The religious view of afterlife |
Last night, I went to a nearby supermarket and ended up overhearing a sermon by an older, heavy-set woman
who was counseling a thin, gray-bearded man in the area reserved for
smokers.
The woman was seated while the man
stood near her, and she was repeatedly telling him that God cared about him and
would take care of him. I’m not sure why
evangelicals feel the need to repeat themselves, but they invariably do. I think they are convinced that a statement
will somehow become true with enough repetition.
One look at the man would have assured
anyone that, to date, God hadn’t taken been doing a good job of maintenance. The man was dressed in
ill-fitting clothes and obviously had some health problems. He coughed repeatedly, and his back was
bent. Once or twice, he seemed ready to
collapse. His knees buckled, but then he
straightened. I don’t think he was
planning to pray.
God loves you. God wants to hear from you, the woman kept
telling him.
It’s a message that didn’t seem to
be getting through, and not just in front of a supermarket. A recent survey of young people -- born after
1981 and labeled Millennials by pundits -- found that belief in God has fallen
15 percent since 2007.
The study by the Public Religion Research
Institute and Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World
Affairs also found that more than half of all Millennials have walked away from
their childhood faith.
At the same time, these same young
people have turned away from censoring books with “dangerous” ideas. Some five years ago, 46 percent of them
called for such books to be removed from school libraries. In this study, only 18 percent felt that way.
Religious teachings are obviously dissolving,
like Dorothy’s hydrophobic witch.
What’s happening?
Actual images captured by a space telescope |
For the most part, the answer is
knowledge. Young people today have access to more information than any other
generation. It’s easily accessible and
unlimited in scope. A student interested
in space, for example, can visit a NASA site for the latest pictures of outer
space. Reports by leading astronomers are on the web; so are essays by Nobel
Prize-winning scientists who help put the newest findings in context.
The same is true for any topic.
As a result, young people are
finding their beliefs, encrusted with age and tradition, completely out of step
with the blossoming view of reality. They are shedding those ideas as quickly
as they can.
The older generation hasn’t joined
them. Overall belief in God has
declined. So has religious
affiliation. However, the figures are
skewed. Young people are driving the
statistics; older people are continuing with their faith. The Pew report found that “the number of
older Americans with a firm belief in God remains stable.”
The
Generational Gap much touted in the 1960s hasn’t gone anywhere. Ironically, the former flower children of the
1960s are the ones now being challenged by their offspring.
Those parents
are fighting a losing cause, just as they were 50 years ago.
So
was the woman at the grocery store. She
was definitely sincere. She really
wanted to help the man, but he wasn’t interested. I suspect he only wanted a handout. He wanted something tangible he could eat or
spend.
That’s
true for young people. Faced with the overwhelming
facts, they, too, want something real they can hold onto. God isn’t the answer, simply because He
obviously does not affect their lives in anyway. He doesn’t help feed the starving or help the
poor. A simple investigation will show
that He has no effect on Global Warming, pollution, overpopulation, flyby
meteorites and the other realities that threaten human life.
Millennials
scoff at claims that such calamities are God’s plan. The many failed predictions of the coming end
of the world make a mockery of such ideas.
I
left the woman still vainly trying to convince her solo congregation,
continually calling him to let God handle the problems. He was not listening. Old beliefs about God are charming, but as
even the old man at the grocery store knows as Millennials increasingly realize,
they are nothing more than words floating upward to an empty sky.
Long-time religious historian Bill
Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history. He also speaks at various religious organizations
throughout Florida. You can reach him at
www.williamplazarus.com. He is the
author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon
Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did
the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and
Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion. His books are available on
Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers. He can also be followed on Twitter.
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