With all the gay-hating, Koran-burning, woman-bashing, child-molesting and climate-change-denying, it’s no wonder young adults don’t want anything to do with religion anymore:
A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that belief in the existence of God has dropped 15 points in the last five years among Americans 30 and under.
Pew, which has been studying the trend for 25 years, finds that just 68 percent of millenials in 2012 agree with the statement “I never doubt the existence of God.” That’s down from 76 percent in 2009 and 83 percent in 2007.
Though of course there are exceptions, the portrait of religious people we’re given in the media is overwhelmingly negative. Christians are intolerant and hypocritical, Muslims are backwards and violent, Jews support a country that oppresses its neighbors and has too much influence over American foreign policy. All are hypocrites, all are trying to influence public policy at the expense of the other. That’s the portrait of religious people you get every day on television and the newspapers.
No wonder young people are turned off. This is God? Who needs that!
The actual survey has a neat interactive tool where you can drill down to specific questions. It’s pretty interesting. My take-away: no wonder Republicans don’t want young people voting.
Up Atheism!!!
(kinda like “Up City!!!”
the portrait of religious people we’re given in the media is overwhelmingly negative
The Rolodex for the mainstream media under “Chrisitian” is 95% wingnut.
Other flavors of Christian, like those nuns now being chastised by the Vatican, or the dozen groups who were screaming “we’re not the USCCB on the made up birth control crap, interview us!”? They are few and far between in our media. And if you’re a lefty Christian, it’s typically the full “Kent Brockman treatment” where you’re described in the voice of wonder as if you were a water-skiing squirrel.
But the Christians who fancy themselves conservative yet reasonable had their chance to bring the not-crazy, and passed on it. (Any resemblence to the GOP is intentional; ask Dick Lugar.)
They made their bed.
I’d worship with a water skiing squirrel.