Smasharoo wrote:
I don't consider it abnormal for children to deviate from their parents
It's pretty abnormal. The normal case is for children to retain the religion they are raised in.
I was speaking about general deviation on all manner of things, not just religion. Like I said above, I think Allegory and I got our wires crossed during that part of the conversation. I assumed he was speaking in general, but he may not have been. To me, it's obvious that children rarely do exactly what their parents do, or even what their parents want them to do. Certainly, we don't live in a society like much of western history, were children almost always retained the same religion, professions, social activities (and social status) of their parents.
Quote:
Were this not the case, we'd see wild generational swings in belief or denomination, but nothing like that has taken place. There's no 'pendulum swing' in religious belief, just a steady decline in belief in organized religion in first world countries. That could change and become a steady increase in belief, I don't think it's some linear trend, but 'kids rebel against their parents beliefs' isn't something that applies here.
Yes. But I think that this is an increase in the overall rate at which children deviate (in any way) from their parents. So when we look just at religion, we're starting from a very high rate of active participation, so the overwhelming majority deviation is lower or no participation. My second point was that this deviation is just that: deviation. So among the population that is deviating with regard to religion (which is still a minority as you correctly pointed out), we can expect to see pendulum swings. Obviously, we're still also seeing a rate of deviation increase in the population as a whole, so the overall rate of active participation in religion is going to continue to decrease, but what I've observed is that a decent percentage of the teen children today raised by parents who as teens deviated from their parents with regard to religion 20-30 years ago, are now deviating from those parents and going out and joining church groups and otherwise participating in religious based activities despite their parents not doing so and not teaching them to do so (and even in some cases, actively disdaining the idea of participation in religion of any type).
It's a subset of a subset though. How much of a factor this plays out over time is pretty hard to say. I just see this as a natural result of socio-economic changes over time that make it possible for children to be significantly different than their parents. It's pretty natural for this to creep into more than just jobs and social circles, and affect religious choices as well. I don't necessarily buy into the conclusion that this means that our society is getting "less religious", so much as "more free to choose". I was kinda tweaking the atheist assumption that religion only survives if successive generations are indoctrinated into the faith, and that given a free choice, no one would choose religion. I know a number of teens who prove this to be wrong. I was countering the kind of cheering you see in atheist circles over data like this, as though they actually believe that the rate of religion in society will just continue to drop until it reaches zero and then finally we'll live in some kind of society based on reason rather than superstitious beliefs in men in the clouds.
I suspect it'll drop to some level and then stabilize there, with some percentage of each generation leaving and some percentage joining. Don't know where that number will be, but it certainly isn't going to be zero.
Edited, May 21st 2015 5:58pm by gbaji