A new study finds that many young Americans are walking away from organized religion—not because they’ve lost belief, but because their values around authenticity, justice, and individual autonomy conflict with the teachings and politics of religious institutions.

Over the past few decades, the number of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated—often referred to as “nones”—has grown rapidly. In the 1970s, only about 5% of Americans fell into this category. Today, that number exceeds 25%. Scholars have debated whether this change simply reflects a general decline in belief, or whether it signals something more complex. The research team wanted to explore the deeper forces at play: Why are people leaving institutional religion? What are they replacing it with? And how are their personal values shaping that process?

  • Zomg@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    5 months ago

    Because I don’t need God to be a good person, or know what good morals are.

    • P1k1e@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      5 months ago

      Not to mention you’ll do a better job at it if you think for yourself on the subject rather than delegating it to a spiritual leader with potentially dubious agendas

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      5 months ago

      I think it was Penn Jillette who put it best…

      I murder all I want to, and the amount I want is zero

    • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      5 months ago

      Most of us get our sense of decency from the inside. Some can only find it in a book. Which is more dangerous the person who sense of right and wrong are with them or the ones who are just one crisis of faith from not having any?

  • ByteOnBikes@discuss.onlineOPEnglish
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    5 months ago

    I support a few religious organizations through volunteer work.

    My rules for these organizations are simple:

    1. The religion takes a back seat to helping the community
    2. They’re not preachy or trying to convert people
    3. They don’t diddle little kids.

    You’d think it’ll be easy to meet that criteria.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      5 months ago

      Yeah I used to think ‘‘how do Catholics manage to keep going?’’ Then my church fought a lawsuit to get them to report child abuse, then bought insurance to buffer any financial loss they might incur while protecting child rapists. I feel like Jesus telling people that if they feel like hurting kids they should stop, take a deep breath, and commit suicide, kind of forbids this sort of behavior.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      5 months ago

      I’m curious which is more common a failing #3 or #2.

      most christian charity or aid orgs are mostly about that captive audience.

    • Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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      5 months ago

      Only one I can think of is Unitarian Universalist for all 3. Maybe some sort of Buddhism? Though probably have broken #3 and are very big/organized.

        • Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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          5 months ago

          Awesome! I just started going to a UU church again after a decade+ away…just as wholesome as I remember. Thank you for the volunteer work! You are amazing 😍

      • wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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        5 months ago

        Can unitarian universalist even be considered a religion? Isn’t it just a catch-all group for people to get together and worship in a more harmonious way?

        • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          5 months ago

          They get together and practice, which counts as a religion even if they are kinda doing their own thing.

        • Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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          5 months ago

          I mean they have 8 guiding principles but it’s a fair point. I feel like the term religion is used very loosely there, but I do wonder what religion that DOES have strong guiding tenents that isn’t at least mildly aggressive about them.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
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    5 months ago

    The faster the better. It’s fundamentalists creating a lot of the problems in the world as they try to force their beliefs on others.

    • Skua@kbin.earth
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      5 months ago

      That hasn’t become any more or less true in recent years, though. It’s worth asking why people are now thinking of the idea differently than they did for the past several thousand

      • MouldyCat@feddit.ukEnglish
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        5 months ago

        Well I suppose there’s still no proof that there never was a so-called “divine Y-chromosome” as believed in by Christians, but before we knew about DNA, or even human cells, the ridiculous legends of religion were definitely harder to refute. The ridiculousness of those legends was a big part of their power - the more stupid and unhinged a religious story appears to us today, the more in awe believers would have been about it 300 or 400 years ago.

        So while religion hasn’t become less real in recent years, it has become a lot easier to point out its absurdities.

    • MouldyCat@feddit.ukEnglish
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      5 months ago

      It’s an American study, not sure if you are or not. When the authors describe some of the study’s shortcomings, its clear they are not suggesting these results to be generalisable over the whole world, or even the whole USA:

      “This study followed one cohort of people born in the late 1980s over time, providing fine-grained detail about their lives and relationship to religion,” Schnabel noted. “That zoomed in detail is great for some things, but ultimately it tells us about one cohort of people in one country rather than how religion is changing globally or even among other cohorts of people in the United States. We can infer some things and connect the patterns for this group to others, which could allow us to see potential explanations when we see similar patterns among other groups.”

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
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    5 months ago

    In the 1970s, only about 5% of Americans fell into this category. Today, that number exceeds 25%.

    That’s … a surprisingly slow transition. I can understand that an official turn away from christianity only started in the 1970s, fueled by a cultural revolution.

    But the fact that only 25% of people have officially said no to religion as of today is staggering me. I would have thought it would be closer to 80%, maybe.

    • ReiRose@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      5 months ago

      Quantitative analysis showed a steep and consistent decline in institutional religious involvement. The number of respondents attending religious services dropped dramatically between 2003 and 2013. At the start of the study, over 80% attended services at least occasionally. By the end, nearly 60% reported never attending.

      Affiliation with religious institutions also declined, with formal identification falling from nearly 89% to just 60%. Belief in God showed a more modest drop—from about 83% to 66%—while individual spiritual practices like meditation actually increased. The percentage of participants who practiced meditation rose from 12% to over 21%, suggesting that spirituality remained meaningful even as institutional ties weakened.

      The ‘nones’ didn’t say no to religion, just to organized religion. Atheists are not in that percentage, nor are people who have a religious identity (eg Pagan, Jewish etc) but don’t actively go to gatherings of that religion.

    • turtlesareneat@discuss.onlineEnglish
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      5 months ago

      Considering who has the fertility advantage here, I am not sure this trend will even continue indefinitely. I’ve seen it in my own distant family, the only ones to have a BUNCH were the weird-ass Christian extremists whose kids are all named Isaac and shit.

      The rest of us mostly had no kids, with a few having 1 or 2.

      And obviously, the intro to Idiocracy, but it’s true.

  • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    5 months ago

    I don’t consider myself spiritual but I meditate sometimes because it helps my mental health. Not sure how I’d be counted in this survey.

    • athairmor@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      5 months ago

      I guess messed up ideas about sexuality and consent in general aren’t strictly under their purview. Or, subservience to arbitrary authority figures.

      What about rape in a rectory? Probably doesn’t happen too often outside of a religious context.