2d ago

Millennials are abandoning organized religion. A new study provides insight into why

www.psypost.org

Over the past few decades, the number of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated—often referred to as “nones”—has grown rapidly. In the 1970s, only about 5% of Americans fell into this category. Today, that number exceeds 25%. Scholars have debated whether this change simply reflects a general decline in belief, or whether it signals something more complex. The research team wanted to explore the deeper forces at play: Why are people leaving institutional religion? What are they replacing it with? And how are their personal values shaping that process?

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I was a skeptical little kid, and I have been an atheist since I first learned of the term around 1st grade. I was also very interested in archeology and mythology, so exposure to all those other religions didn't help the Christianity case. As a child, I assumed that the whole god/jesus thing was just like Santa and the Easter Bunny. That it was a made up story to instill morals in kids, and that eventually when I was older the adults would admit it to me. Of course, they never did. But I had a lot of friends at church and generally enjoyed my time there, so I didn't openly talk about being an atheist until college.
I actually do kind of miss the community aspect of a church. I have always assumed that is the biggest draw that keeps people interested. Both for the support network, and sense of belonging.
For me it's because religion is brain cancer that fucks up anyone who takes it seriously.
No no no, this ancient religion from the Middle East based off of several other cultures mythology is the TRUTH!
Because it's a grift?
Because it's all horseshit?
- I was going to say bullshit but either will do.
  
  When it comes to bullshit, you have to stand in awe of religion.
  
  I'll do ya one better and go with tyrannosaurus shit.
My guess is that the extreme hatred flowing out of outspoken "Christians" in the US is a huge turn-off, as it should be.
I can give you 100+ reasons why…. None are good for you and/or me.
Everyone, myself included always come back to the same reason - there is no proof.
If I was given actual proof of a god or pantheon or any other ridiculous nonsense I’d absolutely change my mind but actual proof magic exists can’t exist because magic isn’t real
I fully accept that I don’t and can’t truly understand the universe but where the fuck does that somehow morph into “god did it” it’s ok not to know everything I don’t need made up bullshit to fill the gaps so I can feel better about not having every answer. Live with not knowing, that’s what being human is meant to be, acceptance
- god definitely exists, as it's just a philosophical concept to say the "cause of all causes". by definition, such a thing exists, i would say.
  the issue is more with organized religion. there's a lot of rules and bureaucracy in it, and most of that is outdated.
  
  god definitely exists, as it’s just a philosophical concept to say the “cause of all causes”.
  Most believers will assert that their god exists in a different, more concrete way. The number of persons able or willing to discuss the topic on your terms is an insignificant minority.
We can just go to therapy instead of confessional.
- Confessional is cheaper
  
  Not if you actually tithe 10% like they want you to and have insurance and/or community support. Which of course not everyone has. But my point is that more insurance covers it now than 30 years ago.
In the 1970s, only about 5% of Americans fell into this category. Today, that number exceeds 25%.
That's ... a surprisingly slow transition. I can understand that an official turn away from christianity only started in the 1970s, fueled by a cultural revolution.
But the fact that only 25% of people have officially said no to religion as of today is staggering me. I would have thought it would be closer to 80%, maybe.
- Quantitative analysis showed a steep and consistent decline in institutional religious involvement. The number of respondents attending religious services dropped dramatically between 2003 and 2013. At the start of the study, over 80% attended services at least occasionally. By the end, nearly 60% reported never attending.
  Affiliation with religious institutions also declined, with formal identification falling from nearly 89% to just 60%. Belief in God showed a more modest drop—from about 83% to 66%—while individual spiritual practices like meditation actually increased. The percentage of participants who practiced meditation rose from 12% to over 21%, suggesting that spirituality remained meaningful even as institutional ties weakened.
  The 'nones' didn't say no to religion, just to organized religion. Atheists are not in that percentage, nor are people who have a religious identity (eg Pagan, Jewish etc) but don't actively go to gatherings of that religion.
- Considering who has the fertility advantage here, I am not sure this trend will even continue indefinitely. I've seen it in my own distant family, the only ones to have a BUNCH were the weird-ass Christian extremists whose kids are all named Isaac and shit.
  The rest of us mostly had no kids, with a few having 1 or 2.
  And obviously, the intro to Idiocracy, but it's true.
  
  R strategists do not have good relationships with their kids.
- Never underestimate the power of indoctrination to an incurious victim.
It's been a slow trend over the last decades but it's encouraging to hear about.
It's dumb?
They have tech now. And conspiracy theories. Lots of stuff to cult about. They can build their own religion if they want.
- Discard organized religion, replace it with rational materialism and/or roll your own bullshit.
  Personally, I opt for the second one - this religion/spiritualism stuff hits different when you know, constantly remind yourself, and tell others that it's just your pet pile of bullshit.
- With blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the religion!
  
  samus12345, you lead and I will follow. All hail samus12345.
For their study, Schnabel and his colleagues used data from the National Study of Youth and Religion. This included four waves of longitudinal survey data and 183 in-depth interviews conducted from 2003 to 2013. The sample included over 1,300 individuals, each tracked from adolescence into young adulthood. [...] The number of respondents attending religious services dropped dramatically between 2003 and 2013.
The study used data that's 12 years old! Millennials are not young adults anymore. At this point it's well known that Americans, especially the younger cohorts, are moving away from religion, so why even bother reanalyzing ancient data?
- It is very useful to reanalyze old data. Recently, a study came out that concluded that we have misunderstood the role of nutrition and calories in fitness, and it examined studies over a period of decades to come to the conclusions. You don't always need new data to make new conclusions.
- Gen Z is more religious and conservative, than millennials, a lot more
  
  Generally less able to identify scams so, it tracks.
Because I don't need God to be a good person, or know what good morals are.
- I think it was Penn Jillette who put it best...
  I murder all I want to, and the amount I want is zero
- Most of us get our sense of decency from the inside. Some can only find it in a book. Which is more dangerous the person who sense of right and wrong are with them or the ones who are just one crisis of faith from not having any?
- Not to mention you'll do a better job at it if you think for yourself on the subject rather than delegating it to a spiritual leader with potentially dubious agendas
Here's my theory why:
- People nowadays have higher average education and can much more easilly spot the logical inconsistences in Religion.
- People are so overexposed and overwhelmed by swindles in the modern era that they are more naturally spotting the swindle nature of ancient swindles such as Religion.
Well, my whole life, I've lived in a society where organized Christianity has overwhelmingly been a force for evil, rather than a force for good. Fuck, I straight-up believe that most Evangelical Christians are devil worshipers. If your religion leads you to hate, you aren't worshiping God, you're worshiping the Devil.
- Christianity is, by definition, a cult of human sacrifice.
  Kinda puts the entire faith into perspective.
  
  human sacrifice
  like a candle that burns and therefore melts.
  
  Death cult
  
  Not really; one guy died, by his own choice, but came back to life two days later. A real "cult of human sacrifice" would require it as an ongoing practice and for the victims to stay dead.
- No. The christoan God is evil. They're doing exactly as their religion demands.
- If your religion leads you to hate, you aren’t worshiping God, you’re worshiping the Devil.
  And this is how wars between religions start...
  Maybe try to move away from that God/Devil thing. It's a foolish, naive, human-centered worldview.
  
  Ok, we can restate it. If your religion leads you to hate, you aren’t on the side of good, you’re on the side of bad?
  
  We're already in a war of religion. One side just hasn't admitted it yet.
Good for them.
These ancient lies designed for crowd control have been horrible these past thousand years.
Not that modern political groups or sects etc are much better...
- i just want to point out that medieval christianity was actually fine. it helped the people live good lives.
  the issues began around 1500, when political pressures caused europeans to go to america, and later in 1800 with the industrial revolution.
  
  Remind me when Gallileo lived?
should be happening with gen z and alpha too, but gen z has more right wingers than previous generations, due to significant propaganda.
- it's not all propaganda. there's significant instability. gen Z can't find a job. the old ways don't work for them anymore. "right-wing" just means "without a plan to trust in", IMO.
- Propaganda cultivated and disseminated by Boomers.
  Decades later, the root rot is still Boomers.
  
  In this case I'm wondering about what Millennial parents decided to not bother teaching their own kids, evidently.
- I always wonder what made millennials so left compared to every generation before and after.
  
  the younger generation were considerablly more right wing than thier gen xers or boomer parents. gen z became mroe right wing due to people like tate, incel-ism, right wing grifters preying on these groups.
  milleneals at least grew up with pickup artists, it was mostly fringe until gen z made it more mainstream.
Lmao because it's horse shit that's why
Source: me, a 37-yo exmormon who was all-in, true believer, until his mid 20s.
I've been reading that Gen-Z is going to organized religion more now.
- This is caused by social media. People getting sucked into the right-wing VLOG-o-sphere.
I support a few religious organizations through volunteer work.
My rules for these organizations are simple:
1. The religion takes a back seat to helping the community
2. They're not preachy or trying to convert people
3. They don't diddle little kids.
You'd think it'll be easy to meet that criteria.
- How would you even know if #3 was true or not, it's not like they advertise it.
  
  Flip a coin
- I'm curious which is more common a failing #3 or #2.
  most christian charity or aid orgs are mostly about that captive audience.
- Only one I can think of is Unitarian Universalist for all 3. Maybe some sort of Buddhism? Though probably have broken #3 and are very big/organized.
  
  I do volunteer for a Unitarian church and a Buddhist temple! Nailed it.
  
  Can unitarian universalist even be considered a religion? Isn't it just a catch-all group for people to get together and worship in a more harmonious way?
- They don’t diddle little kids.
  You know they don't, when they perform a song about it...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YmDcCpD1gc
- Yeah I used to think ''how do Catholics manage to keep going?'' Then my church fought a lawsuit to get them to report child abuse, then bought insurance to buffer any financial loss they might incur while protecting child rapists. I feel like Jesus telling people that if they feel like hurting kids they should stop, take a deep breath, and commit suicide, kind of forbids this sort of behavior.
- Imagine my mom used to volunteer together with JW back in the 90s
- "You will know them by their fruits" ahh criteria
there is literally nothing that religion can provide that can't be gotten without religion
- For real. You can just buy those styrofoam wafers and some cheap wine if you really want them. You don't have to go to church.
  
  ¡obleas!
- I guess messed up ideas about sexuality and consent in general aren’t strictly under their purview. Or, subservience to arbitrary authority figures.
  What about rape in a rectory? Probably doesn’t happen too often outside of a religious context.
because its bullshit?
insight into why.
Because it's not fucking real?
This isn't rocket surgery.
- That hasn't become any more or less true in recent years, though. It's worth asking why people are now thinking of the idea differently than they did for the past several thousand
  
  Well I suppose there's still no proof that there never was a so-called "divine Y-chromosome" as believed in by Christians, but before we knew about DNA, or even human cells, the ridiculous legends of religion were definitely harder to refute. The ridiculousness of those legends was a big part of their power - the more stupid and unhinged a religious story appears to us today, the more in awe believers would have been about it 300 or 400 years ago.
  So while religion hasn't become less real in recent years, it has become a lot easier to point out its absurdities.
Part of this is just that the socially conservative pressure to fit in has eased. Time was you had to be "religious" to fit in to communities and it was seen as part of American identity.
I find it hard to believe 75% of Americans are religious. In the UK 37% identify as non religious. 45% identify as Christian yet churches have emptied our and most young people only end up in one for marriages or funerals. People say they're Christian but I have no doubt a large chunk of those people are just ticking a box on a census form as it's part of their identity.
I'm not technically leaving religion, I was raised atheist and just never got the hang of believing in supernatural things.
I believe some CRAZY stuff but it's not supernatural
I feel like the unloved sect is really the unitarian universalists. They're basically a doctrine free "church" of social justice. Like, I love going sometimes and just getting more advice on how to be an excellent human to others. And then we have snacks.
The faster the better. It’s fundamentalists creating a lot of the problems in the world as they try to force their beliefs on others.
Better understanding of the physical world than previous generations, for one thing. That and the advent of TV and Internet made it much harder to hide the hypocrisy and crimes.
I feel like they're missing an important point
Most organized religions blue the line between clergy and god so followers need to believe their religious leaders are pretty close to infallible, like God is claimed to be.
However with modern society, information is easy to get and everywhere. So people know about organized religion's issues, and without that structure and reinforcement, we see a slower but substantial reduction in general belief in God that will continue for generations as less people are indoctrinated into organized religion at a young age.
Not sure why the author acts like it's a mystery
- Most organized religions blue the line between clergy and god so followers need to believe their religious leaders are pretty close to infallible, like God is claimed to be.
  It's because the fundamental purpose of religion is control for the purpose of concentrating power.
  
  It’s because the fundamental purpose of religion is control for the purpose of concentrating power.
  Not at first, but the people in the organization who want that will rise to the top due to ruthlessness.
  Especially because the already established religions in the area will try to crush the new one, and that persecution makes that concentration of power a necessity to fight back. Which is a reason even dominant religions still claim they're being persecuted.
  It's not just a religious issue, it's just sociology in general. Humans evolved for groups of like 250 people, so all our gut instincts are shit when scaled up to millions of people. To compensate we fall back to labels and generalizations, and nuance goes out the window.
  Exploiting all that makes it easy to move up in any power structure, so on a long enough timeline the majority of people in charge are going to be willing to do anything to increase their organization's power, because that increases their personal power.
- Most organized religions blue the line between clergy and god so followers need to believe their religious leaders are pretty close to infallible, like God is claimed to be.
  Can you explain what you mean by this? It's probably obvious to Westerners, but I'm not sure how this works in practice.
Gen-Z is all about it though. Gen-Z is stupid and backwards… voting for Trump, going to church. What a bunch of losers.
- It's cool they'll learn there's no god when trump drafts their asses
To understand these trends more fully, the researchers analyzed interview data from 54 participants whose religious involvement had significantly declined over the decade.
These interviews revealed a recurring theme: many young people left institutional religion not because they stopped caring about spirituality, but because they felt a growing disconnect between their personal values and the teachings or practices of religious organizations. They spoke of churches that felt judgmental, hypocritical, or out of touch—particularly on issues of gender and sexuality. Participants described feeling alienated by institutions that seemed to limit, rather than support, their pursuit of authenticity, justice, and self-understanding.
I don’t consider myself spiritual but I meditate sometimes because it helps my mental health. Not sure how I’d be counted in this survey.
- Meditation and its benefits can exist absent any religious/spiritual beliefs.
  I would never answer in the affirmative a poll asking if I was religious or attended religious services based on my meditation habits.
- sounds like disorganized religion
  
  I also consider myself a Last Thursdayist so that tracks
Did i though? I thought i abandoned all religion a while ago. Nobody asked my opinion when they did this study.
- OK millennial
  
  Haha, I get it. Touche.
- It's an American study, not sure if you are or not. When the authors describe some of the study's shortcomings, its clear they are not suggesting these results to be generalisable over the whole world, or even the whole USA:
  “This study followed one cohort of people born in the late 1980s over time, providing fine-grained detail about their lives and relationship to religion,” Schnabel noted. “That zoomed in detail is great for some things, but ultimately it tells us about one cohort of people in one country rather than how religion is changing globally or even among other cohorts of people in the United States. We can infer some things and connect the patterns for this group to others, which could allow us to see potential explanations when we see similar patterns among other groups.”
  
  Yes, im from the U.S. I was mostly making a joke.
*Gen Y
You know what's funny tho
I probably would have a lot more tail if I was attending a church.

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