, uno debe poder desafiliarse”.

Lozada, que había sido bautizado y renunció en este evento, aseguró que “lo vio importante como un movimiento político, como una manera de presionar. Que las leyes estén influenciadas por una moral católica no es totalmente democrático, hace que haya que militar políticamente, no en el sentido partidario proselitista, sino social”.

Campamentos, autobuses y manuales… los ateos empiezan a mostrar su fervor (¿religioso? No, gracias), pero ¿estamos ante un nuevo movimiento?

BBC Mundo, 30 jul 2009

Ateos de todo el mundo se reúnen en Australia

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dead trees

Ateos de todo el mundo se reúnen en la ciudad australiana de Melbourne en lo que se considera es el encuentro más grande de gente que celebra el no tener ninguna creencia religiosa.

Los ateos tienen previsto divulgar el contenido de un comunicado en donde expresarán de forma resumida lo que, según ellos, son los efectos negativos de la religión sobre la sociedad.

Todas las entradas para el evento se vendieron a principios de 2010.

Sin embargo, una reunión religiosa celebrada en el mismo lugar en diciembre pasado, atrajo tres veces más delegados que el encuentro de este viernes.

“Los efectos negativos de la religión”

Según el corresponsal de asuntos religiosos de la BBC, Christopher Landau, destacados ateos de todo el mundo, entre ellos Richard Dawkins -el autor de varios éxitos editoriales como “El gen egoísta”- se encuentran en Australia para festejar que no creen en ninguna religión.

Los asistentes discutirán sobre el Islam y el terrorismo en una sesión titulada “el costo de la vana ilusión” y escucharán sobre una propuesta para realizar una película que expondrá la cantidad de dinero que los contribuyentes gastan en el subsidio de religiones.

Seguidamente, se leerá un comunicado dirigido a los políticos del mundo, en el que se abordará lo que ellos denominan son “los efectos negativos de la religión en la sociedad”.

Los organizadores del encuentro parecen satisfechos con su poder de convocatoria, señaló Landau.

“Sin fervor”

Se habían escogido otros locales más pequeños dentro del Centro de Convenciones de Melbourne para realizar el evento, pero en enero se acabaron las 2.500 entradas que inicialmente salieron a la venta.

Los organizadores sostienen que el encuentro reunirá a científicos, filósofos, escritores y comediantes.

Existe la resolución de evitar lo que en una sesión se denomina el “fundamentalismo ateo”.

Se instará a los participantes a que eviten “el fervor de los misioneros” en su anhelo por promover su mensaje no religioso al mundo.

Sin embargo, de acuerdo con Landau, los ateos podrían enfrentar una lucha cuesta arriba. Esto debido a que en el mismo lugar en diciembre, se realizó el Parlamento Mundial de Religiones y congregó el triple de los delegados asistentes al evento ateo de este viernes.

Fonte: BBC Mundo, 12 mar 2010

How Should Churches and Leaders Be Preparing to Address These Big Issues Facing the Church? by Tim Keller

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1. The local church has to support culture-making. Most of the young evangelicals interested in integrating their faith with film-making, journalism, corporate finance, etc, are getting their support and mentoring from informal networks or para-church groups. Michael Lindsay’s book Faith in the Halls of Power shows that many Christians in places of influence in the culture are alienated from the church, because they get, at best, no church support for living their faith out in the public spheres, and, at worst, opposition.

At the theological level, the church needs to gain more consensus on how the church and Christian faith relate to culture. There is still a lot of conflict between those who want to disciple Christians for public life, and those who think all “engagement of culture” ultimately leads to compromise and distraction from the preaching of the gospel. What makes this debate difficult is that both sides make good points and have good arguments.

At the practical level, even the churches that give lip-service to the importance of integrating faith and work do very little to actually equip people to do so. Seminary only trained us ministers to disciple people by pulling them more out of the world and inside the walls and ministries of the church. So how does a church actually help its members in this area? Leaders who want to get started should look at Redeemer’s Center for Faith and Work.

2. We need a renewal of apologetics. There is a lot of resistance right now among younger evangelical leaders toward apologetics. We are told we don’t need arguments any more because people aren’t rational. We need loving community instead. But I think this is short-sighted for two reasons.

First, Christians in the West will finally be facing what missionaries around the world have faced for years–how to communicate the gospel to Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and adherents of various folk religions. All young church leaders should take courses in and read the texts of the other major world religions. They should also study the gospel presentations written by missionaries engaging those religions. Loving community will be extremely important, as it always is, to reach out to neighbors of other faiths, but if they are going to come into the church, they will have many questions that church leaders today need to be able to answer.

Second, there a real vacuum in western secular thought. When Derrida died I was surprised how many of his former students admitted that High Theory (what evangelicals call ‘post-modernism’) is seen as a dead end, mainly because it is so relativistic that it provides no basis for political action. And a leading British intellectual like Terry Eagleton in recent lectures at Yale (published as Religion, Faith, and Revolution by Yale Press) savaged the older scientific atheism of Dawkins and Hitchens as equally bankrupt. Eagleton points out that the Enlightenment’s optimism about science and human progress is dead. Serious western thought is not going back to that, no matter how popular Dawkins’ books get. But postmodernism cannot produce a basis for human rights or justice either.

This is a real opening, apologetically, in reaching out to thoughtful non-Christians, especially the younger, socially conscious ones. We need to think of new ways to engage, asking people how they can justify their concerns for human rights and social justice. (For a great recent form of this approach, see Chris Smith’s “Does Naturalism Warrant a Moral Belief in Universal Benevolence and Human Rights?” in The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion (Oxford, 2009.)

Over the last twenty years my preaching and teaching has profited a great deal from doing the hard work of reading philosophy, especially the work of older Christian philosophers and scholars (Plantinga, Wolterstorff, Mavrodes, Alston) and the younger ones. Ministers need to be able to glean and put their arguments into easy to understand form, both in speaking and in evangelism.

I agree with the critics that say the old, rationalistic, ‘evidence that demands a verdict’ makes people’s eyes glaze over today. But that doesn’t mean that people don’t still use reason and still make arguments. There is a big chink in the armor of western thought right now. People don’t want to go back to religion, which still scares them, but they are not so sanguine about the implications and effects of non-belief.

3. We need a great variety of church-models. Avery Dulles’ book Models of the Church does a good job of outlining the very different models of churches in the west over the centuries. After qualifying his analysis by saying these are seldom pure forms, he lays out five models. Each one stresses or emphasizes: a) Doctrine, teaching, and authority, or b) deep community and life together, or c) worship, sacraments, music and the arts, or d) evangelism, proclamation, and dynamic preaching, or e) social justice, service, and compassion.

Many evangelicals today have bought in to one or two of these models as the way to minister now in the post-Christendom west. So for example, those who believe in the ‘incarnational’ (vs. ‘attractional’ approach) emphasize being and serving out in the neighborhood, smaller house churches and intimate community (a combination of Dulles’ b and e models.) Meanwhile, many evangelicals who are afraid of the ‘liberal creep’ of the emerging church, stress the traditional combination of a and d emphases. Each side is fairly moralistic about the rightness of its model and seeks to use it everywhere.

I feel that our cultural situation is too complex for such a sweeping way to look at things. There are too many kinds of ‘never-churched-non-Christians’. There are Arabs in Detroit, Hmongs in Chicago, Chinese and Jews in New York City, Anglos in the Northwest and Northeast that were raised by secular parents–some are artists and creative types, some work in business. All of these are growing groups of never-churched, but they are very different from one another. No model can connect to them all–every model can connect to some.

4. We must develop a far better theology of suffering. Members of churches in the west are caught absolutely flat-footed by suffering and difficulty. This is a major problem, especially if we are facing greater ‘liminality’–social marginalization–and maybe more economic and social instability. There are a great number of books on ‘why does God allow evil?’ but they mainly are aimed at getting God off the hook with impatient western people who believe God’s job is to give them a safe life. The church in the west must mount a great new project–of producing a people who are prepared to endure in the face of suffering and persecution.

Here, too, is one of the ways we in the west can connect to the new, growing world Christianity. We tend to think about ‘what we can do for them.’ But here’s how we let them do something for us. Many or most of the church in the rest of the world is used to suffering and persecution. They have a kind of faith that does not wilt, but rather grows stronger under threat. We need to become students of theirs in this area.

5. We need a critical mass of churches in the biggest cities of the world.

I know I’m always expected to say this! But this is not a mere tack-on to the other measures for addressing the Big Issues. In some ways, this is the ‘Big Idea’ that will help us move forward on all fronts.

If there were vital, fast-growing movements of churches–orthodox in theology, wholistic in ministry, and committed to culture-making–in the great global cities, so that 5-10% of the residents of the 50 most influential cities were gospel-believers, a) it would have a great impact on culture-making, b) it would help the church learn new ways of reaching the never-churched (since they concentrate in cities), c) it would connect western churches more readily to the new churches in the non-western world, d) it would unite churches across traditions and models.

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A Buddhist moment in America

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The world’s most famous athlete, through the prism of another faith, told a largely Christian nation how he would seek redemption. And as he talked about craving and the misery that inevitably follows, he provided everyone in our bigger-faster-higher society something to think about.

By Stephen Prothero

Until Friday, when Tiger Woods stood up in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and apologized for his sexual infidelities, the American public confession was a Christian rite. From President Grover Cleveland, who likely fathered a child out of wedlock, to Ted Haggard, who resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after allegations that he had sex with a male prostitute, our politicians and preachers have bowed and scraped in Christian idioms. Jimmy Carter spoke of “adultery in my heart.” Jimmy Swaggart spoke of “my sin” and “my Savior.” In any case, the model derives from evangelical Christianity — the revival and the altar call. You confess you are a sinner. You repent of your sins. You turn to Christ to make yourself new.

Woods was caught in a multimistress sex scandal after Thanksgiving. In January Brit Hume, channeling his inner evangelist on Fox News Sunday, urged Woods to “turn to the Christian faith.” “He’s said to be a Buddhist,” Hume said. “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.” Woods in effect told Hume Friday thanks but no thanks.

Part of Woods’ carefully prepared statement followed the time-honored formula that historian Susan Wise Bauer has referred to as the “art of the public grovel.” Though he did not sob like Swaggart, Woods seemed ashamed and embarrassed. He took responsibility for his actions, which he characterized as “irresponsible and selfish.” He apologized, not just to his wife and children but also to his family and friends, his business partners, his fans, and the staff and sponsors of his foundation. And he was not evasive. Whereas President Clinton confessed in 1998 to having an “inappropriate” relationship with Monica Lewinsky and took potshots at the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, Woods said, “I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did is not acceptable, and I am the only person to blame.”

But this was not your garden-variety confession. Though Woods spoke of religion, he did not mention Jesus or the Bible, sin or redemption. He gave us a Buddhist mea culpa instead.

The key moment in Woods’ statement came at the end, when, in an effort to make sense of his behavior, he turned not to Christian theologies of sin but to Buddhist teachings about craving. Whereas Christianity seeks to solve the problem of sin, Buddhism seeks to solve the problem of suffering. Buddhists observe that suffering arises from a 12-fold chain of interlocking causes and effects. Among these causes is craving. We crave this woman or that car because we think that getting her or it will make us happy. But this craving only ties us into an unending cycle of misery, because even if we get what we want there is always something more to crave — another woman or another man, a faster car or a bigger house.

A ‘pointless search’

In an elegant distillation of the Buddha’s dharma (teaching), Woods said, “Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security.” Here he is obviously describing his craving for sexual encounters with beautiful women. But he is also describing our collective obsession with the next new thing.

As Woods recognized, the money and fame that came with celebrity made it easy for him to fulfill his temptations. But we Americans who can only dream of such money and fame also possess an unparalleled ability to satisfy craving upon craving. Ours is the richest country in the history of the world, and our core values derive at least as much from consumer capitalism as from Christian faith. Advertisers are forever conjuring up new desires and promising us that their products will satisfy them. Our cravings, however, are endless good news for big business, not such good news for human happiness.

When Woods said he “stopped living by the core values” he was “taught to believe in,” he was referring not to Christian values but to the Thai Buddhist values instilled in him by his mother, who was in the room with her son in Florida in a show of support. When he vowed to change his life, it wasn’t to turn to Christianity but to return to Buddhism. He actively practiced Buddhism from childhood, he said, but “drifted away from it in recent years,” forgetting its crucial observation that craving is overcome not by self-indulgence but by self-control. Buddhism “teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint,” he said. “Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.”

Much has been written in recent years about America’s astonishing religious diversity. Harvard religious studies professor Diana Eck has referred to the United States as “the world’s most religiously diverse nation.” In his inaugural address, Barack Obama referred to those who had just elected him president as “a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers.” We have more than 1,000 mosques nationwide, and Los Angeles likely has more forms of Buddhism on offer than any city in the world. But with roughly 250 million Christians, we are also the world’s most Christianized country.

One of the core civic challenges in the USA today is to find a way to reconcile our Christian supermajority with our many religious minorities — the Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, Sikhs and non-believers in our midst. For the most part, we are an extraordinarily tolerant society. Yes, we have our bigots, but in the U.S. religious bigotry is usually called out for what it is.

A need for religious literacy

Nonetheless, we expect, sometimes unconsciously, for things to proceed largely on Christian terms. We expect our presidents to be Christians and to quote from the Bible. And when they fall short of the glory of God, we expect them to call their shortcomings sins and to confess them not only to us, but also to Jesus. Part of living in a multireligious society, though, is learning multiple religious languages. In a country where most citizens cannot name the first book of the Bible, we obviously need more Christian literacy. But to make sense of the furiously religious world in which we live, we need Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist literacy too.

There are all sorts of lessons, moral and otherwise, to learn from the Tiger Woods affair. One important one is that American citizens take all sorts of paths to ruin and redemption. Christianity has no monopoly over either hypocrisy or saintliness.

In calling Woods to Christ in January, Brit Hume imagined that there was only one way to fall, and only one way to be redeemed. In his statement on Friday, Woods intimated that he fell not because he wandered away from Christ but because he wandered away from the Buddha. Equally important, he suggested that the way forward, at least for him, is through the teachings of a man who, two-and-a-half millennia ago, sat down beneath a Bodhi tree in north India and saw through the illusions of endlessly craving after the next new thing. You don’t need to be a Buddhist to say “Amen” (or “Om”) to that.

Stephen Prothero is a professor in Boston University’s religion department and the author of a forthcoming book, God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World and Why Their Differences Matter.

(After the public apology: Tiger Woods gets a hug from his mother, Kultida Woods, on Friday./Pool photo by Joe Skipper.)

Posted on http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/column-a-buddhist-moment-in-america.html

Religion Among the Millennials

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The Pew Forum – Feb. 17, 2010

Introduction and Overview

By some key measures, Americans ages 18 to 29 are considerably less religious than older Americans. Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today. They also are less likely to be affiliated than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations were when they were young. Fully one-in-four members of the Millennial generation – so called because they were born after 1980 and began to come of age around the year 2000 – are unaffiliated with any particular faith. Indeed, Millennials are significantly more unaffiliated than members of Generation X were at a comparable point in their life cycle (20% in the late 1990s) and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults (13% in the late 1970s). Young adults also attend religious services less often than older Americans today. And compared with their elders today, fewer young people say that religion is very important in their lives.

Yet in other ways, Millennials remain fairly traditional in their religious beliefs and practices. Pew Research Center surveys show, for instance, that young adults’ beliefs about life after death and the existence of heaven, hell and miracles closely resemble the beliefs of older people today. Though young adults pray less often than their elders do today, the number of young adults who say they pray every day rivals the portion of young people who said the same in prior decades. And though belief in God is lower among young adults than among older adults, Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty at rates similar to those seen among Gen Xers a decade ago. This suggests that some of the religious differences between younger and older Americans today are not entirely generational but result in part from people’s tendency to place greater emphasis on religion as they age.

In their social and political views, young adults are clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life and less prone to see Hollywood as threatening their moral values. At the same time, Millennials are no less convinced than their elders that there are absolute standards of right and wrong. And they are slightly more supportive than their elders of government efforts to protect morality, as well as somewhat more comfortable with involvement in politics by churches and other houses of worship.

These and other findings are discussed in more detail in the remainder of this report by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. It explores the degree to which the religious characteristics and social views of young adults differ from those of older people today, as well as how Millennials compare with previous generations when they were young.

Religious Affiliation

Compared with their elders today, young people are much less likely to affiliate with any religious tradition or to identify themselves as part of a Christian denomination. Fully one-in-four adults under age 30 (25%) are unaffiliated, describing their religion as “atheist,” “agnostic” or “nothing in particular.” This compares with less than one-fifth of people in their 30s (19%), 15% of those in their 40s, 14% of those in their 50s and 10% or less among those 60 and older. About two-thirds of young people (68%) say they are members of a Christian denomination and 43% describe themselves as Protestants, compared with 81% of adults ages 30 and older who associate with Christian faiths and 53% who are Protestants.

The large proportion of young adults who are unaffiliated with a religion is a result, in part, of the decision by many young people to leave the religion of their upbringing without becoming involved with a new faith. In total, nearly one-in-five adults under age 30 (18%) say they were raised in a religion but are now unaffiliated with any particular faith. Among older age groups, fewer say they are now unaffiliated after having been raised in a faith (13% of those ages 30-49, 12% of those ages 50-64, and 7% of those ages 65 and older).

Young people’s lower levels of religious affiliation are reflected in the age composition of major religious groups, with the unaffiliated standing out from other religious groups for their relative youth. Roughly one-third of the unaffiliated population is under age 30 (31%), compared with 20% of the total population.

Data from the General Social Surveys (GSS), which have been conducted regularly since 1972, confirm that young adults are not just more unaffiliated than their elders today but are also more unaffiliated than young people have been in recent decades. In GSS surveys conducted since 2000, nearly one-quarter of people ages 18-29 have described their religion as “none.” By comparison, only about half as many young adults were unaffiliated in the 1970s and 1980s.

Among Millennials who are affiliated with a religion, however, the intensity of their religious affiliation is as strong today as among previous generations when they were young. More than one-third of religiously affiliated Millennials (37%) say they are a “strong” member of their faith, the same as the 37% of Gen Xers who said this at a similar age and not significantly different than among Baby Boomers when they were young (31%).

Worship Attendance

In the Pew Forum’s 2007 Religious Landscape Survey, young adults report attending religious services less often than their elders today. One-third of those under age 30 say they attend worship services at least once a week, compared with 41% of adults 30 and older (including more than half of people 65 and older). But generational differences in worship attendance tend to be smaller within religious groups (with the exception of Catholics) than in the total population. In other words, while young people are less likely than their elders to be affiliated with a religion, among those who are affiliated, generational differences in worship attendance are fairly small.

The long-running GSS also finds that young people attend religious services less often than their elders. Furthermore, Millennials currently attend church or worship services at lower rates than Baby Boomers did when they were younger; 18% of Millennials currently report attending religious services weekly or nearly weekly, compared with 26% of Boomers in the late 1970s. But Millennials closely resemble members of Generation X when they were in their 20s and early 30s, when one-in-five Gen Xers (21%) reported attending religious services weekly or nearly weekly.

Other Religious Practices

Consistent with their lower levels of affiliation, young adults engage in a number of religious practices less often than do older Americans, especially the oldest group in the population (those 65 and older). For example, the 2007 Religious Landscape Survey finds that 27% of young adults say they read Scripture on a weekly basis, compared with 36% of those 30 and older. And one-quarter of adults under 30 say they meditate on a weekly basis (26%), compared with more than four-in-ten adults 30 and older (43%). These patterns hold true across a variety of religious groups.

In addition, less than half of adults under age 30 say they pray every day (48%), compared with 56% of Americans ages 30-49, 61% of those in their 50s and early 60s, and more than two-thirds of those 65 and older (68%). Age differences in frequency of prayer are most pronounced among members of historically black Protestant churches (70% of those under age 30 pray every day, compared with 83% among older members) and Catholics (47% of Catholics under 30 pray every day, compared with 60% among older Catholics). The differences are smaller among evangelical and mainline Protestants.

Although Millennials report praying less often than their elders do today, the GSS shows that Millennials are in sync with Generation X and Baby Boomers when members of those generations were younger. In the 2008 GSS survey, roughly four-in-ten Millennials report praying daily (41%), as did 42% of members of Generation X in the late 1990s. Baby Boomers reported praying at a similar rate in the early 1980s (47%), when the first data are available for them. GSS data show that daily prayer increases as people get older.

Religious Attitudes and Beliefs

Less than half of adults under age 30 say that religion is very important in their lives (45%), compared with roughly six-in-ten adults 30 and older (54% among those ages 30-49, 59% among those ages 50-64 and 69% among those ages 65 and older). By this measure, young people exhibit lower levels of religious intensity than their elders do today, and this holds true within a variety of religious groups.

Gallup surveys conducted over the past 30 years that use a similar measure of religion’s importance confirm that religion is somewhat less important for Millennials today than it was for members of Generation X when they were of a similar age. In Gallup surveys in the late 2000s, 40% of Millennials said religion is very important, as did 48% of Gen Xers in the late 1990s. However, young people today look very much like Baby Boomers did at a similar point in their life cycle; in a 1978 Gallup poll, 39% of Boomers said religion was very important to them.

Similarly, young adults are less convinced of God’s existence than their elders are today; 64% of young adults say they are absolutely certain of God’s existence, compared with 73% of those ages 30 and older. In this case, differences are most pronounced among Catholics, with younger Catholics being 10 points less likely than older Catholics to believe in God with absolute certainty. In other religious traditions, age differences are smaller.

But GSS data show that Millennials’ level of belief in God resembles that seen among Gen Xers when they were roughly the same age. Just over half of Millennials in the 2008 GSS survey (53%) say they have no doubt that God exists, a figure that is very similar to that among Gen Xers in the late 1990s (55%). Levels of certainty of belief in God have increased somewhat among Gen Xers and Baby Boomers in recent decades. (Data on this item stretch back only to the late 1980s, making it impossible to compare Millennials with Boomers when Boomers were at a similar point in their life cycle.)

Differences between young people and their elders today are also apparent in views of the Bible, although the differences are somewhat less pronounced. Overall, young people are slightly less inclined than those in older age groups to view the Bible as the literal word of God. Interestingly, age differences on this item are most dramatic among young evangelicals and are virtually nonexistent in other groups. Although younger evangelicals are just as likely as older evangelicals (and more likely than people in most other religious groups) to see the Bible as the word of God, they are less likely than older evangelicals to see it as the literal word of God. Less than half of young evangelicals interpret the Bible literally (47%), compared with 61% of evangelicals 30 and older.

On this measure, too, Millennials display beliefs that closely resemble those of Generation X in the late 1990s. In the 2008 GSS survey, roughly a quarter of Millennials (27%) said the Bible is the literal word of God, compared with 28% among Gen Xers when they were young. This is only slightly lower than among Baby Boomers in the early 1980s (33%) and is very similar to the 29% of Boomers in the late 1980s who said they viewed the Bible as the literal word of God.

On still other measures of religious belief, there are few differences in the beliefs of young people compared with their elders today. Adults under 30, for instance, are just as likely as older adults to believe in life after death (75% vs. 74%), heaven (74% each), hell (62% vs. 59%) and miracles (78% vs. 79%). In fact, on several of these items, young mainline Protestants and members of historically black Protestant churches exhibit somewhat higher levels of belief than their elders.

Young people who are affiliated with a religion are more inclined than their elders to believe their own religion is the one true path to eternal life (though in all age groups, more people say many religions can lead to eternal life than say theirs is the one true faith). Nearly three-in-ten religiously affiliated adults under age 30 (29%) say their own religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life, higher than the 23% of religiously affiliated people ages 30 and older who say the same. This pattern is evident among all three Protestant groups but not among Catholics.

Interestingly, while more young Americans than older Americans view their faith as the single path to salvation, young adults are also more open to multiple ways of interpreting their religion. Nearly three-quarters of affiliated young adults (74%) say there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith, compared with 67% of affiliated adults ages 30 and older.

Social and Culture War Issues

Young people are more accepting of homosexuality and evolution than are older people. They are also more comfortable with having a bigger government, and they are less concerned about Hollywood threatening their values. But when asked generally about morality and religion, young adults are just as convinced as older people that there are absolute standards of right and wrong that apply to everyone. Young adults are also slightly more supportive of government efforts to protect morality and of efforts by houses of worship to express their social and political views.

According to the 2007 Religious Landscape Survey, almost twice as many young adults say homosexuality should be accepted by society as do those ages 65 and older (63% vs. 35%). Young people are also considerably more likely than those ages 30-49 (51%) or 50-64 (48%) to say that homosexuality should be accepted. Stark age differences also exist within each of the major religious traditions examined. Compared with older members of their faith, significantly larger proportions of young adults say society should accept homosexuality.

In the 2008 GSS survey, just over four-in-ten (43%) Millennials said homosexual relations are always wrong, similar to the 47% of Gen Xers who said the same in the late 1990s. These two cohorts are significantly less likely than members of previous generations have ever been to say that homosexuality is always wrong. The views of the various generations on this question have fluctuated over time, often in tandem.

Roughly half of young adults (52%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. On this issue, young adults express slightly more permissive views than do adults ages 30 and older. However, the group that truly stands out on this issue is people 65 and older, just 37% of whom say abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

Interestingly, this pattern represents a significant change from earlier polling. Previously, people in the middle age categories (i.e., those ages 30-49 and 50-64) tended to be more supportive of legal abortion, while the youngest and oldest age groups were more opposed. In 2009, however, attitudes toward abortion moved in a more conservative direction among most groups in the population, with the notable exception of young people. The result of this conservative turn among those in the 30-49 and 50-64 age brackets means that their views now more closely resemble those of the youngest age group, while those in the 65-and-older group now express the most conservative views on abortion of any age group.

Surveys also show that large numbers of young adults (67%) say they would prefer a bigger government that provides more services over a smaller government that provides fewer services. Among older Americans, only 41% feel this way. Fewer young people than older people see their moral values as under assault from Hollywood; one-third of adults under age 30 agree that Hollywood and the entertainment industry threatens their values, compared with 44% of people 30 and older. And more than half of young adults (55%) believe that evolution is the best explanation for the development of human life, compared with 47% of people in older age groups. These patterns are seen both in the total population and within a variety of religious traditions, though the link between age and views on evolution is strongest among Catholics and members of historically black Protestant churches.

But differences between young adults and their elders are not so stark on all moral and social issues. For instance, more than three-quarters of young adults (76%) agree that there are absolute standards of right and wrong, a level nearly identical to that among older age groups (77%). More than half of young adults (55%) say that houses of worship should speak out on social and political matters, slightly more than say this among older adults (49%). And 45% of young adults say that the government should do more to protect morality in society, compared with 39% of people ages 30 and older.

GSS surveys show Millennials are more permissive than their elders are today in their views about pornography, but their views are nearly identical to those expressed by Gen Xers and Baby Boomers when members of those generations were at a similar point in their life cycles. About one-in-five Millennials today say pornography should be illegal for everyone (21%), similar to the 24% of Gen Xers who said this in the late 1990s and the 22% of Boomers who took this view in the late 1970s. Data for the Silent and Greatest generations at similar ages are not available, but data from the 1970s onward suggest that people become more opposed to pornography as they age.

Similarly, Millennials at the present time stand out from other generations for their opposition to Bible reading and prayer in schools, but they are less distinctive when compared with members of Generation X or Baby Boomers at a comparable age. During early adulthood, about half of Boomers (51%) and Gen Xers (54%) said they approved of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that banned the required reading of the Lord’s Prayer or Bible verses in public schools; 56% of Millennials took this view in 2008. Generation X and the Boomer generation have become less supportive of the court’s position over time, while the pattern in the views of the Silent and Greatest generations has been less clear.

More Information

For other treatments of religion among young adults in the U.S. and how they compare with older generations, see, for example, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults by Christian Smith and Patricia Snell (2009) and After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion by Robert Wuthnow (2007).

Download the appendix: Selected Religious Beliefs and Practices among Ages 18-29 by Decade (1-page PDF)

Download the full report (29-page PDF)

This analysis was written by Allison Pond, Research Associate; Gregory Smith, Senior Researcher; and Scott Clement, Research Analyst, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.