Fewer Americans Pray Or Believe In God, Study Finds[color=purple][/color]

TOPICS:AtheismBelief In GodBest Conservative News SourceDeclaration Of IndependenceEric RetzlaffFewer Americans Pray Or Believe In GodOrganized ReligionPrayerSpiritualityUniversal Free Press
POSTED BY: CINCINNATUS
With world becoming more dangerous and out of control by the day and in so many ways, you’d think more Americans would pray and believe in God.

The opposite is apparently true. Fewer Americans pray than at any time in the nation’s history and more Americans are atheists, according to a recent study by San Diego State University in the journal Sage Open. And Americans ages 18 to 29 lead the pack in being secular and irreligious.

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Study finds fewer Americans pray or believe in God. (arprice.com)
The percentage of Americans who prayed or believed in God reached an all-time low in 2014, according to new research led by San Diego State University psychology professor Jean M. Twenge.

A research team that included Ryne Sherman from Florida Atlantic University and Julie J. Exline and Joshua B. Grubbs from Case Western Reserve University analyzed data from 58,893 respondents to the General Social Survey, a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults administered between 1972 and 2014. Five times as many Americans in 2014 reported that they never prayed as did Americans in the early 1980s, and nearly twice as many said they did not believe in God.

Americans in recent years were less likely to engage in a wide variety of religious practices, including attending religious services, describing oneself as a religious person, and believing that the Bible is divinely inspired, with the biggest declines seen among 18- to 29-year-old respondents.

“Most previous studies concluded that fewer Americans were publicly affiliating with a religion, but that Americans were just as religious in private ways. That’s no longer the case, especially in the last few years,” said Twenge, who is also the author of the book, “Generation Me.” “The large declines in religious practice among young adults are also further evidence that Millennials are the least religious generation in memory, and possibly in American history.”

Previous studies have shown that fewer people affiliate with an organized religion—this may include the “spiritual but not religious” group.  But it was thought that even non-affiliated people were still privately religious.

This decline in religious practice has not been accompanied by a rise in spirituality, which, according to Twenge, suggests that, rather than spirituality replacing religion, Americans are becoming more secular. The one exception to the decline in religious beliefs was a slight increase in belief in the afterlife.

“It was interesting that fewer people participated in religion or prayed but more believed in an afterlife,” Twenge said. “It might be part of a growing entitlement mentality — thinking you can get something for nothing.”



ORGANIZED RELIGION IS ORGANIZED  FOR A REASON

What may be overlooked in this study is the effect of organized religion on personal faith. Belonging to a group of believers often makes it easier for individuals to practice their faith and have that faith reinforced. The group also may be a source of comfort and support for the individual, who otherwise might be adrift and more susceptible to the influences of secular society. Group prayer and spirituality reinforces personal prayer and spirituality and vice versa.

So it’s not odd that organized religion is organized with rituals and ceremonies and feast days and that worship of God is seen as a communal as well as an individual obligation. It is also why the Third Commandment says to pull away from the toils and cares of everyday life to “keep holy the Lord’s day,” to remember the Creator and your relationship to him.



IDEAS AND BELIEFS  HAVE CONSEQUENCES

Ideas and beliefs have consequences for the individual and society because they are the bases by which decisions are made and policies and laws adopted. Without God, the Declaration of Independence’s understanding of the foundation of society, individual rights and laws are no longer based on “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” but who exerts the most power.

Therefore, President Calvin Coolidge’s words would seem meaningless in a secularized society: “Men do not make laws. They do discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness.”

http://universalfreepress.com/2016/fewer-americans-pray-or-believe-in-god-study-finds/