Young Americans are abandoning God in droves.

**darb72** · 06-16-2012, 03:02 AM

Originally Posted by jonboy79

Wew're we talking about the numbers of people who believe in god?
I think not. we were talking about people actively pursuing religion. I believe in a god, but have not been to church in decades.
I was more talking about the title, and the fact that as I claimed, young peopel are far less interested in religion then prior generations. I still can't fathom how you can disagree with that.

You originally said that you come into contact with a thousand people, correct? In that number a Jewish guy is the only one who attends religious services regularly, correct?

Then if we are to take a poll where 68% of all people between the ages of 18 and 30 have never doubted the existence of God and say roughly half of them attend services, the number that regularly attend religious services is going to be much larger than 1 in a 1,000.

I have never argued that younger people do not attend services as much as older generations. There are multiple reasons for this which are discussed on the other thread. As people mature and settle into their lives, they start attending church more often.

**AirFlacco** · 06-16-2012, 11:57 AM

I forgot to mention that our church just built a $600,000 field house because the youth
group grew so much. It has an auditorium with the stage above the seats, a dining hall
and class rooms. The church paid cash for it too after fund raising efforts.

Back in the 70s my brother was the youth pastor and had one of the largest youth
groups in the city.

Go to Grace Fellowship Church on Deerco Rd in Lutherville. They have over 5,000
members and one of the largest singles and youth groups in the state. Speaking of
which, this church has stolen young adults from every church in Baltimore city and
Baltimore County because it's so cool. We had such a large singles group that I
dated a college girl from there when I was 38. I looked so young she thought I was
28 but there were a lot of Christian girls to meet. That's why so many went there.
That's why I went there-lol.

I taught Stan White's son in Sunday School when he was 10 yrs old. He played FB on
Ohio State's national championship team and is still in the church.

Check out all their youth and adults in this link. Average age is 35 as you can see
from the pics.

http://www.gfc.org/

**Greg** · 06-26-2012, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint

That's a precipitous drop in a very short period of time. Not at all surprising though. As you wisely pointed out, this is the information age. I think it's fair to assume that as access to an increasingly-wider swath of information becomes easier, unilateral subscription to a singular text is unlikely to make a whole lot of sense, nor prove capable of explaining circumstance brought about by unforeseen innovation and human progress.

I suspect more and more young people rightly view inflexible an unwavering belief in a personal God more as the root of the world's most intractable and violently dangerous conflicts than they do the solution to their own problems or the world's for that matter.

I would not be surprised to see a procreation/indoctrination movement from evangelicals in the not-so-distant future.

This is just incredible. I was watching Ravi Zacharias last night and he was talking on this very point. First, the most inctractable problems are things like people seeking power and people starving to death, etc. These are not at all caused by Christianity, which teaches peole to be humble and not power seeking and teaches that caring for "the least of these" is the highest or goals.

Secondly, based on a world that is material only and has no place for a soul or spirit, where do you get the idea that anything is good or bad, right or wrong, etc? If this universe is simply an assortment of atoms here and there then pain and pleasure are nothing more than electrochemical reactions and the question would be why is one reaction superior to another?

Do yourself a favor and add up every single person killed in a religious war since Christ, any religious war, and also add in witch hunts and inquisition, and then compare that to how many Christians Mao had killed. I won;t even bother adding in guys like Stalin who could top the religious number before breakfast on some mornings, or non-Christians killed by Mao.

As for the drop, sure, it is a concern but it isn't like this hasn't been predicted before. Hippies ended up being pretty spiritual people and a lot of them came to Christianity with a little maturity.

The new news is the amount of the drop and how it coincides with the new information age. Evolution of thought will always move from superstition to reason. It only makes sense that this process will speed up exponentially with the new sources of information available. This study supports that premise.

Unfortunately it is the bad information they are listening to. We have had numerous exchanges on this and not once have you even presented an argument for atheism, even a horrid one like Dawkins does in the The God Delusion. You simply assert your position as factual and reasonable and then offer no facts or reason to back it up.

The thing is, I would fall into that percentage. Notice this part, "“I never doubt the existence of God.” I can't say I've never doubted. Doesn't make me a non-Christian.

An unexamined worldview is worthless. Doubt leads to examiniation. I can guarantee you I have read more on the subject of worldviews than anybody here. Probably more than all of you combined. That isn't me bragging, I had doubts and I got answers.

You can quote scripture all you want my man, but pointing your finger at someone and claiming that because they may not believe in what you believe they're damned is an entirely rotten thing to say.

He may not have stated it well but everybody posting in this thead has a worldview and belief system they think is correct (if you didn't I assume you would be posing questions and doing a lot of reading and thinking and not posting on the matter). His view and mine, as well as those of ANY system which holds to an afterlife where we are held accountable in some way, includes the fact that those who have been presented the Gospel and reject it are rejecting the Word, the one who spoke the universe into existence and offered himself for you will be damned to a very unpleasent afterlife.

Given our beliefs presenting it any other way would be uncaring and unloving. It should cause you to consider that maybe that Jewish carpenter from the outskirts of the Roman Empire may have been who he claimed to be. He has more impact on the world than any other single person and considering his origins and political standing that is kind of amazing.

I believe in a god, . . .

And what studies have you done to try and find which god you believe to be the true Creator of the universe (or whatever you attribute to god).

Nothing against your neighbor (that is very sad and a young age to die), but if he was a rapist or something or was into kiddie-porn his whole life and all of a sudden 2 weeks before he dies he decides to believe in a higher power and that's all it took for him to get in the good graces of God?

This is why I just can't 100% buy into any of it.

One person claims God won't or can't forgive those who are skeptics and therefor those people are doomed even though a good majority of them were kind people who lived good lives. Then someone else claims that all it takes is "accepting Christ" and all is forgiven...which essentially is moving the goal posts to suit whoever.

Belief in God does't get you forgiven. Confessing your sins, honestly being sorry for committing them and asking for Jesus to take the penalty for you is how you get forgiven. This takes a change of heart that is not done with just the tongue. Consider that Satan believes, actually knows God exists and knows Jesus is his son and died for the forgiveness of sins, but this hasn't gotten him anywhere. Also consider the thief who died with Christ, who at first mocked Christ but then after listening to him on the Cross realized the specialness of the man and confessed his guilt while Jesus had no guilt. Upon asking for mercy from Jesus after this heart change he was forgiven.

God forgives skeptics if they ask. He forgives anything except mocking the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32), which I must confess I can't explain exactly what that is.

**TheExtraPoint** · 06-27-2012, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by Greg

This is just incredible. I was watching Ravi Zacharias last night and he was talking on this very point. First, the most inctractable problems are things like people seeking power and people starving to death, etc. These are not at all caused by Christianity, which teaches peole to be humble and not power seeking and teaches that caring for "the least of these" is the highest or goals.

Secondly, based on a world that is material only and has no place for a soul or spirit, where do you get the idea that anything is good or bad, right or wrong, etc? If this universe is simply an assortment of atoms here and there then pain and pleasure are nothing more than electrochemical reactions and the question would be why is one reaction superior to another?

Do yourself a favor and add up every single person killed in a religious war since Christ, any religious war, and also add in witch hunts and inquisition, and then compare that to how many Christians Mao had killed. I won;t even bother adding in guys like Stalin who could top the religious number before breakfast on some mornings, or non-Christians killed by Mao.

As for the drop, sure, it is a concern but it isn't like this hasn't been predicted before. Hippies ended up being pretty spiritual people and a lot of them came to Christianity with a little maturity.

People seeking power may not be an exclusively religious problem, but religious institutions clearly do seek (and quite often abuse) power. And that's a problem that is growing if you take note of events both at home and abroad.

As for the relationship between morals and religion and how one can exist without the other, I'm proof that it's possible. Laws, social norms observed through life-experience and/or values passed down in an areligious context can guide a well-meaning person just as well to a respectful, empathetic life; Though perhaps not in the eyes of someone else's narrow-minded personal God.

Also, I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not exactly convinced of the unimpeded righteousness of religion when attempting to match historical death counts. For one, there are many reasons why those totals are different - having to do with everything from demographic and population centers to available technology and so on. But even if we allow that your assessment is correct, the fact is that religion remains at the core of some of the most serious problems that exist in humanity, and can consequently be held at least partly accountable for some of the problems you mentioned like poverty and hunger that might seem unrelated but which suffer at the hands of inter-religious struggle. And I don't attribute that strictly to your religion to be clear.

**Sirdowski** · 06-27-2012, 12:51 PM

My favorite is when someone debates Dawkins specifically about The God Delusion. A phenomenal debate I remember watching was with Dawkins debate Proff. John Lennox of Oxford:

Lennox: In your book you say it is under scholarly dispute among ancient historians whether Jesus existed at all. Now I've checked with ancient historians and that's simply not true. History isn't natural science. I don't understand why would you write something like that?

Dawkins: I don't think it's a very important question; whether Jesus existed or not, but some historians, most historians, believe he did, some do not.

Lennox: They certainly do, I couldn't find an ancient historians that didn't.

Dawkins: well there are one or two.

Later in the debate he goes on to say:

Dawkins: maybe I alluded to the fact that some scholars believe Jesus didn't exist; I take that back, Jesus existed.

If anyone is interested PM me and I can email you a an mp3 of the debate. It's a couple hours I believe.

**Sgt CouchPotato** · 06-27-2012, 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by AirFlacco

it's a fact that more people
are in hell than heaven

link?...

seriously, you're trolling right?

**AirFlacco** · 06-27-2012, 04:30 PM

Mathew 7:14 - I explained this before.

http://bible.cc/matthew/7-14.htm

AND WILL ADD THIS ONE:

Deut. 32:18 You neglected the Rock who begot you, and forgot the God who gave you birth.

**Sgt CouchPotato** · 06-28-2012, 06:27 AM

stop w/ the trolling brah....not cool

**AirFlacco** · 06-28-2012, 09:31 AM

Welcome to the forum.

EVERY VOTE COUNTS. ALGORE

**Greg** · 06-28-2012, 01:33 PM

People seeking power may not be an exclusively religious problem, but religious institutions clearly do seek (and quite often abuse) power. And that's a problem that is growing if you take note of events both at home and abroad.

You are making a claim and backing it with zero facts or examples. In any case, in this regard I was speaking ONLY of Christianity (but I could include Judaism). Many other religions, including Islam, do seek power. Christianity regards humility as valuable and soemthing to seek.

As for the relationship between morals and religion and how one can exist without the other, I'm proof that it's possible. Laws, social norms observed through life-experience and/or values passed down in an areligious context can guide a well-meaning person just as well to a respectful, empathetic life; Though perhaps not in the eyes of someone else's narrow-minded personal God.

You missed the point completely. I never said one had to be religious to be moral. I am saying one has to be more than matter to be moral. I believe you are a moral agent, that you understand right from wrong. But, this is because you are more than a material being. Matter can not have morals, only minds, persons, can. If you are just the matter that makes up your body then there really is no morality because you can not choose right from wrong. You simply are programmed, wired, chemically made up to do certain things that your wiring has determined are right.

By the way, many atheist philosophers have come to this conclusion. They call it freeing, they are free from moral constraint because there is no such thing as morals. Read Nietzsche and such. I could go much deeper into this. Basically, to claim there is a right or wrong beyond assuming you can make choices and aren't hard-wired you are also assuming there is a moral framework we are all accountable to. Where do you get that?

Also, I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not exactly convinced of the unimpeded righteousness of religion when attempting to match historical death counts. For one, there are many reasons why those totals are different - having to do with everything from demographic and population centers to available technology and so on. But even if we allow that your assessment is correct, the fact is that religion remains at the core of some of the most serious problems that exist in humanity, and can consequently be held at least partly accountable for some of the problems you mentioned like poverty and hunger that might seem unrelated but which suffer at the hands of inter-religious struggle. And I don't attribute that strictly to your religion to be clear.

You have said now twice religion is at the center of these problems and listed no examples. Assertions may work with some people but I like to work in facts, logic and reason. Beyond that, I believe many worldviews are evil, even some that claim to follow and honor a god of some sort such as Allah. I purposelly allowed the counting of all travesties from religion to show how bad humanism is at its core. And I attribute to the point above, that without a Moral Agent, a law giver, to impose a morality on us we all know none applies. You claim morals when in reality (if we hold to no Creator) it is opinion, and one not even formed from cogent reason but a simple arrangement of atoms in your brain.

Sirdowski: Dawkins is proof one can have a lot of education and still be a dolt. To be fair, he may be an outsanding biologist but as a philosopher he would struggle to finish a remedial class. And really, you can not do anything with scientifc facts if you can't reason properly, and he can't.