12 ms·

Around the World, Many People Are Leaving Their Childhood Religions

45 points by vially 2y ago

atemerev 2y ago
For many people in post-Soviet countries, it was the other way around: raised as atheists, many of them found religion when it became allowed. I wonder if the same thing will happen with China.
- throwanem 2y ago
  It's been unfashionable to be loudly or manifestly religious for quite a long time in mainstream American society. Though the trait originates in the useless prejudices of the useless English, in a pluralistic, liberty-oriented culture it is a habit coincidentally serving several valuable purposes, none of which will require the clarification two decades hence that they would need just now. Unfortunately, liberty itself being entirely out of fashion among the nonces for the nonce to the fore, there is not much point either elaborating on or expecting the sorts of reforms which an aficionado of liberty, not at all the same as a soi-disant "libertarian," would appreciate.
  - ctrlp 2y ago
    Wow, has anyone told you you're a compelling writer with insightful takes? They are wrong and misleading you. You should self edit these sorts of missives.
    - throwanem 2y ago
      For what? Obviously I have touched something within you, so unless you mean me to believe I should consider your interest beneath my effort - which I assume would be less ambiguously stated, were that your intent - I don't understand what you could be getting at here.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - ctrlp 2y ago
        You are fond of the expressive trope of the gnomic and obscure NPC from a fantasy game. Do you have any magic potions you could sell me? I have gold. Maybe I could trade a battle axe for a spell of regeneration?
        throwanem 2y ago
        Have you and I played games before? You have an abrasive and needlessly antagonistic style I think I recognize.
        ctrlp 2y ago
        I think not. I regret my comment directed at you, it was a pointless rebuke. You did not deserve it.
        throwanem 2y ago
        That's generous of you to say and I respect it. No harm done. It's the times.
blindriver 2y ago
I'm switching back to religion. I used to not believe but after the pandemic and researching the immune system, I don't believe that a complex system like simply the immune system can be not only created by chance but can be spread across an entire population. There are many components of the immune system and even the endocrine system that requires things to be designed together, not randomly across millions of years and I've decided that we were designed at some point because it's too perfectly intertwined across different body parts.
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  It's unfortunate that your research led you to religion instead of learning more about evolution
  - cde-v 2y ago
    It didn’t. Just typical religious lies about how various things are too complex to have been “random”. The use of the word random gives it away.
    - throwanem 2y ago
      Be a little kind, won't you? It's always an occasion of sorrow to see someone turn his face from the world, and certainly I'm not prepared to assume myself immune to the same pitiable fate.
      - sepositus 2y ago
        I'm sure being mercilessly mocked is a contributing factor to these statistics.
        throwanem 2y ago
        Never underestimate the shamefully desperate desire of those who grew up being stuffed into lockers to find whom they may themselves stuff into other, presumably smaller and more easily closing, lockers of their own.
iandanforth 2y ago
Good, I'm strongly against supernatural beliefs and any trend towards greater secular thought is a welcome one.
kelseyfrog 2y ago
I left in my teens. Religion seemed, at that time and still does, appears to reinforce systems of power and conformity rather than do good. Non-believers often ask themselves, "what god would have the ability to eliminate suffering and choose not to?" We should also ask, "What religious institution and followers, having amassed the riches of the world, would choose not to eliminate suffering when they could?" The weight of these contradictions eventually breaks belief. There's one way to win back believers and it's to eliminate in-group/out-group dynamics and replace it with material acts of benevolence - akin to large scale public works projects to eliminate suffering.
- 627467 2y ago
  I don't think this is religious institution v non-religious institutions scenario where the first stopped caring and the second cares. I think it's: more comfortable/complacent societies don't care about eliminating suffering so established institutions (religious or not) just stopped caring too. Plenty less-established religious institution are (at least) convincing enough people they are focused on reducing suffering. (in Christianity look at the evangelical movement around the world)
  - BJones12 2y ago
    > I think it's: more comfortable/complacent societies don't care about eliminating suffering so established institutions (religious or not) just stopped caring too This seems accurate to me. To wit: https://principiadiscordia.com/book/45.php https://principiadiscordia.com/book/45.php But instead of 'just stopped caring' I might substitute 'realize they don't have the resources or power to fix the root cause and are resigned to reducing suffering on a small scale'.
    - kmeisthax 2y ago
      It's also important to keep in mind how much power Christianity has lost over the past few decades, to the point where most religious authorities have firmly chucked the whole "actually helping people" thing out the window in favor of power maintenance. Don't worry, Billy, once we've made women barefoot and pregnant again and wiped the gays off the face of the planet we can totally have our faith-based socialist[0] utopia. Of course, their kids saw this as immediately, obviously wrong and disassociated from their parents. Then they proceeded to join the Democratic Party, bringing all of their entirely ineffectual political tools along with them. This was, again, very useful for helping a certain subset of elites[1] retain position in the social hierarchy but not useful at achieving any of our stated goals. Don't worry, @jointheresistance2016, once we've cancelled enough old fogeys in Hollywood and found someone who can pass all of our purity tests, we can totally have our Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communist utopia. The answer to "OH. WELL, THEN STOP." is "But if we do that, then the bad guys win!" We've been drowning ourselves in outrage, accelerated by new communications technologies[2], as the people who actually run the show are plotting to see how quickly they can get everyone else to kill each other. Everyone is vying to grab as much power as they can as quickly as they can to impose their ideas upon everyone. Free societies are built on a bedrock of decentralization, trustworthiness, and humanity[3]. Whether the institutions have the word "government" or "religion" (or "union") written on them matters less than if they're able to meaningfully resist attempts to divide and conquer the public. The more an institution focuses on gaining power, the less they care about eliminating suffering. I mean, why would they? That suffering is the point. It both eliminates a group of people as potential competing powers as well as creates a justification for you continuing to centralize power. [0] I am perfectly aware that using this adjective is going to make many a Marxist's heads spin. Bear with me. [1] Us (as in, the average tech worker) and our bosses (who have fucked off to the Trump Train) [2] Specifically, cable TV and social media. The relative political harmony of the 1950s was aided by a deep and pervasive government censorship regime, whose harms are unrelated to this rant but were arguably worse. [3] Or if your particular political ideolect prefers, "diversity, equity, and inclusion".
BJones12 2y ago
One important detail in the article, but not the headline, is: > In short, these age patterns might be signs of secularization... However, it’s also possible that some of the age differences in religious affiliation revealed in a single survey could result from people becoming more religious as they grow older. Here's an article from the same research firm last month that examines a different measurement: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-c...
JKCalhoun 2y ago
I was born atheist as I think we all are. But I rejected the kind of indoctrination that follows pretty early on. More or less when I found out Santa Clause was a social construct that everyone agreed to lie about I started to question everything really. But also asking myself, "If this is bullshit, why would people lie about it?" I was satisfied in my atheism. Weirdly though, my mom took my sister and I to a Quaker meeting when we were 10, 11 years old and I thought it was kind of cool. Still didn't believe in a god or whatever but I liked the people and the kind of lack of hierarchy of Quakerism (no priest, just people sitting in silence facing one another, etc.). I was surprised to find myself seeking out a Quaker meeting again recently — here now 50 or so years since. Perhaps memories of that time came back when reflecting on the past after my mother's death a couple years ago. Perhaps the times we are living in caused me to look for "community". And I have enjoyed finding the small group of Friends I could in Omaha. When I told one of the regulars that I was atheist, he was cool with it. "Atheism is a necessary step on the way to enlightenment," he told me. Still puzzling over that.
- throwanem 2y ago
  Oh, he just means you need the experience of doubt before you can approach the experience of acceptance, because otherwise how'd you know the difference between what's true and what you'd like to believe? Quakers like as much as anyone else to be taken as having had some special revelation, especially if they can get that to happen without having to show so bold as to overtly seek to claim it. Don't go thinking they're really so ahierarchical as all that, or that the names they call themselves are any truer by default than anyone else's.
  - BrandoElFollito 2y ago
    Or he likes these kind of meetings.
    - throwanem 2y ago
      ¿Á que punto dije no está los dos?
deadbabe 2y ago
Unfortunately, people will believe equally stupid and magical things that are just as bad as religions, so this isn’t the win you think it is if you’re hoping for a more rational, stable world. Religions help keep destructive people in check. There are people who readily admit that the ONLY reason they haven’t gone on a shooting spree ending with blowing their brains out is their religious faith.
- SapporoChris 2y ago
  Relax, we're building a dystopian surveillance society to keep people in check.
- BrandoElFollito 2y ago
  Or that they are just sane people.
wincy 2y ago
I was a hardcore Dawkins fan at 16. Insufferable edgelord sort, and thought I’d stay that way. Then again I grew up Mormon and their theological rigor is… extremely tenuous. My grandmother was Catholic but I wasn’t really exposed to it as a kid. I’m 38 now and in the process of becoming Catholic. I’ve started going to mass every day. I’m not really sure why but I feel really great. Our goal is to inoculate our children from atheism. We knew a lot of people who killed themselves over the years who were part of the “atheist church” we went to in our 20s. I’ve stopped caring about being right, and don’t really care to argue about religion with people. Instead care about living a life I find meaningful. I want the same for my children. After exploring the other options, I think a religious framework is what makes that possible.
- DSingularity 2y ago
  How did you land on Catholicism? Did you consider other religions?
- SirMaster 2y ago
  I grew up going to church, sunday school, choir, community service events, mission trips, and all that. I don't regret any of it and I look back at all that fondly and I believe it really helped shape who I am today and to be a more caring and considerate and helpful person. There were certainly excellent adults who were great role models as well who helped guide me and teach me and to grow, and they really cared about me. I am sure there are bad experiences out there too, but there are plenty of good ones.
- dkarl 2y ago
  > Then again I grew up Mormon and their theological rigor is… extremely tenuous The Mormons I know were warned against an "unhealthy" level of interest in theology. Very different from Catholicism, where they assume it's normal and healthy to be interested in theological questions, some people will go deeper than others, and the church should embrace it. The only Mormon I know who persisted in his interest despite official warnings was pretty racist and was convinced that racism, like polygamy, was still part of the faith and was only denied for political and social reasons. He got crosswise with some school officials (at BYU) because they wouldn't discuss it with him and temporarily lost his temple recommend. According to him, what they said he needed to correct was his excessive interest in theology.
jawns 2y ago
I went to a Catholic grade school in the 1980s and early '90s, with a graduating class of about 50. Some 30 years later, we had a class reunion. And I found out that there was only one other "cradle Catholic" besides me who had never stopped actively practicing Catholicism. There were about six or seven who had stopped at one point and then returned, often when they had kids. But that still means about 80% of our class are no longer actively Catholic. To what do I attribute this decline? I actually think it started two generations before mine. Back then, parents sent their kids to Catholic school to reinforce the faith they were exposed to at home. In the following generation, many parents sent their kids to Catholic school to teach the faith because they weren't exposed to it at home. But obviously, if that faith isn't being practiced at home, it's going to be unlikely to stick. The horrible sex abuse scandals absolutely hastened this decline, but the ball was already rolling decades beforehand.
roland35 2y ago
The big thing for us is we simply do not trust priests with our children. It seems ridiculous to go to a church where kids have been raped.
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
  Kids raped and covered up at every level.*
- kulahan 2y ago
  At its height, priests were nearly as dangerous, statistically, as teachers!
sepositus 2y ago
For context, I've been a leader in various (American) Evangelical churches over the last decade. The fundamental thing that I think many people need to understand is that many of these "changes" are merely an outward reflection of an inward problem. Meaning a large majority of these individuals were often pursuing Christianity due to some external factor. Take, for example, cultural Christianity. I've sat in rooms with people who have literally been in crisis because they don't understand why people don't stay for the potlucks anymore. The entire foundation of their faith was on the culture surrounding Christianity in America. With that now (as the article points out) fading quite rapidly, they are joining their peers in leaving (or, worse in my opinion, becoming Christian Nationalists). Many of us have seen this coming for a long time. Heck, if you go back and read Francis Schaeffer's writings, especially his later ones, it's almost uncomfortable how accurate his predictions were.
_1tem 2y ago
Note the article refuses to say it explicitly, you have to dig deeper into the footnotes, but the group that is gaining the most “switchers” (after athiesm/agnosticism) is Islam. > The U.S. and Kenya have the highest levels of “accession,” or entrance, into Islam, with 20% of U.S. Muslims and 11% of Kenyan Muslims saying they were raised in another religion or with no religion. That said, overall, Muslims are a minority in both places: About 1% of U.S. adults and 11% of Kenyans currently identify as Muslim.
xnx 2y ago
Is this any different from leaving childhood beliefs in Santa Claus?
- krapp 2y ago
  For some reason abandoning belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are seen as signs of maturity, but abandoning belief in God is seen as moral decay.
istjohn 2y ago
One thing I do appreciate about my Christian upbringing is having a church community, particularly as a parent. Has anyone found a good substitute?
ctrlp 2y ago
"Has man perhaps become less desirous of a transcendent solution to the riddle of his existence, now that this existence appears more arbitrary, beggarly, and dispensable in the visible order of things? Has the self-belittlement of man, his will to self-belittlement, not progressed irresistibly since Copernicus?"
dkarl 2y ago
I was a pretty intense believer in Christianity at an early age and also stopped believing pretty early. Looking at religion from middle age now, it strikes me that Christianity is not a good religion to not believe in. As soon as I stopped believing in the literal existence of God, I immediately felt uncomfortable with Christianity and had to distance myself from it, even though I was culturally and morally grounded in it. I had to get away, and I never saw any path to reengaging with it in a beneficial way. I don't think every religion is like that. I think there are approaches to Judaism and Buddhism that you can participate in that don't demand true faith in the "spooky side," as one of my friends puts it. And I don't just mean being ethnically or culturally linked with a religion, I mean actively engaging with it in a regular and organized way. Christianity doesn't offer that, and I don't know if it could or ever will. (I tried the Unitarians.) If it did, I'd probably enjoy being "Christian" again, at least with quote marks. As it is, if I was forced to affiliate myself with an organized religion and participate in weekly ritual services, I'd probably choose my local Zen center or see if my Jewish friends thought it would make sense for me to join them. Going to a Christian church without believing in capital-G God would be unpleasant and unrewarding.
jqpabc123 2y ago
Religion means very little to most people --- even those who say they believe. Their actions are the proof.
- zoogeny 2y ago
  I just want to jump on this because I was thinking about it just yesterday. I was raised Catholic but I am not religious and based on the creeds I would not qualify as a "true" Christian since I reject miracles like virgin births and resurrections of the dead. But I have read selections of the bible, as well as a bunch of other religious texts like selections from the vedas and sutras. The first parable in the gospel of Mark, the oldest gospel known, is Jesus talking about a farmer sowing seeds. Some of the seeds end up on rocks and birds eat them. Some seeds end up in shallow soil and wither quickly. Some end up surrounded by thorns and are choked out. Only a few land in fertile soil. But the crop that results from the grain grown from the fertile soil is massive, enough to feed people and leave over seeds to repeat the process. The entire point of the literal first teaching of Jesus is: most people won't actually do what is taught. For various reasons, they will hear the teaching but it won't stick in them. But it doesn't matter because the few people who actually listen to the teaching and actually change their lives will be enough for goodness to spread. So the criticism of "some (or even most) believers don't act as they profess to believe" is accounted for in the teaching pretty explicitly. Jesus even states later on how at the time of judgement many people will call his name and he will tell them that they never knew him.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  My main problem with religion is ironically not the belief in a Deity (or deities). I can accept that as an allegory, a sort of personification of the system of values said religion upholds. My main issue is how a lot of people I see that are strongly religious also don't seem to accept the core tenets of the religion in their hearts. As an example, Christianity is a religion that professes love, but many practitioners are quick to hate others, etc.
zoogeny 2y ago
I think the trend of "Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR)" is the most interesting. I suspect a large number of people leaving religions aren't militant atheists convinced by the logic of Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris et al. Instead they are people who believe in some kind of higher power or spiritual unity in a way that is totally compatible with deism (or even light theism). However, the traditional religions have left a lot of progressive minded individuals behind. Rigid dogmas and suspicious meta-physical commitments seem to turn people off. This is an interesting space to explore. Many of these people would happily affiliate if there was some organization that met their needs.

45 points by vially 2y ago

For many people in post-Soviet countries, it was the other way around: raised as atheists, many of them found religion when it became allowed. I wonder if the same thing will happen with China.

throwanem 2y ago
It's been unfashionable to be loudly or manifestly religious for quite a long time in mainstream American society. Though the trait originates in the useless prejudices of the useless English, in a pluralistic, liberty-oriented culture it is a habit coincidentally serving several valuable purposes, none of which will require the clarification two decades hence that they would need just now. Unfortunately, liberty itself being entirely out of fashion among the nonces for the nonce to the fore, there is not much point either elaborating on or expecting the sorts of reforms which an aficionado of liberty, not at all the same as a soi-disant "libertarian," would appreciate.
- ctrlp 2y ago
  Wow, has anyone told you you're a compelling writer with insightful takes? They are wrong and misleading you. You should self edit these sorts of missives.
  - throwanem 2y ago
    For what? Obviously I have touched something within you, so unless you mean me to believe I should consider your interest beneath my effort - which I assume would be less ambiguously stated, were that your intent - I don't understand what you could be getting at here.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - ctrlp 2y ago
      You are fond of the expressive trope of the gnomic and obscure NPC from a fantasy game. Do you have any magic potions you could sell me? I have gold. Maybe I could trade a battle axe for a spell of regeneration?
      - throwanem 2y ago
        Have you and I played games before? You have an abrasive and needlessly antagonistic style I think I recognize.
        ctrlp 2y ago
        I think not. I regret my comment directed at you, it was a pointless rebuke. You did not deserve it.
        throwanem 2y ago
        That's generous of you to say and I respect it. No harm done. It's the times.

blindriver 2y ago

I'm switching back to religion. I used to not believe but after the pandemic and researching the immune system, I don't believe that a complex system like simply the immune system can be not only created by chance but can be spread across an entire population. There are many components of the immune system and even the endocrine system that requires things to be designed together, not randomly across millions of years and I've decided that we were designed at some point because it's too perfectly intertwined across different body parts.

candiddevmike 2y ago
It's unfortunate that your research led you to religion instead of learning more about evolution
- cde-v 2y ago
  It didn’t. Just typical religious lies about how various things are too complex to have been “random”. The use of the word random gives it away.
  - throwanem 2y ago
    Be a little kind, won't you? It's always an occasion of sorrow to see someone turn his face from the world, and certainly I'm not prepared to assume myself immune to the same pitiable fate.
    - sepositus 2y ago
      I'm sure being mercilessly mocked is a contributing factor to these statistics.
      - throwanem 2y ago
        Never underestimate the shamefully desperate desire of those who grew up being stuffed into lockers to find whom they may themselves stuff into other, presumably smaller and more easily closing, lockers of their own.

iandanforth 2y ago

Good, I'm strongly against supernatural beliefs and any trend towards greater secular thought is a welcome one.

kelseyfrog 2y ago

I left in my teens. Religion seemed, at that time and still does, appears to reinforce systems of power and conformity rather than do good. Non-believers often ask themselves, "what god would have the ability to eliminate suffering and choose not to?" We should also ask, "What religious institution and followers, having amassed the riches of the world, would choose not to eliminate suffering when they could?" The weight of these contradictions eventually breaks belief. There's one way to win back believers and it's to eliminate in-group/out-group dynamics and replace it with material acts of benevolence - akin to large scale public works projects to eliminate suffering.

627467 2y ago
I don't think this is religious institution v non-religious institutions scenario where the first stopped caring and the second cares. I think it's: more comfortable/complacent societies don't care about eliminating suffering so established institutions (religious or not) just stopped caring too. Plenty less-established religious institution are (at least) convincing enough people they are focused on reducing suffering. (in Christianity look at the evangelical movement around the world)
- BJones12 2y ago
  > I think it's: more comfortable/complacent societies don't care about eliminating suffering so established institutions (religious or not) just stopped caring too This seems accurate to me. To wit: https://principiadiscordia.com/book/45.php https://principiadiscordia.com/book/45.php But instead of 'just stopped caring' I might substitute 'realize they don't have the resources or power to fix the root cause and are resigned to reducing suffering on a small scale'.
  - kmeisthax 2y ago
    It's also important to keep in mind how much power Christianity has lost over the past few decades, to the point where most religious authorities have firmly chucked the whole "actually helping people" thing out the window in favor of power maintenance. Don't worry, Billy, once we've made women barefoot and pregnant again and wiped the gays off the face of the planet we can totally have our faith-based socialist[0] utopia. Of course, their kids saw this as immediately, obviously wrong and disassociated from their parents. Then they proceeded to join the Democratic Party, bringing all of their entirely ineffectual political tools along with them. This was, again, very useful for helping a certain subset of elites[1] retain position in the social hierarchy but not useful at achieving any of our stated goals. Don't worry, @jointheresistance2016, once we've cancelled enough old fogeys in Hollywood and found someone who can pass all of our purity tests, we can totally have our Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communist utopia. The answer to "OH. WELL, THEN STOP." is "But if we do that, then the bad guys win!" We've been drowning ourselves in outrage, accelerated by new communications technologies[2], as the people who actually run the show are plotting to see how quickly they can get everyone else to kill each other. Everyone is vying to grab as much power as they can as quickly as they can to impose their ideas upon everyone. Free societies are built on a bedrock of decentralization, trustworthiness, and humanity[3]. Whether the institutions have the word "government" or "religion" (or "union") written on them matters less than if they're able to meaningfully resist attempts to divide and conquer the public. The more an institution focuses on gaining power, the less they care about eliminating suffering. I mean, why would they? That suffering is the point. It both eliminates a group of people as potential competing powers as well as creates a justification for you continuing to centralize power. [0] I am perfectly aware that using this adjective is going to make many a Marxist's heads spin. Bear with me. [1] Us (as in, the average tech worker) and our bosses (who have fucked off to the Trump Train) [2] Specifically, cable TV and social media. The relative political harmony of the 1950s was aided by a deep and pervasive government censorship regime, whose harms are unrelated to this rant but were arguably worse. [3] Or if your particular political ideolect prefers, "diversity, equity, and inclusion".

BJones12 2y ago

One important detail in the article, but not the headline, is: > In short, these age patterns might be signs of secularization... However, it’s also possible that some of the age differences in religious affiliation revealed in a single survey could result from people becoming more religious as they grow older. Here's an article from the same research firm last month that examines a different measurement: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-c...

JKCalhoun 2y ago

I was born atheist as I think we all are. But I rejected the kind of indoctrination that follows pretty early on. More or less when I found out Santa Clause was a social construct that everyone agreed to lie about I started to question everything really. But also asking myself, "If this is bullshit, why would people lie about it?" I was satisfied in my atheism. Weirdly though, my mom took my sister and I to a Quaker meeting when we were 10, 11 years old and I thought it was kind of cool. Still didn't believe in a god or whatever but I liked the people and the kind of lack of hierarchy of Quakerism (no priest, just people sitting in silence facing one another, etc.). I was surprised to find myself seeking out a Quaker meeting again recently — here now 50 or so years since. Perhaps memories of that time came back when reflecting on the past after my mother's death a couple years ago. Perhaps the times we are living in caused me to look for "community". And I have enjoyed finding the small group of Friends I could in Omaha. When I told one of the regulars that I was atheist, he was cool with it. "Atheism is a necessary step on the way to enlightenment," he told me. Still puzzling over that.

throwanem 2y ago
Oh, he just means you need the experience of doubt before you can approach the experience of acceptance, because otherwise how'd you know the difference between what's true and what you'd like to believe? Quakers like as much as anyone else to be taken as having had some special revelation, especially if they can get that to happen without having to show so bold as to overtly seek to claim it. Don't go thinking they're really so ahierarchical as all that, or that the names they call themselves are any truer by default than anyone else's.
- BrandoElFollito 2y ago
  Or he likes these kind of meetings.
  - throwanem 2y ago
    ¿Á que punto dije no está los dos?

deadbabe 2y ago

Unfortunately, people will believe equally stupid and magical things that are just as bad as religions, so this isn’t the win you think it is if you’re hoping for a more rational, stable world. Religions help keep destructive people in check. There are people who readily admit that the ONLY reason they haven’t gone on a shooting spree ending with blowing their brains out is their religious faith.

SapporoChris 2y ago
Relax, we're building a dystopian surveillance society to keep people in check.
BrandoElFollito 2y ago
Or that they are just sane people.

wincy 2y ago

I was a hardcore Dawkins fan at 16. Insufferable edgelord sort, and thought I’d stay that way. Then again I grew up Mormon and their theological rigor is… extremely tenuous. My grandmother was Catholic but I wasn’t really exposed to it as a kid. I’m 38 now and in the process of becoming Catholic. I’ve started going to mass every day. I’m not really sure why but I feel really great. Our goal is to inoculate our children from atheism. We knew a lot of people who killed themselves over the years who were part of the “atheist church” we went to in our 20s. I’ve stopped caring about being right, and don’t really care to argue about religion with people. Instead care about living a life I find meaningful. I want the same for my children. After exploring the other options, I think a religious framework is what makes that possible.

DSingularity 2y ago
How did you land on Catholicism? Did you consider other religions?
SirMaster 2y ago
I grew up going to church, sunday school, choir, community service events, mission trips, and all that. I don't regret any of it and I look back at all that fondly and I believe it really helped shape who I am today and to be a more caring and considerate and helpful person. There were certainly excellent adults who were great role models as well who helped guide me and teach me and to grow, and they really cared about me. I am sure there are bad experiences out there too, but there are plenty of good ones.
dkarl 2y ago
> Then again I grew up Mormon and their theological rigor is… extremely tenuous The Mormons I know were warned against an "unhealthy" level of interest in theology. Very different from Catholicism, where they assume it's normal and healthy to be interested in theological questions, some people will go deeper than others, and the church should embrace it. The only Mormon I know who persisted in his interest despite official warnings was pretty racist and was convinced that racism, like polygamy, was still part of the faith and was only denied for political and social reasons. He got crosswise with some school officials (at BYU) because they wouldn't discuss it with him and temporarily lost his temple recommend. According to him, what they said he needed to correct was his excessive interest in theology.

jawns 2y ago

I went to a Catholic grade school in the 1980s and early '90s, with a graduating class of about 50. Some 30 years later, we had a class reunion. And I found out that there was only one other "cradle Catholic" besides me who had never stopped actively practicing Catholicism. There were about six or seven who had stopped at one point and then returned, often when they had kids. But that still means about 80% of our class are no longer actively Catholic. To what do I attribute this decline? I actually think it started two generations before mine. Back then, parents sent their kids to Catholic school to reinforce the faith they were exposed to at home. In the following generation, many parents sent their kids to Catholic school to teach the faith because they weren't exposed to it at home. But obviously, if that faith isn't being practiced at home, it's going to be unlikely to stick. The horrible sex abuse scandals absolutely hastened this decline, but the ball was already rolling decades beforehand.

roland35 2y ago

The big thing for us is we simply do not trust priests with our children. It seems ridiculous to go to a church where kids have been raped.

SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
Kids raped and covered up at every level.*
kulahan 2y ago
At its height, priests were nearly as dangerous, statistically, as teachers!

sepositus 2y ago

For context, I've been a leader in various (American) Evangelical churches over the last decade. The fundamental thing that I think many people need to understand is that many of these "changes" are merely an outward reflection of an inward problem. Meaning a large majority of these individuals were often pursuing Christianity due to some external factor. Take, for example, cultural Christianity. I've sat in rooms with people who have literally been in crisis because they don't understand why people don't stay for the potlucks anymore. The entire foundation of their faith was on the culture surrounding Christianity in America. With that now (as the article points out) fading quite rapidly, they are joining their peers in leaving (or, worse in my opinion, becoming Christian Nationalists). Many of us have seen this coming for a long time. Heck, if you go back and read Francis Schaeffer's writings, especially his later ones, it's almost uncomfortable how accurate his predictions were.

_1tem 2y ago

Note the article refuses to say it explicitly, you have to dig deeper into the footnotes, but the group that is gaining the most “switchers” (after athiesm/agnosticism) is Islam. > The U.S. and Kenya have the highest levels of “accession,” or entrance, into Islam, with 20% of U.S. Muslims and 11% of Kenyan Muslims saying they were raised in another religion or with no religion. That said, overall, Muslims are a minority in both places: About 1% of U.S. adults and 11% of Kenyans currently identify as Muslim.

xnx 2y ago

Is this any different from leaving childhood beliefs in Santa Claus?

krapp 2y ago
For some reason abandoning belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are seen as signs of maturity, but abandoning belief in God is seen as moral decay.

istjohn 2y ago

One thing I do appreciate about my Christian upbringing is having a church community, particularly as a parent. Has anyone found a good substitute?

ctrlp 2y ago

"Has man perhaps become less desirous of a transcendent solution to the riddle of his existence, now that this existence appears more arbitrary, beggarly, and dispensable in the visible order of things? Has the self-belittlement of man, his will to self-belittlement, not progressed irresistibly since Copernicus?"

dkarl 2y ago

I was a pretty intense believer in Christianity at an early age and also stopped believing pretty early. Looking at religion from middle age now, it strikes me that Christianity is not a good religion to not believe in. As soon as I stopped believing in the literal existence of God, I immediately felt uncomfortable with Christianity and had to distance myself from it, even though I was culturally and morally grounded in it. I had to get away, and I never saw any path to reengaging with it in a beneficial way. I don't think every religion is like that. I think there are approaches to Judaism and Buddhism that you can participate in that don't demand true faith in the "spooky side," as one of my friends puts it. And I don't just mean being ethnically or culturally linked with a religion, I mean actively engaging with it in a regular and organized way. Christianity doesn't offer that, and I don't know if it could or ever will. (I tried the Unitarians.) If it did, I'd probably enjoy being "Christian" again, at least with quote marks. As it is, if I was forced to affiliate myself with an organized religion and participate in weekly ritual services, I'd probably choose my local Zen center or see if my Jewish friends thought it would make sense for me to join them. Going to a Christian church without believing in capital-G God would be unpleasant and unrewarding.

jqpabc123 2y ago

Religion means very little to most people --- even those who say they believe. Their actions are the proof.

zoogeny 2y ago
I just want to jump on this because I was thinking about it just yesterday. I was raised Catholic but I am not religious and based on the creeds I would not qualify as a "true" Christian since I reject miracles like virgin births and resurrections of the dead. But I have read selections of the bible, as well as a bunch of other religious texts like selections from the vedas and sutras. The first parable in the gospel of Mark, the oldest gospel known, is Jesus talking about a farmer sowing seeds. Some of the seeds end up on rocks and birds eat them. Some seeds end up in shallow soil and wither quickly. Some end up surrounded by thorns and are choked out. Only a few land in fertile soil. But the crop that results from the grain grown from the fertile soil is massive, enough to feed people and leave over seeds to repeat the process. The entire point of the literal first teaching of Jesus is: most people won't actually do what is taught. For various reasons, they will hear the teaching but it won't stick in them. But it doesn't matter because the few people who actually listen to the teaching and actually change their lives will be enough for goodness to spread. So the criticism of "some (or even most) believers don't act as they profess to believe" is accounted for in the teaching pretty explicitly. Jesus even states later on how at the time of judgement many people will call his name and he will tell them that they never knew him.
surgical_fire 2y ago
My main problem with religion is ironically not the belief in a Deity (or deities). I can accept that as an allegory, a sort of personification of the system of values said religion upholds. My main issue is how a lot of people I see that are strongly religious also don't seem to accept the core tenets of the religion in their hearts. As an example, Christianity is a religion that professes love, but many practitioners are quick to hate others, etc.

zoogeny 2y ago

I think the trend of "Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR)" is the most interesting. I suspect a large number of people leaving religions aren't militant atheists convinced by the logic of Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris et al. Instead they are people who believe in some kind of higher power or spiritual unity in a way that is totally compatible with deism (or even light theism). However, the traditional religions have left a lot of progressive minded individuals behind. Rigid dogmas and suspicious meta-physical commitments seem to turn people off. This is an interesting space to explore. Many of these people would happily affiliate if there was some organization that met their needs.