Gen Z far less likely to be atheists than parents and grandparents, new study reveals

They have no other source of hope for the future, and the priests seem to be keeping it in their pants now.

I guess life is so shit now they have no choice to turn to fairy tales to tell them what to do so things might be less shit when they’re dead

And their kids will probably be less religious than them. Things like this tend to be quite cyclic.

So people are turning their backs on the established religions – I’m generally happy with that.

But they are using TikTok to research <checks notes> Astrology. There was a time when the likes of Mystic Meg and Russell Grant were considered amusingly eccentric and were indulged with a sort of affectionate disdain. Now it’s making billions amplified by a Chinese data farm.

I’m going to avoid the hysteria often attributed to people my age that ‘the kids are not alright’ as I’m very sure that this is a phase; like shell suits and fidget spinners. But could somebody please press fast forward to the ‘Post TikTok Epoch’ – it’s all very silly.

I mean I feel rather spiritual and I am a millennial. I prefer to believe there is something waiting rather than nothing, especially with how life has been. In the past people live in a greater sense of optimism whereas today it seems society is approaching a new phase or the end stage of what we had.

I’ve realised in recent years how paradoxical atheism is in the sense that it carries this weight of intelligence and scientificness when it’s actually an incredibly stupid and nonsensical theory.

We have an infinitely huge universe, our planet is teeming with incomprehensibly intelligent life forms that we fool ourselves into believing we understand. And all of that is meant to be totally meaningless and pointless? Something can’t exist without it having been created.

For the developed world mostly gone are the days of believing there’s a superhuman man who lives in the clouds. But to genuinely believe that existence is nothing, really misses the point that we exist at all.

I think this is what gen Z are coping onto. Atheism IMO was an extreme rejection of the dogma of religion, but we’re moving past that now, and atheism is nothing but dogma in and of itself.

Also, when I was growing up it would be embarrassing to say you believed in God, smart-asses would explain how science has disproven the theory of a God, and you were ridiculed for being stupid if you said you believed in a higher power.

This is also less prevalent today due to public ridicule being more of a faux pas than it used to be.

Gen Z are also more likely to engage online, and as a result, unfortunately, are often more likely to believe what their peers believe or tell them is true, or that influences peddle.

Uf you read the article the entire study is dodgy no info on the survey aside from the number surveyed so no clue who made it and what the questions where the % for certain groups aren’t reflective of the population at all and it was made and funded by a author who makes his money writing very pro-christian books.

Also the ingo in the study doesn’t even match the headline folk are arguing over very clear misinformation and click bait.

A lot of guys under 30 I know have started identifying with “cultural Christianity” a lot more, and even some younger women I know identify as spiritual and believe in God[TM] but don’t necessarily subscribe to religion

I’d be curious, if we got into the weeds, how much of this is actual belief in an existential god versus “it feels beneficial to believe in something” thinking

Im not anti immigrant at all but one downside to migrants is the religion and bigotry they bring with them

Guven all the brainrot and social media I wont be surprised.

The report on the survey has lots of pretty charts but doesn’t provide access to any raw data.

The survey participants are grouped into 4 categories:
30% nonbelievers
40% uncommitted
17% religious
70% spiritual

that’s a ‘representative contingent of all levels of belief’. Clearly some heavy overlap in categories (total: 157%). Most interesting is the ‘spiritual’ category.

What about the assertion that genZ are very spiritual? Well, on p7 of the report they say ‘64% of genz would describe themselves as spiritual’. The stats for genz according to the report are:

64% describe themselves as spiritual
48% describe themselves as uncommitted
28% describe themselves as religious
24% describe themselves as nonbelievers

Again, these categories aren’t exclusive. presumably every religious person is included in the ‘spiritual’ group, but it’s hard to say.

So what is spirituality? The report doesn’t define what it means, but does seem to conflate ‘spirituality’ and ‘religious’ in the text commentary

On p12 they detail the ‘top ways brits express their spirituality’:

45% ‘enjoy nature’ to express their spirituality
26% ‘enjoy music or art’ to express their spirituality
29% ‘connect with other people’ to express their spirituality
25% exercise
10% ‘support a sports team or fandom’ to express their spirituality.

That’s not a complete list – but if you listen to spotify, go to the gym or hang out with your mates at the weekend, congrats — you’re a really spiritual person!

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I’d love to ask the survey team some questions

* did you have a definition of ‘spiritual’ for your participants, or rely on self-reporting based on each individual’s personal understanding of the word ‘spiritual’
* how did you group participants into your four categories
* where did the list of spiritual expressions come from?

Spiritual doesn’t necessarily mean they believe in a divine creator. Granted different generation but my mother calls herself spiritual because she believes in ghost and what not.

“Spiritual” is just another world for gullible. I know a lot of the kinds of people and it’s all antivax and conspiracy craziness.

An increasing levels of stupidity is all we need.

Due to hegemonic and heretical influences of US TV and ‘prosperity theology ‘

I’m not surprised. I want to say spiritual isn’t the same as religious, so I don’t think the churches are going to start filling up with young people. There is an increase in people (myself included) who identify as pagan, which is such a broad term. Some of us believe in gods of various pantheons, others don’t believe in gods but are still spiritual.

Just because a person is spiritual doesn’t, necessarily, mean they are religious. Lumping Spirituality and Religion together is doing some awfully heavy lifting to make the logic of the article seem legit.