Study: Younger Generation Losing Its Faith In God
According to a recent Pew Survey, more and more Millennials (those born after 1981) are losing their faith in God. The Survey says that 68% of Milleninials say they never doubt the existence of God. This number is down 15 points since 2007. The number of older Americans with belief in G-d has remained roughly the same in the same time period.
The survey seems to confirm what other studies are finding. Other studies have found that more than half of non-religious Millennials have abandoned their childhood faith. These findings were part of a large recent study by the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace World Affairs.
The studies have also found that it isn’t just Catholicism and other Christian faiths that are losing the youth of today.
Study results are reported saying,
“one-quarter (25 percent) of Millennials identify as religiously unaffiliated. Not only that, since only 11 percent of Millennials were raised without faith, more than half of unaffiliated Millennials left their childhood faith.”
While experts have not gotten hard data on how many Millennials are losing their faith for any specific reasons, experts say that child sex abuse scandals in the Catholic church and religious opposition to Gay Rights are playing a large role in the younger generation’s ideals.
The same survey also found that Millennials are losing their faith in Conservative ideals. One example is that almost half (46%) of Millennials agreed that books with dangerous ideas should not be permitted in school libraries but that number has dropped 18 points (to 28%) in the Pew survey. The views of older Americans on that issue have not changed.