Nearly half of Gen Z has NO religious affiliation!

The youngest Americans are the least likely churchgoers we’ve ever seen in this country.

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Thank you to Yanely Del Rosario for providing captioning help!

[PsychoticFemboySlvt]

My joy is immeasurable and my day is improved.

[DaveCM]

One hypothesis I have is that younger people are far more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community. They are more exposed to diversity. The more religion rallies against the LGBTQ+, the more it turns off those that are more accepting. My wife and I are Gen X. I'm an atheist and my wife is a very liberal Christian. Our kids were raised to decide for themselves and to accept people for who they are. Of course the church my wife attends is open to the LGBTQ. She wouldn't attended otherwise. Our kids have left religion as adults. Largely due to the hate and discrimination that seems to be emitted from most of them. Not to mention the fact that they use religion to push anti-choice legislation.

[MasterSpade]

"Religion is a phase a species goes through when it evolves enough intelligence to ask profound questions but not enough to answer them." - Bill Flavell

[rcblazer]

Gen Z has seen how oppressive and harmful religion actually is. As a lifetime atheist myself, I approve.

[nottiification]

"I dont get it, no matter how much we tell them we hate them, they still dont come to our church!" -- puzzled xtians

[brianh]

I'm one of those atheist Boomers and fortunately raised a non-religious Gen-Z. One thing I would like to note is organized religion has harmed itself by supporting Trump and Christian Nationalism. I fully expect them to double-down and keep supporting hypocrisy which is going to drive even more people away.

[shaunallen]

“Religion was the creation of fear. Knowledge destroys fear. Without fear, religion can’t survive.” -Michael Moorcock, Behold the Man

[SilverCoral]

There is nothing wrong with pointing out the evils of religion.

[PenneyThoughts]

All religions become mythology at some point. Thank Zeus.

[andystokes]

I think that this demonstrates the power of the internet as much as anything else. It's very hard to indoctrinate a child into a particular belief system when they have permanent access to alternative positions, opinions and beliefs. 30 years ago a parent could home school their child and raise them to only ever be exposed to one particular belief system, ramming church down their throat at every opportunity, by the time they were adult they were fully indoctrinated and likely to raise their own children in a similar fashion. That's not so easy now, information is easily available.

[starrystarrynight]

I am a proud Gen X mother of 2 non-religious millennials (I had my kids young) and one non-religious Gen Z :)

Although we have some crazy politicians in my generation, I think that Gen X is largely responsible for raising Gen Z. And I am proud of that. After having fundie Christianity shoved down my throat by my parents, I raised my kids telling them they can choose whatever religion they wanted. And they choose to be agnostics and atheists.

Btw, thank you for not forgetting us Gen X.

[soyevquirsefron]

I’m a longtime atheist and when I drove past a church with my little kids and they said, “why is there a statue of a guy up in a tree?” I felt like I had to tell them a fair portrayal of what and why most people believe. I was trying not to unduely influence them, but I was still happy when my 13 year old casually referred to himself as an atheist

[georgem]

With luck we'll live to see that day where religion is thrown into the dust bin of history and disappear from our society forever.

[nicholas]

Another poll was recently conducted on people who have changed their religious affiliation to none. The number one reason was loss of faith. Number two was the churches position and actions against the lgbtq+ community.

[d.o.m.]

The smaller the religious base gets, the louder they'll get.

[miskatonicalumni]

Think about it, if this is how the religious right behave when they think there are eternal consequences for their actions in life imagine how much worse they would be without the 'fear of god' in them but discrimination and guns aplenty.

[sbond]

Gen X mom here who raised a non religious Gen Z child. I was an atheist back when people called me a devil worshiper lol. My family was so upset when I didn't baptize my daughter. As a black women the pressure is huge in the community to confirm.

[weirdwilliam]

I think atheism is in the process of becoming normalized and destigmatized, much like homosexuality started this process around 2000.

Once it hits the tipping point, I think it will accelerate. Religion requires a protective insular community of reinforcement, or people walk away. These kinds of delicate habitats are getting impossible to preserve in the Information Age.

[letranger]

Makes sense. I was born in 2000, and the Christianity I was exposed to in the US was at best boring and at worst vitriolic, bigoted, and paranoid. I’d like to see a demographic breakdown by race and ethnicity. I’m an Indian immigrant, my mom is a relatively liberal Hindu. Things would irk me about Christianity and those added up overtime and it shifted to outright contempt when I studied history. Keep in mind, these were AP classes but it was still Texas. But, I had the space to talk about it without fear of being ostracized.

And yes, I know I should and do try to think about people as individuals with their own history and internal logic. But I still exercise caution because I know where I live.

If anyone wants a great overview of the modern Evangelical movement and it’s connections to right wing extremists and American interventions abroad, I highly recommend Kristin Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

[mykoal]

Benefits of being atheist:

1 you can be proud of your accomplishments

2 you take full responsibility for your words and actions

3 you appreciate people more for the things that they do for you

4 you have no obligation to entertain people about their stories of invisible Spooks and how they're going to get you

5 you don't have to embarrass yourself by defending Millenia old scribbles wrote up in a time when people didn't know s***

6 you can Marvel at the complexities of the universe without thinking that you are the center of it

7 you can learn true and practical things about the world without someone telling you, you shouldn't

8 you can see people as people and not some members of a different Club to dislike

9 you can help people because you want to, not because you think that it will help you get into heaven. The help can come at no cost as it should

10 you can enjoy life without the fear of invisible Spooks that the people who promote them cannot prove