Arquivo da categoria: Comportamento

Escândalo de prostituição gay atinge o Vaticano

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BBC Brasil – 5 mar 2010

Um assessor do papa Bento 16 foi afastado nesta semana por causa de um escândalo sexual envolvendo prostituição gay que sacudiu o Vaticano.

Ângelo Balducci, um dos Cavalheiros de Sua Santidade, uma espécie de assistente de elite para o papa quando recebe visitas importantes, foi flagrado em gravações feitas pela polícia dando instruções a um interlocutor sobre detalhes físicos de homens que gostaria que fossem levados a ele.

Segundo a imprensa italiana, o interlocutor era Thomas Ehiem, 29 anos, integrante do famoso coral do Vaticano, que também foi afastado.

A polícia italiana havia grampeado o telefone de Balducci durante uma investigação de corrupção separada e não relacionada ao Vaticano.

Em uma das transcrições vazadas para a mídia, Ehiem descreve um homem como tendo “dois metros, 97 quilos, 33 anos e diz que é ‘completamente ativo’”.

Em outra, Balducci pergunta a Ehiem se ele já “falou com o seminarista”, ao que ele responde “ele provavelmente está na missa, ou algo assim”.

Um representante do Vaticano disse que o Bento 16 está ciente do escândalo.

A transcrição das gravações sugere que Ehiem procurou pelo menos dez homens para Balducci, entre eles, modelos e um jogador de rúgbi.

Thomas Ehiem seria integrante do coro que se apresentou para o papa Bento 16 em uma apresentação de Natal.

Entre as atribuições de Balducci estavam a de ciceronear chefes de Estado e carregar o caixão em funerais papais.

Gendercide – the war on baby girls

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Mar 4th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising

IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters. Perhaps hard physical labour is still needed for the family to make its living. Perhaps only sons may inherit land. Perhaps a daughter is deemed to join another family on marriage and you want someone to care for you when you are old. Perhaps she needs a dowry.

Now imagine that you have had an ultrasound scan; it costs $12, but you can afford that. The scan says the unborn child is a girl. You yourself would prefer a boy; the rest of your family clamours for one. You would never dream of killing a baby daughter, as they do out in the villages. But an abortion seems different. What do you do?

For millions of couples, the answer is: abort the daughter, try for a son. In China and northern India more than 120 boys are being born for every 100 girls. Nature dictates that slightly more males are born than females to offset boys’ greater susceptibility to infant disease. But nothing on this scale.

For those who oppose abortion, this is mass murder. For those such as this newspaper, who think abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” (to use Bill Clinton’s phrase), a lot depends on the circumstances, but the cumulative consequence for societies of such individual actions is catastrophic. China alone stands to have as many unmarried young men—“bare branches”, as they are known—as the entire population of young men in America. In any country rootless young males spell trouble; in Asian societies, where marriage and children are the recognised routes into society, single men are almost like outlaws. Crime rates, bride trafficking, sexual violence, even female suicide rates are all rising and will rise further as the lopsided generations reach their maturity (see article).

It is no exaggeration to call this gendercide. Women are missing in their millions—aborted, killed, neglected to death. In 1990 an Indian economist, Amartya Sen, put the number at 100m; the toll is higher now. The crumb of comfort is that countries can mitigate the hurt, and that one, South Korea, has shown the worst can be avoided. Others need to learn from it if they are to stop the carnage.

The dearth and death of little sisters

Most people know China and northern India have unnaturally large numbers of boys. But few appreciate how bad the problem is, or that it is rising. In China the imbalance between the sexes was 108 boys to 100 girls for the generation born in the late 1980s; for the generation of the early 2000s, it was 124 to 100. In some Chinese provinces the ratio is an unprecedented 130 to 100. The destruction is worst in China but has spread far beyond. Other East Asian countries, including Taiwan and Singapore, former communist states in the western Balkans and the Caucasus, and even sections of America’s population (Chinese- and Japanese-Americans, for example): all these have distorted sex ratios. Gendercide exists on almost every continent. It affects rich and poor; educated and illiterate; Hindu, Muslim, Confucian and Christian alike.

Wealth does not stop it. Taiwan and Singapore have open, rich economies. Within China and India the areas with the worst sex ratios are the richest, best-educated ones. And China’s one-child policy can only be part of the problem, given that so many other countries are affected.

In fact the destruction of baby girls is a product of three forces: the ancient preference for sons; a modern desire for smaller families; and ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify the sex of a fetus. In societies where four or six children were common, a boy would almost certainly come along eventually; son preference did not need to exist at the expense of daughters. But now couples want two children—or, as in China, are allowed only one—they will sacrifice unborn daughters to their pursuit of a son. That is why sex ratios are most distorted in the modern, open parts of China and India. It is also why ratios are more skewed after the first child: parents may accept a daughter first time round but will do anything to ensure their next—and probably last—child is a boy. The boy-girl ratio is above 200 for a third child in some places.

How to stop half the sky crashing down

Baby girls are thus victims of a malign combination of ancient prejudice and modern preferences for small families. Only one country has managed to change this pattern. In the 1990s South Korea had a sex ratio almost as skewed as China’s. Now, it is heading towards normality. It has achieved this not deliberately, but because the culture changed. Female education, anti-discrimination suits and equal-rights rulings made son preference seem old-fashioned and unnecessary. The forces of modernity first exacerbated prejudice—then overwhelmed it.

But this happened when South Korea was rich. If China or India—with incomes one-quarter and one-tenth Korea’s levels—wait until they are as wealthy, many generations will pass. To speed up change, they need to take actions that are in their own interests anyway. Most obviously China should scrap the one-child policy. The country’s leaders will resist this because they fear population growth; they also dismiss Western concerns about human rights. But the one-child limit is no longer needed to reduce fertility (if it ever was: other East Asian countries reduced the pressure on the population as much as China). And it massively distorts the country’s sex ratio, with devastating results. President Hu Jintao says that creating “a harmonious society” is his guiding principle; it cannot be achieved while a policy so profoundly perverts family life.

And all countries need to raise the value of girls. They should encourage female education; abolish laws and customs that prevent daughters inheriting property; make examples of hospitals and clinics with impossible sex ratios; get women engaged in public life—using everything from television newsreaders to women traffic police. Mao Zedong said “women hold up half the sky.” The world needs to do more to prevent a gendercide that will have the sky crashing down.

Consumo de maconha entre adultos e idosos aumenta com envelhecimento da geração ‘baby boom’ nos EUA

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Do Globo – 22 fev 2010

Aos 88 anos, Florence Siegel costuma relaxar ao som de Bach, lendo o jornal “New York Times” e tomando uma taça de vinho. Ela completa sua receita todas as noites fumando um cachimbo de maconha. E recomenda para outros idosos, sem entender por que muitos de sua idade ainda não adotaram o mesmo hábito, que está se popularizando nos Estados Unidos entre adultos com mais de 50 anos, apesar de advertências de médicos.

– Eles estão perdendo muita diversão e muito alívio também – diz a americana, que anda com uma bengala e sofre com artrite nas pernas e nas costas.

O uso da droga ilícita mais comum nos EUA está aumentando à medida que os chamados “baby boomers” chegam à velhice. Nascida a partir de 1945, quando soldados voltaram para casa ao fim da Segunda Guerra Mundial e quando a economia americana ganhou força, essa geração protagonizou os movimentos jovens dos anos 1960 e 1970. Agora, mais velhos, eles cultivam práticas que marcaram sua juventude.

O número de pessoas com 50 anos ou mais que declara fumar maconha subiu de 1,9% para 2,9% entre 2002 e 2008, de acordo com pesquisas da Administração de Serviços de Abusos de Substâncias e Saúde Mental dos EUA. Entre os americanos de 55 e 59 anos, o aumento foi ainda maior: o consumo declarado da droga mais que triplicou, passando de 1,6% em 2002 para 5,1%. Pesquisadores esperam um crescimento ainda maior, já que 78 milhões de “boomers” nasceram nos 20 anos que marcaram o surgimento da geração.

Em 14 estados dos EUA pacientes podem usar a droga legalmente

Em 14 estados dos EUA pacientes são beneficiados por legislação que permite usar a droga legalmente sob recomendação médica, mas aqueles que fumam nos outros 34 estados do país precisam infringir as leis. Do ponto de vista político, defensores da legalização da maconha acreditam que o número de usuários idosos pode representar um reforço importante para a campanha que promovem há décadas em favor da mudança da legislação americana.

– Por um longo tempo, nossos adversários políticos eram americanos idosos que não eram familiarizados com a maconha e consideravam a droga muito perigosa – afirma Keith Stroup, fundador e advogado do grupo NORML de defesa do uso da maconha que, aos 66 anos, mantém o hábito de fumar a erva enquanto assiste ao noticiário da noite. – As crianças estão criadas, estão fora da escola, você tem seu tempo nas suas mãos e, francamente, é um tempo em que você pode realmente curtir a maconha.

A droga é tida como fonte de alívio para problemas relacionados ao envelhecimento. Seu uso pode, entretanto, representar riscos maiores para os idosos, que ficam sujeitos a quedas e problemas no coração, além de comprometimento cognitivo, segundo William Dale, chefe de medicina geriátrica do Centro Médico da Universidade de Chicago.

– Há outras maneiras melhores para alcançar os mesmos benefícios – afirma Dale, dizendo que faria ressalvas contra o consumo de maconha mesmo que o paciente citasse benefícios.

Facebook Profiles Reflect Actual Personality, Not Self-Idealization

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Global background with glowing red rings.

Mitja D. Back, Department of Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, 55099, Mainz, Germany E-mail: back@uni-mainz.de

More than 700 million people worldwide now have profiles on on-line social networking sites (OSNs), such as MySpace and Facebook (ComScore, 2008); OSNs have become integrated into the milieu of modern-day social interactions and are widely used as a primary medium for communication and networking (boyd & Ellison, 2007; Valkenburg & Peter, 2009). Despite the increasing integration of OSN activity into everyday life, however, there has been no research on the most fundamental question about OSN profiles: Do they convey accurate impressions of profile owners?

A widely held assumption, supported by content analyses, suggests that OSN profiles are used to create and communicate idealized selves (Manago, Graham, Greenfield, & Salimkhan, 2008). According to this idealized virtual-identity hypothesis, profile owners display idealized characteristics that do not reflect their actual personalities. Thus, personality impressions based on OSN profiles should reflect profile owners’ ideal-self views rather than what the owners are actually like.

A contrasting view holds that OSNs may constitute an extended social context in which to express one’s actual personality characteristics, thus fostering accurate interpersonal perceptions. OSNs integrate various sources of personal information that mirror those found in personal environments, private thoughts, facial images, and social behavior, all of which are known to contain valid information about personality (Ambady & Skowronski, 2008; Funder, 1999; Hall & Bernieri, 2001; Kenny, 1994; Vazire & Gosling, 2004). Moreover, creating idealized identities should be hard to accomplish because (a) OSN profiles include information about one’s reputation that is difficult to control (e.g., wall posts) and (b) friends provide accountability and subtle feedback on one’s profile. Accordingly, the extended real-life hypothesis predicts that people use OSNs to communicate their real personality. If this supposition is true, lay observers should be able to accurately infer the personality characteristics of OSN profile owners. In the present study, we tested the two competing hypotheses.

Method – Participants

Participants were 236 OSN users (ages 17–22 years) from the most popular OSNs in the United States (Facebook; N = 133, 52 male, 81 female) and Germany (StudiVZ, SchuelerVZ; N = 103, 17 male, 86 female). In the United States, participants were recruited from the University of Texas campus, where flyers and candy were used to find volunteers for a laboratory-based study of personality judgment. Participants were compensated with a combination of money and course credit. In Germany, participants were recruited through advertisements for an on-line study on personality measurement. As compensation, they received individual feedback on their personality scores.

To ensure that participants did not alter their OSN profiles, we saved their profiles before the subject of OSNs was raised. Scores on all measures were normally distributed.

Measures – Accuracy criteria

Accuracy criteria (i.e., indices of what profile owners were actually like) were created by aggregating across multiple personality reports, each of which measured the Big Five personality dimensions (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). In the U.S. sample, profile owners’ self-reports and reports from four well-acquainted friends were obtained using the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003). In the German sample, self-reports on the short form of the Big Five Inventory (BFI-10; Rammstedt & John, 2007) and the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992) were combined.

Ideal-self ratings

We measured ideal-self perceptions by rephrasing the TIPI and the BFI-10 rating instructions: Participants were asked to “describe yourself as you ideally would like to be.”

Observer ratings

Observer ratings (how profile owners were perceived) were obtained from 9 (U.S. sample) and 10 (German sample) undergraduate research assistants, who perused each OSN profile without time restrictions and then rated their impressions of the profile owners using an observer-report form of the TIPI (U.S. sample) or BFI-10 (German sample). Each observer rated only profiles of participants from his or her own country. Observer agreement (consensus) was calculated within each sample using intraclass correlations (ICCs) for both single, ICC(2,1), and aggregate, ICC(2,k), ratings. Consensus was then averaged across samples using Fisher’s r-to-z transformation (see Table 1, column 1).

Analyses

In each sample, we determined accuracy by correlating the aggregated observer ratings with the accuracy criterion. To gauge the effect of self-idealization, we computed partial correlations between profile owners’ ideal-self ratings and aggregated observer ratings, controlling for the accuracy criterion; this procedure removed the reality component from ideal-self ratings to leave a pure measure of self-idealization.1 To determine whether results were consistent across samples, we computed a dummy-coded variable, “U.S. versus German sample,” and ran general linear models, including all interactive effects. No significant interactions emerged. Thus, to obtain the most robust estimates of the effect sizes, we first z-standardized all data within each sample, then combined the samples, and then ran the analyses again. To provide an estimate of accuracy and self-idealization effects for a single observer (not inflated by aggregation), we also calculated the effects separately for each observer and then averaged across observers using Fisher’s r-to-z transformation (Hall & Bernieri, 2001). Significance testing was done by means of one-sample t tests, using observer as the unit of analysis.

Results and Discussion

Our results were consistent with the extended real-life hypothesis and contrary to the idealized virtual-identity hypothesis. Observer accuracy was found, but there was no evidence of self-idealization (see Table 1), and ideal-self ratings did not predict observer impressions above and beyond actual personality. In contrast, even when controlling for ideal-self ratings, the effect of actual personality on OSN impressions remained significant for nearly all analyses. Accuracy was strongest for extraversion (paralleling results from face-to-face encounters) and openness (similar to research on personal environments). Accuracy was lowest for neuroticism, which is consistent with previous research showing that neuroticism is difficult to detect in all zero-acquaintance contexts (Funder, 1999; Kenny, 1994). These results suggest that people are not using their OSN profiles to promote an idealized virtual identity. Instead, OSNs might be an efficient medium for expressing and communicating real personality, which may help explain their popularity.

Our findings represent a first look at the accuracy of people’s self-portrayals on OSNs. To clarify the processes and moderating factors involved, future research should investigate (a) older users and other OSNs, (b) other personality traits, (c) other forms of impression management, (d) the role of specific profile components (e.g., photos, preferences), and (e) individual differences among targets (e.g., self-monitoring) and observers (e.g., OSN experience).

Full article on http://pss.sagepub.com

Jesus ‘era gay superinteligente’, diz Elton John em entrevista

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BBC Brasil, 19 fev 2010

O cantor e compositor britânico Elton John afirmou em uma entrevista publicada nesta sexta-feira que Jesus era um “homem gay superinteligente”.

Na entrevista, publicada na revista americana Parade, Elton John também afirmou que Jesus era “piedoso”, magnânimo e “compreendia os problemas humanos”.

“Na cruz, ele perdoou as pessoas que o crucificaram. Jesus queria que fôssemos amorosos e magnânimos”, afirmou o cantor.

“Não sei o que faz com que as pessoas sejam tão cruéis. Tente ser uma mulher gay no Oriente Médio – é como se você morresse”, acrescentou.

Críticas

Em resposta às afirmações publicadas na entrevista, um porta-voz da Igreja Anglicana afirmou que algumas declarações feitas pelo artista deveriam “ficar restritas aos acadêmicos”.

“As reflexões de Elton John, de que Jesus nos convoca a amar e perdoar, são compartilhadas por todos os cristãos”, disse. “Mas as reflexões a respeito de aspectos de Jesus como personagem histórico talvez devam ficar restritas aos acadêmicos”, finalizou.

Na entrevista, Elton John também falou que não gosta mais de ser uma celebridade, pois a “fama atrai loucos”.

“Princesa Diana, Gianni Versace, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, todos mortos. Dois deles, mortos a tiros em frente de suas casas. Nada disso teria acontecido se eles não fossem famosos. Nunca tive um guarda-costas, nunca, até a morte de Gianni (Versace)”, disse.

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.

África do Sul é nação com maior índice de estupros

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Foto: Finbarr OReilly/Reuters

Estadão, 17 fev 2010 – Uma voluntária da Simelela, organização que trata da violência sexual, usa uma boneca para ensinar crianças sobre toques inapropriados em uma pré-escola na cidade de Khayelitsha, na África do Sul. O país tem o mais alto índice de estupros no mundo, incluindo de crianças e bebês, com uma estimativa de um estupro a cada 26 segundos, de acordo com grupos de ajuda e organizações locais. Em Khayelitsha, cidade de cerca de 500 mil habitantes, muitas das vítimas são crianças com menos de dez anos. Apenas uma fração dos casos atuais de estupros são reportados e muitos ativistas dizem que os atos de violência sexual alcançaram proporções epidêmicas no país.

Autópsia indica que Alexander McQueen se enforcou

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BBC Brasil, 17 fev 2010

A polícia britânica afirmou nesta quarta-feira que o estilista britânico Alexander McQueen morreu em decorrência de enforcamento e que sua morte foi suicídio. As afirmações foram feitas após a conclusão da autópsia do estilista de 40 anos, encontrado morto em sua casa semana passada, na zona oeste de Londres, às vésperas do enterro da mãe.

Segundo o detetive Paul Armstrong, o corpo foi achado pela irmã da vítima, Janet McQueen. Uma carta escrita por McQueen foi encontrada no local, afirmou Armstrong, que não deu detalhes do conteúdo da nota. De acordo com o detetive, não há circunstâncias suspeitas no caso.

McQueen morreu dias antes do início da Semana de Moda de Londres, que começa no próximo dia 19.

Em uma mensagem em sua página no Twitter, datada de 3 de fevereiro, McQueen havia comunicado aos seus seguidores que sua mãe havia falecido. Dias depois, enviou novo texto contando que estava passando por uma “semana terrível”, mas que os amigos eram “ótimos” e que ele estava conseguindo se recuperar.

Gênio moderno

Filho de um motorista de táxi, McQueen cresceu na zona leste de Londres, em uma das áreas mais pobres da capital britânica. Caçula de seis irmãos, o estilista abandonou a escola aos 16 anos para virar aprendiz em uma grife britânica.

Sua carreira deslanchou em 1992, quando uma coleção sua foi comprada por 5 mil libras pela estilista Isabella Blow, que se tornaria sua mentora e grande incentivadora.

Há três anos, Isabella, que se tornou também uma das amigas mais próximas de McQueen, cometeu suicídio em sua casa de campo no condado de Gloucestershire.

Em 1996, McQueen, que ficou conhecido como “o hooligan da moda inglesa”, foi nomeado o principal estilista da famosa casa de alta costura francesa Givenchy. Nesse mesmo ano, seria eleito pela primeira vez como o estilista britânico do ano.

A editora da revista Vogue britânica classificou McQueen como um “gênio dos tempos modernos”.

“Lee McQueen influenciou uma geração inteira de designers. Sua imaginação brilhante não conhecia limites enquanto ele produzia coleção após coleção de designs extraordinários”, completou.

Young adults ‘less religious,’ not necessarily ‘more secular’

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Group of young people on grunge film strip bac...

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY. Feb 17, 2010

Young adults today are less church-connected than prior generations were when they were in their 20s. But a new study finds they’re just about as spiritual as their parents and grandparents were at those ages.

Members of today’s Millennial generation, ages 18 to 29, are as likely to pray and believe in God as their elders were when they were young, says the report from Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

“They may be less religious, but they’re not necessarily more secular” than the Generation Xers or Baby Boomers who preceded them, says Alan Cooperman, associate director of research.

The study, “Religion in the Millennial Generation,” draws primarily on data from the 2008 Pew Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 people and on the General Social Survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, which has measured aspects of religious affiliation and religiosity for decades.

SURVEY: Religious groups have lost ground

Millennials are significantly more likely than young adults in earlier generations to say they don’t identify with any religious group. Among Millennials, 26% cite no religious identity, compared with 20% for most members of Generation X (born 1965-1980) at the same ages, and 13% for most Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) at those ages.

Worship attendance is sliding steadily, too: 18% of Millennials say they attend worship nearly every week or more often, vs. 21% of Gen Xers when they were in their 20s and 26% of Boomers at those ages.

Neither are Millennials any more likely than earlier generations to turn toward a faith affiliation as they grow older.

“Where people start is where they end up, or if they move, it’s away from religious ties, but they tend not to move on beliefs,” Cooperman says.

Yet “by several important measures, Millennials often look a lot like their elders now and earlier generations when they were young,” says Pew senior researcher Greg Smith.

Among Millennials:

•40% say religion is very important in their lives, similar to 39% of Boomers at the same ages.

•41% report praying daily, like 42% of Gen Xers as young adults.

•53% are “certain God exists;” 55% of Gen Xers were certain at the same ages.

It’s too soon to tell what Millennials will say when they’re older. However, the study finds that as people age, they are more likely to say religion is very important in their lives, and they pray more frequently.

In the late 1970s, when most Boomers were in their 20s or early 30s, 39% said religion was very important in their lives. Thirty years later, 60% of Boomers say so.

In the early 1980s, 47% of Baby Boomers who were young adults at the time said they prayed daily. But 25 years later 62% of this same group say they pray daily.

O estresse chegou ao sertão

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José Avelange Oliveira*, no Portal Adital

Estamos incorporando de tal forma o ritmo do mundo ultramoderno que fazemos tudo com superficialidade, sejam as tarefas mais corriqueiras ou as mais profundas desta vida. Estudamos, conseguimos até ser aprovados; mas, pouco aprendemos. Oramos, temos até muitos compromissos religiosos; mas, pouco nos aprofundamos na experiência com Deus. Se não é assim, como explicar o fato de sermos ao mesmo tempo pessoas tão religiosas e às vezes tão egoístas e insensíveis frente à realidade dos pobres? São pobres de bens e pobres de atenção. Não lhes garantimos o pão cotidiano e muito menos uma palavra, um minuto de presença solidária, a eles que são os excluídos do sistema. Estamos por demais ocupados para refletir sobre esta urgente questão. Há movimentos eclesiais cujos membros efetuam visitas missionárias que costumam ser muito válidas, mas este tipo de iniciativa não pode ficar restrito às atividades meramente religiosas que às vezes tendem ao proselitismo.Acredito que nossa juventude seja bastante influenciada pela cultura dos grandes centros urbanos, disseminada país afora principalmente através da televisão e, por isso, não pensa a vida em comunidade, a não ser aquelas comunidades do Orkut, que têm lá seu valor, mas são o que são: virtuais.

Nesse sentido, já não temos tempo para os outros nem para nós mesmos, de maneira ideal. Pensamentos se sucedem na velocidade dos desejos instigados pela mídia. O que não está no filme, o que não é visto pela tevê nem se acha implícito na letra das músicas vulgares parece antiquado, démodé. Então, segue-se a busca imprudente da felicidade, que não raro termina em estresse e depressão.

Com isso, não pretendo negar a importância genuína do prazer nem vou esperar por uma geração de jovens beatos, como sonham alguns líderes conservadores que pronunciam sermões caducos em nossas igrejas modernas. Às vezes são, inclusive, jovens padres que falam como velhos conservadores. A intenção é boa, mas a eficácia do método é duvidosa.

Parece-me mais proveitoso ajudar as pessoas a integrar suas dimensões afetivas, religiosas e profissionais. Para tanto, é oportuno contar com psicólogos, educadores e artistas, mas principalmente com o próprio indivíduo. Enquanto não houver um reconhecimento íntimo de que estamos trilhando um caminho certo para o estresse, não vamos conseguir melhorar nem fazer melhor também a sociedade.

Tanta ansiedade por fazer e por vencer profissionalmente, afetivamente, traz os nervos à flor da pele, gera medo vago, que pode desembocar em distúrbio do pânico, um pânico que já se faz coletivo, até nestas cidades encravadas naquilo que um dia se chamou de sertão.

O sertão modernizou-se. Recebe os sinais das parabólicas e das antenas de internet, gigabytes de muita pressa, de modismos e pouco tempo dedicado à educação, inclusive à educação dos próprios hábitos. Mas, quem de nós estará imune às novidades boas e ruins de nosso século?

O estresse deve ser individualmente considerado, remoído, orado no silêncio de nosso quarto, e coletivamente discutido para que as pessoas não se tornem escravas de um estilo de vida que traz em uma das mãos o encantamento tecnológico e na outra a aflição da saúde física e mental ameaçada pela pressa, pelo julgamento superficial das coisas e das outras pessoas.

Não  é assim que temos atravessado nossas existências? Pouca leitura, meditação quase nula, roupas apertadas e contas a pagar e mais aquela comum ilusão de que os anos já não passam devagar, como acontecia em nossa infância. “Viu como esta semana passou voando?” É o que todos dizem. Nada disso!

É verdade. O planeta está ameaçado, mas ainda não foi alterado o curso do tempo, a não ser dentro de cada um. Portanto, compete a cada um cuidar dos próprios pensamentos; controlar melhor o próprio tempo, conforme já observou Pe. Roque Schneider. Segundo ele, o tempo é como uma mala. Bem arrumada, cabe mais. Um “mais” que bem pode ser “menos”, na medida em que escolhemos o que é realmente importante e desprezamos o que é superficial para a jornada. Este é um cuidado que hoje se faz necessário, até mesmo aqui, no sertão.

* Animador da Fraternidade Ecumênica Sal & Luz, licenciado em Letras (Univ. Estadual da Bahia), com qualificação em Psicologia Social (Univ. Aberta do Brasil) e em Teologia (Escola Superior de Teologia e Espiritualidade Franciscana)

The Big Issues Facing the Western Church

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Tim Keller, no Gospel Coalition Blog, 11 fev 10

1. The opportunity for extensive culture-making in the U.S. In an interview, sociologist Peter Berger observed that in the U.S. evangelicals are shifting from being largely a blue-collar constituency to becoming a college educated population.

His question is–will Christians going into the arts, business, government, the media, and film a) assimilate to the existing baseline cultural narratives so they become in their views and values the same as other secular professionals and elites, or b) will they seal off and privatize their faith from their work so that, effectively, they do not do their work in any distinctive way, or c) will they do enough new Christian ‘culture-making’ in their fields to change things? (See here.)

2. The rise of Islam. How do Christians relate to Muslims when we live side by side in the same society? The record in places like Africa and the Middle East is not encouraging! This is more of an issue for the western church in Europe than in the U.S., but it is going to be a growing concern in America as well.

How can Christians be at the very same time a) good neighbors, seeking their good whether they convert or not, and still b) attractively and effectively invite Muslims to consider the gospel?

3. The new non-western Global Christianity. The demographic center of Christian gravity has already shifted from the west to Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The rising urban churches of China may be particularly influential in the future. But the west still has the educational institutions, the money, and a great deal of power.

What should the relationship of the older western churches be to the new non-western church? How can we use our assets to serve them in ways that are not paternalistic? How can we learn from them in more than perfunctory ways?

4. The growing cultural remoteness of the gospel. The basic concepts of the gospel — sin, guilt and accountability before God, the sacrifice of the cross, human nature, afterlife — are becoming culturally strange in the west for the first time in 1500 years. As Lesslie Newbigin has written, it is time now to ‘think like a missionary’–to formulate ways of communicating the gospel that both confront and engage our increasingly non-Christian western culture.

How do we make the gospel culturally accessible without compromising it? How can we communicate it and live it in a way that is comprehensible to people who lack the basic ‘mental furniture’ to even understand the essential truths of the Bible?

5. The end of prosperity? With the economic meltdown, the question is — will housing values, endowments, profits, salaries, and investments go back to growing at the same rates as they have for the last twenty-five years, or will growth be relatively flat for many years to come? If so, how does the western church, which has become habituated to giving out of fast-increasing assets, adjust in the way it carries out ministry? For example, American ministry is now highly professionalized–church staffs are far larger than they were two generations ago, when a church of 1,000 was only expected to have, perhaps, two pastors and a couple of other part-time staff. Today such a church would have probably eight to ten full-time staff members.

Also, how should the stewardship message adjust? If discretionary assets are one-half of what they were, more risky, sacrificial giving will be necessary to do even less ministry than we have been doing.

On top of this, if we experience even one significant act of nuclear or bio-terrorism in the U.S. or Europe, we may have to throw out all the basic assumptions about social and economic progress we have been working off for the last 65 years. In the first half of the 20th century, we had two World Wars and a Depression. Is the church ready for that? How could it be? What does that mean?

Internet remodela o cérebro e prejudica poder de concentração dos jovens, diz novo e polêmico estudo

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O Globo, 11 fev 10

Os jovens estão perdendo a capacidade de concentração por causa da internet, diz um novo e polêmico estudo da University College de Londres. Segundo os pesquisadores, a revolução digital estaria remodelando o funcionamento do cérebro de crianças e adolescentes, tornando-as mais hábeis para executar tarefas múltiplas, mas prejudicando o poder de concentração. A descoberta corrobora a ideia de que a internet e os aparelhinhos eletrônicos não estão apenas mudando o comportamento das pessoas, mas também a maneira como elas pensam.

O pesquisador David Nicholas, da Universidade College London, avaliou a capacidade de 100 voluntários e pediu para que respondessem a uma série de questões a partir da navegação na internet. Os primeiros resultados mostraram que aqueles entre 12 e 18 anos gastam menos tempo na busca pela informação antes de darem a resposta do que os voluntários mais velhos. Este grupo de 12 a 18 anos, em média, respondeu a uma pergunta depois de olhar metade do número de sites e gastar 1/6 do tempo olhando a informação quando comparado ao grupo mais velho.

Os adolescentes que cresceram no mundo da web se destacaram na realização de tarefas múltiplas. Os voluntários mais jovens – nascidos depois de 1993 – também consultaram mais as respostas dos amigos ao invés de buscarem suas próprias informações e deram respostas mais incompletas. Os mais novos também usaram a internet de uma maneira diferente dos mais velhos: navegaram por um maior número de sites e raramente voltavam para uma mesma página duas vezes.

– A maior surpresa foi que os jovens pareciam estar saltando na web. Eles entravam em sites, olhavam uma ou duas páginas, e continuavam em frente. Ninguém pareceu se dedicar um tempo maior a qualquer assunto – diz Dave Nicholas.

Esse novo modo de pensar estaria associado uma capacidade menor de lidar com disciplinas lineares, como leitura e escrita, porque as mentes dos jovens estariam remodeladas para pensar de uma maneira diferente.

– Está claro que, para o bem ou para o mal, essa nova geração está sendo remodelada pela web – garante o psicólogo Aleks Krotoski, ligado ao estudo.

O cientista político David Runciman, da Universidade de Cambridge, conta a sua experiência em sala de aula:

– Todos os alunos no primeiro dia de aula perguntam: ‘o que teremos que ler?’ Quando digo que será um livro, todos reclamam, como se não fizessem isso há dez anos. Para logo depois perguntarem: ‘De quantas páginas?’.