26% Of Young Adults Are Not Religious!
More great news from Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Young adults from age 18 to 29 are less religious than any other group. (see chart below) From my experience with current college students (age 18-21) the rate of not religious may be as high as 35%.
If this trend continues not only will the next generation be about 33%- 40% non religious, the entire US population will trend to a higher percentage as the population ages. However, it looks like people are fairly stable by the age of 30. We need to make sure we continue to make efforts to educate the young. Churches have learned this a long time ago. This is why they spend so much time and effort indoctrinating little kids.
I love that groups like the Secular Student Alliance (SSA) are growing fast. The SSA had 49 affiliates in 2005 and they have around 200 today. Current growth rate is about 1 new group each week!
I think that this growth can be broken down into 3 stages.
Stage 1. Information
The Largest driving force behind this stage is the Internet. I remember when I was 12 and had questions about religion. I was sent to have a talk with our minister. After an hour with him – you did not want to ask any more questions. Today, if you have questions, you ask Google. The answers are no longer given by a person whose income is dependent on you keeping the faith. This stage is still growing. There are more and more web sites and blogs devoted to Freethough, Atheism and Skepticism every day.
Stage 2. Networking
I think we are now starting phase 2 and the growth is very rapid. This stage is all about people getting together. 10 years ago, you may have decided there is no gOd but how do you find others that share your views? Now we have Facebook, Meetup, blogs, Atheist Nexus etc… It is one thing to know that you don’t believe in gOd but how do you meet others? Groups are popping up everywhere. Four years ago there were n0 non religious groups in central IL. Now there are at least 6! Look for the links on the right side bar.
Stage 3. Buildings
This may take a while but I expect that every town in America with more than 50,000 people will have some place to meet. They will start small and simple and grow over time. These organized groups will also start to provide more and more of the aid needed by local residents.
It is only a matter of time before the US is primarily a non-religious nation.
Very optimistic outlook. The important part for longevity is the third part. It gives stability and allows for other avenues of positive impact on communities outside of churches (unless it is chicken, then I may find them tasty at least).
I would add a 4th part – parenting. While this is wide ranging more and more non-religious parents are getting together on-line and in-person for everything from play dates and home schooling to annual events like Camp Quest. This brings around a whole new generation that is generally being taught the value of critical thinking as a priority. This leaves fewer children needing to break out of the religious thinking patterns in the first place and multiplies the future generations of free-thinkers. Add to this the impact they can have in larger numbers on those who have been otherwise sheltered by religion and it could greatly speed up the process of true secularization.
Here’s to being hopeful.
“Unaffiliated” is not as nonbelieving as you might guess. 34% of the young unaffiliated claim to believe in god without a doubt and over half belief in life after death and miracles. The nonbelievers ARE certainty growing but not as fast as the “unaffiliated” group which contains them.
Unaffiliated is still a good start. Hopefully it means they have little to no allegiances to the genocidal Abrahamic gods and his commands. Though agnosticism or atheism would certainly be preferable to ensure against any dangling faith being leftover to be seized on by nefarious zealots who seek to subjugate them with it. All in good time I suppose.