By KATE ANDERSON | DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION
Nearly half of Generation Z does not identify as religious, according to a new study, and religious leaders that spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation said the trend is not surprising because they have substituted church for “a new religion.”
Data published last week by the Cooperative Election Study found that 48.5% of Gen Z identifies as either agnostic, atheist or nonreligious, a 3% increase from the previous year and another study from last month found that only 31% believe religion is “very important.”
While the data did not delve into what has caused the rift between young people and religion, several experts that spoke with the DCNF had similar ideas about what is behind the split. (RELATED: Nearly A Third Of Americans Rank Evangelicals As The Most Unfavorable Religion: POLL)
“[I]t’s not that Gen Z isn’t religious, it’s that they picked a new religion,” Joshua Mercer, co-founder of the CatholicVote, told the DCNF. “They have fervent beliefs and rituals, they have their symbols and sacraments, and they definitely purge their ranks of ‘blasphemers’ or anyone insufficiently dedicated to their faith. Look at how every corporation rushes to embrace the rainbow flag every June and look at how people adorn their social media platforms with symbols to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Covid vaccination, Ukraine, or climate change. They are definitely evangelizing, [i]t’s just not Christianity.”
As faith has declined for Gen Z, so has mental health. Recent studies found that Gen Z reports the highest level of mental illness and suicidal ideation compared to other generations.
In 2022, a study revealed that 42% of Gen Z reported being diagnosed with a mental illness and 70% said that their mental health has gotten worse since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Read the rest of this story at The Daily Caller. Photo credit: Gunnar Klack, MIT Chapel
Read more about this topic at Religion in Public blog.
Correlation is not causation, and atheism/agnosticism isn’t demonstrably the cause of mental illness. Indeed, some might say that belief in unprovable theology, miracles, virgin births, and rising from the dead, etc. is in fact proof of mental instability of a sort, instead.
That’s my Easter Message.
And there you go, proving the point.
Roman history disagree with you. But you know that and ignore it.
Satan never sleeps.
Satan is an imaginary term used to scare people into following their religion, then to be prayed upon by church clergy.
> Satan is an imaginary term used to scare people
This is what the blind, depraved, and/or weak say to comfort themselves.
Satan never sleeps is an effective ploy against frightened people that allows the religious administration around the belief to keep the frightened people in place.
3rd: That’s just what Satan would say! /s
I always wondered what, specifically made you tick. You’ve just beautifully answered that question.
Dog, rest assured that there will be more than one or two “self-proclaimed” Christians who won’t make the final cut–if you know what I mean. Now I don’t know if the cross-burners will be hustled into paradise for their clannish zeal or sent to Purgatory!
I certainly don’t know how many of those who throng the churches have studied the Good Book, but I will bet that more than a few of them won’t read Dante’s “Inferno” for fear of seeing themselves in the likes of their own company!
The roads to hell, Dog, are many and wide. If you find yourself heading “south,” stay in the slow lane for as long as possible. Happy Easter!
Gen Z is very religious. They just have a new religion: themselves.
Humans believe in higher powers. Always have. The higher power in question varies.
Gen Z has all the tenets of religion
-creation story: big bang (but by accident)
-God: nature
-theology: nature hood, people bad, unless the people fall into very narrow accepted categories.
-holy books: population bomb, silent spring, white fragility, Mao’s little red book, Mien Kamph.
-churches: abortion clinics, MSNBC, federal government
-holy land: California, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, Europe’s
-Prophets: Greta, Al Gore, Margaret Sanger, John Kerry, Soros
-rituals: abortion, riots, child mutilation, going green, Democrat politics.
-devil: us, anyone with common sense, opposition to going green
-eschatology: the removal of all of us who oppose them.
The only place they don’t match up with traditional faith is they have no redemption philosophy.
So the claim of not being religious is a large pile of musk ox poop. They just created a religion to fit their worldview instead of acknowledging real faiths.
It won’t last, cults never do. But they will do a ton of damage on their way out.
MA, they don’t need a redemption story, because they define themselves as righteous. This is the same lie the devil told Eve in the Garden – “You will be like God…” They all just want to be their own god. Their highest ethic is the personal pronoun.
Any altruism they exhibit is based on the benefit to themselves – even phony Greta.
Probably the saddest part of this is how lonely, sad, and angry they are.
If I genuinely believed this is all there is or ever will be, I’d be miserable, too.
Your writings are such that you seem miserable.
Whidbey your Easter message is full of —-. Long term Christian marriage to the same partner has consistently proven to prove the highest level of happiness ever measured. Just as consistently the availability of prayer directed to the triune God has been an unmistakable deterrent to depression and an irrefutable means of hope to those suffering adversity. The fellowship of believers is undeniable in supplying the deepest social needs of many elderly ,single ,disabled and poor Americans. The fact is the churches are full of happy well adjusted committed citizens who generously meet the needs of others, saved and unsaved , and know how to worship in spirit and truth the one true God who is the risen Lord Jesus Christ. Recommend you get out of the doghouse and attend Easter services in your local Bible believing church.!!And please don’t knock something until you’ve tried it,well!!
Keep your illusions to yourself.
Slone. Makes sense that you would describe christian church the way you want it to be rather than the way it is. That, after all, is the foundation of religion.
I did all of it in depth for 55 years, but finally cast it aside. As much as I tried, I never truly believed, and I doubted that many of my co-worshipers really did either. So I stopped pretending, and I now don’t miss it a bit.
Gonna be sadly amusing to see how the usual suspects come out with both barrels today.
Best response: pray for them. Clearly they need it.
Praying? Well at least you didn’t suggest crusade.
And just on cue, there you are.
Just as predicted.
Sad, insecure, and rude.
What I find the most fascinating about people who behave like you is their guilt. They know in their hearts they are wrong, but are too scared to admit it.
So instead of holding a respectful silence on matters over their heads on days of significance to the Faithful, you gotta troll.
Indeed. The Crusaders today are the so-called “woke” neo-Bolsheviks, who are waging a scorched-earth rampage through the remains of Western Civilization, a Soros-funded, Schwab-led and Sherman-inspired March to the Sea.
You aren’t the first to note that the message of the cross is foolishness to the world. But looking at a thing from the outside is far different from looking at a thing from the inside (looking along).
From one of Lewis’s meditations “…it is perfectly easy to go on all your life giving explanations of religion, love, morality, honour, and the like, without having been inside any of them. And if you do that, you are simply playing with counters. You go on explaining a thing without knowing what it is. That is why a great deal of contemporary thought is, strictly speaking, thought about nothing — all the apparatus of thought busily working in a vacuum.
… We must, on pain of idiocy, deny from the very outset the idea that looking at is, by its own nature, intrinsically truer or better than looking along. One must look both along and at everything… we must start with no prejudice for or against either kind of looking. We do not know in advance whether the lover or the psychologist is giving the more correct account of love, or whether both accounts are equally correct in different ways, or whether both are equally wrong. We just have to find out…”
I for one am thankful for the firsthand accounts of the resurrection. Talk about people who were able to “look along” something. Most of those who experienced this miracle though it was real enough to lose their life for it
“Idiot” – from the Greek, “one who is characterized by self.” “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” Psalm 14:1 May all come to a full understanding of the Resurrection of Christ.
I heard that! From my radio 89.3 fm-anchorage, agnostic is from the greek meaning stupid. Go figure! Hahaha!
Social media, teachers that teach wokeism, lack of parenting and role models, and a dysfunctional society in general is the real culprit. Oh, and don’t forget all the medications these kids are on.
I am of the belief that we all have a religious part of ourselves – the mind / body / spirit triad. When you don’t fill it with the right stuff (depending on which religion you adhere to), that part will be filled by anything else. Today, for the young, that religious void gets filled by environmentalism, leftist government, or more recently, the LGBTQWTF craze. It has been said that communism was a religion masquerading as an ideology. Likewise, Islam is an ideology masquerading as a religion. All of these have all the standard pieces, original sin, penitence, Bible. Environmentalism, communism and Islam all have the functional equivalent of a Pope.
As to mental illness among the young, I would look no farther than social media, particularly TikTok, the CCP tool pushing mental illness among young in the Western World. Anyone else find it odd that the CCP doesn’t allow it to operate in China? And it is TikTok along with western media currently pushing the trans craze among the young.
Like I said earlier, when you don’t fill it with the right stuff, it gets filled with anything else. Happy Easter. Cheers –
In one regard, the crisis of faith I. The young is understandable. Far too many of our churches have become woke temples, more concerned with instagram likes than following scripture.
I saw the clip of a trans clergy in a Lutheran church in ND comparing the Nashville killer to Jesus.
The Church of England is an utter joke. Episcopal ones have totally lost the plot. And the list goes on.
When your main feature is your rock band and a Starbucks off the sanctuary, you’re not feeding your flock.
Why get up early on Sunday when more as no more churches are country clubs than places of worship and learning?
MA. Is there anything that you are FOR? Yo can be so cranky.
I’m in a good mood. My Lord has risen.
Preach!
People invent gods because they are scared to die. No rational person believes in a god.
Speaking of trolls…
History disagrees. But you do you.
I’m curious why, holding the opinion you do, you feel motivated to troll and snark on the holiest day of the year for those of us who do. What insecurities are you trying to hide?
“And just on cue, there you are.
Just as predicted.
Sad, insecure, and rude.”
MA to 3rdgeneration Alaskan a little above this one.
So, ok for YOU to troll MA on your holiest day?
I’m funny. Hit me, I hit back.
Leave me be, I care less what you do.
Ordinarily I let much of this slide because people like him don’t know better, but honestly I just don’t like him.
Well then, lets have a war like the civil war and the religious conservatives will loose again.
Loren. You got it.
We didn’t invent gods..gods are doctrines of demons and the king is baal (bull) and its queen ashetoth (the prositute)
Many in our government have sold out to Satan and abandoned our youth. It will be up to God’s people to fill that void and deliver the message Jesus wants delivered. The Holy Spirit is moving on the earth, revival is happening in spite of all the noise from communists and devil worshippers. God is searching for persons he can use to break through to our youth and deliver his message of love and peace. Our children are under attack by truly wicked people who infuse their demonic garbage (i.e. Gender Identity, Pronoun, Racial Inequity, into their pliable minds. This is a Marxist tactic to divide families and harm children. Families are the backbone of our communities and country. Do not allow demons to control your children, stand up for them and do not be afraid of their ridiculous lies and name calling. If you really want to protect them, remove them from government indoctrination schools and either homeschool or start a parent controlled coop private school.
How many times have there been “revivals”? If what you speak is the truth, there should be no need for any revivals. You are free to believe whatever you want and so am I. Just leave it at that.
What I continue to find interesting is the need by people who deny faith to troll those of us who embrace it.
Especially on the holiest day of the year.
I find Jimmy Carter one of the most vile heretics anywhere. But when he passes I’ll hold any comments except condolences for his loved one mourning his loss.
Why?
A mix of manners and it’s the Christian thing to do.
You say you have manners right after you call another man a “vile heretic”? Um, OK.
Worship is for God to decide. He abhors religion directed toward evilness. His toleration is not endless. He is all powerful. His personality is seen in all creation. The battle is the Lords. If one establishes an acceptable relationship with God it is the most valuable possession one has.
How do you know all this?
How do you not?
MA . Thanks for the softball question. Here’s the answer. When my snowblower won’t start, I do not pray, I check for fuel.
Both from God’s message to us – the Bible – and personal experience. Experience is subjective, of course, but at some point one can only conclude that many coincidences are simply manifestations of the Creator of the universe, who loves us and wants us to love Him forever. See John 3:16
Study of the Holy Scriptures, prayer, faith. I am a product of a Christian home, turned off the hellivision, I have seen evidences of God’s answers in my own life, just like everyone else who has studied to see if these things are so.
All powerful but *really bad w/ money and has had to guilt civilization out of billions over the millennia. Curiously reclusive as well.
A question to ask yourself…
If humans have been here for somewhere between 100k and 250k years what’s the likelihood that a benevolent all powerful god watched us all fornicate and kill each other for eons and then decide just 2k years ago that it’s time we were given esoteric goals and taught some manners?
Or, which of these seem more plausible:
– That an all powerful creature came to earth and inseminated a now long dead unmarried virgin woman, or
– that a jewish girl lied?
Did Noah keep pairs of no-see-ums and mosquitos on the ark? They certainly couldn’t have survived 40 days of flooding that would cover the entire earth. Where’d all that water come from anyway? There isn’t enough in the atmosphere to do that. Where would it then have gone?
How about being given dominion over the animals? Do brown bears believe in that, too? How about pissed off bulls or junk yard dogs? Did He forget to provide dominion over viral or bacterial life forms (because that would be the perfect instance for a mulligan for sure).
Isn’t it more likely that worship is for those without the capacity for analytical thought?
To the faithful: As a test of your faith, pickup a few books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, or Sam Harris and give them a read…if you dare.
They may change your mind, and your life.
Whidbey, I have followed your suggestion above and read Hitchens and Dawkins. Trouble is that I lack the kind of Faith needed to buy into their thesis. You see, their God of billions of years and random occurrence just doesn’t add up. As in Do the Math or the new favorite, ” follow the science”!
So in the end , being somewhat of a skeptic it appears that Voltaire and all of the great thinkers from antiquity to the current Marxist era were correct in their belief in a ” creator”. This ” creator” given the irreducible complexity of his creation has not just walked away from it either.
I suggest you read Behe, if even just once. Unfortunately for many however, Behe actually goes into the ” science”, which is quite complex, and not as enjoyable as the faith based, Pat answers of the writers you reference above.
BTW, it was Newton and others that concluded that the Creator was a rational being and therefore investigating how his creation worked would reveal more about the Creator. It used to be called science, this learning about the creation.
Newton also believed in alchemy so I don’t think he’s the best reference to be using. He is the father of modern science but being a scientist and highly intelligent doesn’t make someone immune from being a madman or believing in nonsense. Religion is based on faith, not science. Why would you need to use science to discover something that you already believes exists? Just say its faith and leave it at that.
You should also probably stop using the term irreducible complexity. That idea was destroyed by the evolutionary biologists that testified during Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District. In fact, here is a quote from the judge that ruled in the case: “the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s.”
When Ben Stein interviewed Dawkins, Dawkins admitted that alien visitation would be an acceptable explanation to how life arose on earth. Dawkins’ admission revealed his innate understanding that something does not come from nothing. He saw the fundamental logic of the existence of an original creator of life; its just that he refuses to admit it could be a creator-god. Dawkins personifies the definition of atheism–it is not disbelief in God; rather, it is rebellion to God. As we are commanded to do so, I pray for him.
Atheism is not a belief system in itself; its merely the statement that something doesn’t exist (God). I can point you to a few sources for how we got “something from nothing” if you’d like. One book that you should read is “A Universe from Nothing” by the physicist Lawrence Krauss. It literally explains how our universe could indeed arise from nothing, i.e. in the absence of space itself. Check it out!
Generation Z has correctly determined that organized religeon is nothing more than controlling cults that empties your wallets to stay in power
I’m curious how many hospitals Gen Z has set up to honor climate change?
How many Gen Zs spend time and money supporting charities?
The contributions of the Body of Christ are well documented.
I better not say anything. I was. But i agree with you. The Word disciplines me to be smarter with my money and more generous toward what would please God according to his word.
What MA, you think only religionists are charitable?
Mr. Avenger… you are blurring two distinctly different matters. One aspect is the belief in crazy and nonsensical philosophies and the other being the good works that a group of people that all believe the same nonsensical crap might accomplish.
For example, Mormons are supposed to wear special underwear, believe they eventually get their own planet and that they have a special name for their spouse that only the spouse will come to once they’re all dead. That’s abject hogwash. Be that as it may, Mormons do collectively feed lots of people that otherwise might go hungry. Yeah, they’re tax evaders and all sorts of other kinds of cheats but to say that they believe in weird nonsense therefor they build hospitals is not a leap of logic; it’s an absence of logic.
Hope all attain an accurate knowledge of Him.
Interesting that these specific trolls get chippy today on an important Christian holiday. Do you also chime in on Ramadan and Passover? Are you only happy on the solstice?
I’d been wondering the same. My guess is they wouldn’t dare mock Ramadan, since Islam won’t tolerate it.
It’s easy to go after a faith known for forgiveness and turning the other cheek.
More to Avenger’s point… Those who strike others known not to hit back, while avoiding those known to hit back hard, fit the very definition of “bully.” A synonym for bully is “coward.” When stripped of all their labels and rhetoric, at their core they are bullies and cowards. This fact also explains why they weaponize our government to force-feed us their ideology of lies. They know we won’t embrace the lies otherwise. Stand firm my friends; never wither from confronting the bullies and cowards promoting lies.
To assume that muslims get a free pass because they’re inclined toward cavemanish responses is inaccurate. Here’s a question for you… why should anyone think that god may have chosen as his spokesman an illiterate, epileptic war prone merchant in the middle of a sun burnt wasteland?
Chinese have had a written language for thousands of years. Wouldn’t picking a literate, well spoken and at least marginally educated individual inclined toward cleanliness have been a better choice?
More to Avenger’s point… Those who strike others known not to hit back, yet avoid those known hit back hard, fit the very definition of “bully.” A synonym for bully is “coward.” When stripped of all their labels and rhetoric, at their core they are bullies and cowards. This fact also explains why they weaponize our government to force-feed us their ideology of lies. They know we not embrace the lies otherwise. Stand firm my friends; never wither from confronting the cowards.
The agnostic comments here are awesome the fact is you are all going to hell and interestingly enough it appears you may be living in it now, your instant vicious response was like throwing gas on a snake. Everything I see or hear is a miracle, it had to start somewhere now didn’t it. ??
They are never happy Paul. Grim.
Which is more likely to have its roots in mental illness…
– A science based world view, or
– Belief in a magical dead jew?
OH! I have my hand up! Call on me!
Paola, I hereby call on you. The floor is yours; please comment.
Lee Strobel. John Ankerberg. They can
be your teachers, they
answar all your questions. Charles colson and randy alcorn also can help you.
Any women with knowledge in your books Jen?
People who deny Jesus Christ are usually worrying about loss of a random orgasm here or there. Wicked, spiritually stunted hedonists.
‘The greatest commandment is love God with your whole heart, mind, and soul.’ if believers has that love, he’ll do everything else scripture that points, it
hard not to. He’ll lead, guide his children, family, friends, neighbors to God in love for them because of God’s love for us, and for him patiently, lovingly, correcting, pulling him out of the gutter. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son , for whoeverso believes shall not perish but have everlasting life.
I’m afraid the churches
been so concerned being liked by the world, it lost its focus and lost its first love that our chidren don’t even know the gospel or heard a false gospel.
You can say: “I don’t believe in radio waves. I can’t see ’em. I can’t eat them. As far as I’m concerned they don’t exist.” Radio wave deniers may also deny the law of gravity exists. Fine. Their views are not persuasive to me.
Radio waves and gravity can be experimentally shown to exist. You cannot prove the existence of God using science. Its faith that causes you to believe in something for which there is no proof. Why not just be honest about it?
Since you brought up the theory of gravity, I assume you also believe in evolutionary theory?
A greater laws than the law of gravity created by God are spiritual laws. The distribution of salvation is the remedy. There is everlasting life. Have you wondered what Hitler’s everlasting life is like? Experiencing personally what each horrible thing he did to others over and overs: experiencing the gas chamber for each one he caused directly to go into a premature death over and over for eternity. One may callously fornicate with another’s spouse doing things that make you go hmmm in Alaska. But there is no pass. The only pass is accepting Jesus’ spiritual gift of payment for your iniquity. Human sins pollute Alaskan soil much more than anything else. Condemnation by God is worse than false politization. God gets it exactly right permanently. Conversely God annoints His holy one(s). He conspicuously protects and blesses them before their constant accusers. Their enemies thwarted will see them experience the 23rd Psalm. They say: ” Hey I would not give the accolade; I cut that woman off from blessings, from funds, pensions. What is she doing with wealth? What is she doing with peace; I stoled her husband; I took the lead in cleaning out her mother’s house; I took the lead in unjustly incriminating her; my mother marauded her mother and taught me to do the same. How is it she is continuing to be blessed in a recession? How is she is living honestly; radiantly? I and my Alaskan ilk heaped Alaskan dung on her!” That’s how you know Cammie Lot. That is how you know God is real, when He prepares a table for you, in the presence of your enemies before you, while you are picnicing in green grass and beside still waters in front of bunches of personal enemies and God is still nudging you saying look over here, here is another blessing for you to infinity”. That’s how you know God is real. Tangible everlasting blessings. You with God’s strength overcome evil in a large way constantly forever. God gives freely and peace and exquisite delight. He is opening His hand and satisfying the desires of every living thing. Can you do that? Can you even want to do that? That is a witness among a multitude of witnesses.
Saul Alinsky knew what he was doing. His disciples are still marching in lockstep and accomplishing their Marxist goals while we conservatives still do our best to live our neighbor. I believe Grace, love and liberty wins out every time over fascism and godlessness. Stay the course folks.
We win in the end.
I didn’t realize it was a contest. How about you believe whatever you want and I’ll do the same? There’s no need for there to be a “winner”.
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