[News] The future of faith: young people switched off?

[Bob'n'weave]

Christianity is somewhat different to Islam and Judaism in that it does not dictate 'rules' like the other two. This was to enable the Roman Empire to assimilate the pagan masses who were somewhat hedonistic in their beliefs, to a single religion that allowed them to party but still worship a religion that was endorsed by the state. The Roman Empire never really went away, and carries on through The Roman Catholic church. As for the question of 'faith', I think that most people who consider themselves ethically and morally sound would say their way of life mirrors the teachings of christianity, do unto others, 10 commandments etc. If you do not follow the rules of judaism or Islam, then you would not be considered to be 'faithful' but with christianity you can just live your life and so long as your thoughts/actions are good, you can call yourself a christian.

 

[jaghebby]

I like the quote attributed to Victor Hugo "“There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.” enough said if you ask me!

 

[Papa Lazarou]

The point about prayer is a good one. I've stayed with an extended Muslim family a couple if times in Indonesia and the discipline of everyone stopping what they were doing five times a day to pray seemed incredibly powerful to me, particularly as a cohesive force among the group, imbuing Islam as part of life. I've also been lucky enough to visit after school Koran classes at my local mosque in the U.K. where up to 100 kids from five upwards were learning and reciting the words of the holy book in Arabic. These examples show an inculcation of the religious principles which would be much more unusual among Christian groups, at least in this country I imagine.

Indoctrination from a young age.

 

[Seagull]

How many of those people are ethnic minorities of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent, out of interest? Not trying to prove a point, just curious to see in your experience how many people from Muslim countries do not identify as Muslims, compared to White British who identify as Agnostic.

Good question. I would say the majority of callers are white British. Of those with names that indicate South Asian or Middle Eastern heritage, a greater percentage would give Hindu, Muslim, Sikh say in answer to the question, but a majority would still say no religion I estimate. The only group that will be more likely to profess faith than not, are people of sub-Saharan African and West Indian heritage (generally Christian, sometimes Muslim). Quite a lot of people from this group in the NHS for example.

In mitigation I can see that the population of callers might necessarily include fewer people of faith, who might prefer to go to their faith community for answers first rather than call a helpline.

 

[Albion my Albion]

I know this will surprise you but I believe that this is in general a bad trend for Europe. I don't think that believing in something is always a bad thing. It doesn't necessarily have to be in Christ but those who do believe in a superior being and believe in a serious way make for a much better society in general than those that practice religion out of some obligation that they feel to their relatives (parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, etc.) on a few occasions per year because those are "high holy" days of that religion. That is a group that really scares me because they can't even be arsed to treat any religion with respect. Be that religion muslim, hindu, christianity, jewish or whatever. Half-hearted religious practice is much more troubling than no religious practice.

 

[beorhthelm]

So you can pick and choose which bits of the story to believe? Do some CHRISTians not believe in Christ?

yes, and therein lies the problem with religion, taking only the parts convenient while upholding the whole to be the truth.

 

[Seagull]

Indoctrination from a young age.

While I believe in freedom of thought, speech & cultural expression, I do feel that teaching religious faith ideas as fact to pre-adolescents is an abuse of power. (I don't have enough knowledge to say that is what is happening in my local mosque, but it certainly has an appearance of that). The move in some schools to teaching more on ethics and philosophy than religious creeds is a good thing in my opinion.

 

[Albion my Albion]

yes, and therein lies the problem with religion, taking only the parts convenient while upholding the whole to be the truth.

Half-hearted religious practice is much more troubling than no religious practice.

This is exactly what I am saying. Embrace all of your religion whole-heartedly or don't practice it at all.

 

[albionfan37]

I'm 46 so not really in the young category but I feel sad that the church has lost its way so much.

I believe in good v bad and if the Christian religion embraced that concept more in their church then I could be persuaded. I went to Sunday school as a kid and I think it did do some good. Did help teach me what was right and what was wrong, but the church as it is now is still so outdated.

I went to a christmas service recently (well at Christmas obviously) and it really wasn't inspiring in any way.

It seems to me that Christianity needs to embrace the moe believable elements of the bible and ditch the rest. The existence of a god is hard for many to understand, and therefore I think they should give this one the heave ho and focus more on the good v bad element. Jesus can still be embraced without the need for so many old fashioned references and actions relating to God.

The sad thing is that whilst Christianity is in decline the muslim faith is growing stronger and stronger. We really need a strong Church of England to combat the rise of Islam.

Can we not just do away with them both? Religion has spread more hate and killed more than anything else long overdue to be disbanded and spoken of as a good idea at the time but completely irrelevant now

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

We need more humanism and less religion, in my opinion. (Although the arms industry may not agree with me)

Just imagine if you used all the funds, property and resources held by religious organisations and added that to the funds saved from fighting religious wars, we'd be able to waste it all on health, education & housing!

 

[Papa Lazarou]

While I believe in freedom of thought, speech & cultural expression, I do feel that teaching religious faith ideas as fact to pre-adolescents is an abuse of power. (I don't have enough knowledge to say that is what is happening in my local mosque, but it certainly has an appearance of that). The move in some schools to teaching more on ethics and philosophy than religious creeds is a good thing in my opinion.

It's an amazing coincidence that the children of most Christian / Muslim / Hindu etc parents grow up to believe in the same specific God as their parents... lucky eh? Particularly lucky as their God is clearly the only real God and all the others are made up nonsense.

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

It's an amazing coincidence that the children of most Christian / Muslim / Hindu etc parents grow up to believe in the same specific God as their parents... lucky eh? Particularly lucky as their God is clearly the only real God and all the others are made up nonsense.

Don't worry though, as you can go to war about it repeatedly over many centuries to prove which good is more define FFS!

 

[beorhthelm]

This is exactly what I am saying. Embrace all of your religion whole-heartedly or don't practice it at all.

quite. so the non-creationists and other hard line believers are all contemptible and we should deride their beliefs. and the creationists are contemptible because they hold believes that are demonstrably false.

 

[Bob'n'weave]

Islam, Judaism and Christianity all worship the same god, they just call it different things. I went to Jerusalem recently and saw for myself how the three main religions are literally on top of each other, claiming rights to the places in the city that are sacred to each of them. The Holy Mount and Wailing Wall are good examples. Walking in the ancient city along the route of the stations of the cross you will be confronted by Islamic narratives about how Jesus claimed Allah was the only true god. He did, but he called Allah "Father", God or Our Lord. Its all the same god, it's only man that drives the division between these religions, not God, not the Bible and certainly not most people, of all religions who respect others for their beliefs and just want peace on earth.

 

[worthingseagull]

Hang on, I thought Islam was taking over!?

give it time, as Big Shaq says, 'quick Maths'

average 1.7 white kids per family vs average 3.1 muslim kids per family (and growing)

and here's a graph about it - just follow the lines
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150402130756-chart-projected-religion-growth-exlarge-169.jpg

 

[Kazenga <3]

Religion as a concept is absurd to me but I do wonder if without it would we lose a lot of good.

Charity for example- would people continue to contribute out of the good of their heart and not because it’s the ‘Christian thing to do’?

Cynical way of looking at it perhaps but no doubt religion inspires/guilt trips/scares people into being better versions of themselves.

 

[beorhthelm]

Charity for example- would people continue to contribute out of the good of their heart and not because it’s the ‘Christian thing to do’?

yes they do.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

It's a lazy fallacy that religion is the only source of morality, compassion and empathy in the world... we are all imbued with these (or not) naturally. Non-believers are as generous and caring as those with faith.

 

[Beach Hut]

Bought up as a Christian in a very religious family, mind you I believed we would beat Man Utd last Saturday.........

 

[jonnyrovers]

It's all a load of old bollocks really.
Basically a bloke hid in a cave for a bit as an April fools joke and it got totally out of hand.

Every easter I tell my missus I'm celebrating by doing what jesus did. F**k off Friday, come back Sunday.