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It's often pointed out that Millennials are less religious than older persons. However, it doesn't seem they're actually less secular/more atheistic than other demographics: For instance, 62% of 2000 Millennials polled say they "talk to god". [That's not a very large sample, so take it with NaCl.]
The link below provides comprehensive information regarding religious and spiritual beliefs of Millennials. I'm an openly agnostic/atheist gen-xer, and I'm really curious about something: How can someone 'talk to god', believe in an afterlife, and do things like look to religion for guidance, but not consider themselves religious? I don't understand because these things all seem unequivocally religious to me. I'm not intentionally deriding Millennials; I'm genuinely curious.
I'd have to think that those millennials who 'talk to God, believe in an afterlife etc, would probably be among those who according to Pew believe their faith is 'very important in their lives'. Some other millennials do indeed have a faith but it's 'not too important' to them. It would seem on that basis that they aren't 'religious'.
But on the other hand perhaps there are some millennial who don't see themselves as religious per se but still indeed have many questions. They are at a formative stage in their lives so it wouldn't surprise.
I'm guessing a lot of them don't consider themselves to be "religious" because they don't go to church every Sunday and read the bible. But they still believe in God and pray.
Here is what suspect about you OP, you are logical. I suspect that because you can take a premise and make a conclusion based on deduction or inference and come up with consistent logic. Wonderful. Mind you, I don't agree with your premise and I disagree with your logic but you are logical and logical people can disagree.
Why do I write that? BECAUSE UNEDUCATED PEOPLE ARE NOT LOGICAL; the Millenial lived during, "no child left behind," so they do not have a basic education. They don't even know what the basic syllogism is because it was never tested so never discussed. They are not logical.
I know this because I go onto a more popular discussion board where there are tons of Millenials. They will literally discuss how God is a superstition but Ghosts are not. They say they have no beliefs and when you indicate that asserting there is no God is a belief they will argue that is not a belief. They will say all religions are superstition but then go onto praise the most obscure, esoteric, metaphysical tenets of Buddhism. They make no Moderator cut: removing profanity sense.
You can try to hand hold them to consistency of logic, you genuinely can. I have done this. However, when you hand hold them to the logical conclusion all they do is say, "well I don't believe that." I mean, no effect. In their primitive mind there is no cause and effect in thinking; ideas are not connected. So, I can say, "I'm not religious," in one breath and in the next say, "I talk to God," and there is absolutely nothing contradicting the two ideas; there is no connection; two ideas are like two separate islands and there is no bridge between them. It's a very primitive state.
Don't try to think about it; don't try to change it. It is futile and it will only drive you insane. You can't reach them, no one can reach them. When you try to communicate just know that what you are saying, "does not register with them."
Last edited by mensaguy; 04-23-2015 at 08:33 AM..
Reason: language
It's often pointed out that Millennials are less religious than older persons. However, it doesn't seem they're actually less secular/more atheistic than other demographics: For instance, 62% of 2000 Millennials polled say they "talk to god". [That's not a very large sample, so take it with NaCl.]
The link below provides comprehensive information regarding religious and spiritual beliefs of Millennials. I'm an openly agnostic/atheist gen-xer, and I'm really curious about something: How can someone 'talk to god', believe in an afterlife, and do things like look to religion for guidance, but not consider themselves religious? I don't understand because these things all seem unequivocally religious to me. I'm not intentionally deriding Millennials; I'm genuinely curious.
Because our language is loaded. I grew up in a church not terribly dissimilar doctrinally from that of our very own Pastor Vizio. If you had asked these questions in that church, a fairly dogmatic, fundamentalist evangelical church, you would have gotten a surprisingly low answer. In much of the edges of American religion, be it Fundamentalism, very liberal Christianity, New age-y mysticism, and what have you, there is an idea that religion = mainline Christianity ( Catholics, Episopalians, maybe the Methodists, etc...) and that to be religious is practice an empty form of spirituality, something that is about going through the motions, but that has no meaning. I never would have identified as religious, I had a "relationship, not a religion!"
For many Americans at least, the term religion is really only used for other people's beliefs, particularly if you thing they are uncompelling, powerless, and maybe a bit silly. What you personally have is so much more than a mere religion.
So in this way, all sorts of people can do the things associated with religion, hold beliefs associated with religion, experience the transcendent and ecstatic feelings associated with religion, but be firmly convinced that they themselves are not religious.
I'm guessing a lot of them don't consider themselves to be "religious" because they don't go to church every Sunday and read the bible. But they still believe in God and pray.
Agreed. Sometimes the simplest answer is the answer.
Here is what suspect about you OP, you are logical. I suspect that because you can take a premise and make a conclusion based on deduction or inference and come up with consistent logic. Wonderful. Mind you, I don't agree with your premise and I disagree with your logic but you are logical and logical people can disagree.
Why do I write that? BECAUSE UNEDUCATED PEOPLE ARE NOT LOGICAL; the Millenial lived during, "no child left behind," so they do not have a basic education. They don't even know what the basic syllogism is because it was never tested so never discussed. They are not logical.
I know this because I go onto a more popular discussion board where there are tons of Millenials. They will literally discuss how God is a superstition but Ghosts are not. They say they have no beliefs and when you indicate that asserting there is no God is a belief they will argue that is not a belief. They will say all religions are superstition but then go onto praise the most obscure, esoteric, metaphysical tenets of Buddhism. They make no Moderator cut: removing profanity sense.
You can try to hand hold them to consistency of logic, you genuinely can. I have done this. However, when you hand hold them to the logical conclusion all they do is say, "well I don't believe that." I mean, no effect. In their primitive mind there is no cause and effect in thinking; ideas are not connected. So, I can say, "I'm not religious," in one breath and in the next say, "I talk to God," and there is absolutely nothing contradicting the two ideas; there is no connection; two ideas are like two separate islands and there is no bridge between them. It's a very primitive state.
Don't try to think about it; don't try to change it. It is futile and it will only drive you insane. You can't reach them, no one can reach them. When you try to communicate just know that what you are saying, "does not register with them."
I think this is a very insightful answer overall. I am not sure your critique is limited to Millennials though. I have never perceived the average Joe on the street in any era as a Deep Thinker of even a consistent thinker. It is usually a muddled collage of cobbled-together ideas and quasi-ideas that calms their fears, satisfies their family and friends, and doesn't seem too uncouth or indefensible. Sometimes it is further modified with various addictive behaviors and neuroses as well.
As to the quality of education generally or higher education in particular, there are some ways in which it has deteriorated and gone up in cost at the same time, at least here in the US. And there IS a sense in which the most recent couple of generations seem particularly entitled ... but that seems to be a complaint of every oldster that ever there was, so I'm dubious of how astute an observation that is for me to make.
Bottom line, I agree that most people don't hold self-consistent ideas and particularly if you survey them in a way that tries to tease out their subjective attachments to ideas rather than how those ideas are or are not related, you'll get confusing survey results such as the OP cites.
Here again I'll pick on one of my hapless stepchildren as an example. My stepdaughter believes that there's no such thing as examining a belief more than once. Once she decides a thing, that's the end of it. For all time, near as I can tell. Once she takes the trouble to take a position, the rest of the world had darn well better conform to it. She will go to every conceivable end to force fit reality to her beliefs. This is entitled and unaware of her, not to mention narcissistic, and it results in many inconsistent beliefs and practices. I have little doubt that she would make most survey software crash and burn as it tried to make sense of her reasoning process.
Encountering people like this in life makes me suspect that some people simply cherry pick random ideas as window dressing for their lives, and have little or no concern that it is built up from some kind of logical foundation and has integrity as a whole. All that matters is that they can plausibly present this or that facet of themselves to particular people or in particular social situations, and pull off some sort of illusion.
People who "keep it real", to resurrect a 1960s term, are rare as hen's teeth in my experience.
Last edited by mensaguy; 04-23-2015 at 08:35 AM..
Reason: quoted post edited
For many Americans at least, the term religion is really only used for other people's beliefs, particularly if you thing they are uncompelling, powerless, and maybe a bit silly. What you personally have is so much more than a mere religion.
Exactly, and I can testify to the same "relationship not religion" mentality in my background. We regarded "mainline denominations" as dry, dead, empty form with no vitality at all. And we regarded our religion as "vital" with god-breathed inspiration. This, despite the fact that we would sing hymns with words of praise and rejoicing in just the same dry, dead, empty way that comedian Eddie Izzard so correctly demonstrated in that wonderful clip that Cruithne shared recently.
Any one person usually holds their own pet religious ideas as sacred and special, and elevated in some way (and maybe in every way) over the run of the mill conventional thinking of others.
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[That's not a very large sample, so take it with NaCl.] 
