College students leaving religion: It's not "the science", it's "science"

[Fallen Prophet]

A common explanation for why US college students have been leaving Christianity is to attribute it to them taking biology, genetics, geology, etc., being taught information that contradicts their beliefs, realizing that much of what they were taught in church isn't true, and abandoning Christianity as a result.

However, a recent study indicates that it's not specific courses of study that's responsible, rather it's studying secular science at all and subsequently learning how to question assumptions and engage in critical thinking.

Inquiry, Not Science, as the Source of Secularization in Higher Education | Sociology of Religion | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

The traditional claim in the literature on religion and science is that exposure to science leads to secularity because the claims about the natural world in the two systems are incompatible. More recently, research has narrowed this claim and shown that conflict over knowledge in the USA is primarily limited to one religion—conservative Protestantism—and only to a few fact claims. In this paper, I test this claim using longitudinal data from matched surveys taken in students’ first and fourth year of university. I find no evidence that the science is more secularizing than nonscience. I then turn to a distinction in university majors long used by sociologists of education—between majors focused on inquiry versus those focused on applying knowledge—and find that majors focused on inquiry are more likely to secularize than those focused on application. I interpret this to mean that learning to inquire secularizes.​

That makes sense to me and is consistent with my experiences. I've kind of always been a critical thinker who questions everything, and it's always been a major stumbling block between me and religious friends, family, and institutions (churches). They've always struck me as a bit put off at my asking tough questions and not taking things merely on faith.

It's also nice to see that people who are raised in religious environments where critical thinking is discouraged can not only learn to engage in it, but can also enhance the skill.

I guess there's hope for everyone!

(h/t: friendly atheist)

I grew up very religious and I have never seen an example of critical thinking being discouraged.

It is my opinion that it is not science that is driving college students from religion - but the efforts of their professors to turn them into liberal nut jobs.

 

[Trailblazer]

What about religions without such messengers? This is most Pagan faiths.

Baha'is believe that all the true religions of God were founded by a Messenger of God or Prophet that received a revelation from the one true God, as Moses did on Mount Sinai.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Spiritual experiences are not proof of God because God does not communicate directly with anyone except His Messengers.
The only real proof that God exists are the Messengers of God and the religions that are established thereby.
That is the proof that God wants us to look at because God sent the Messengers to be His Representatives on earth.

That's what you believe, but not many others believe.
And it's a problem with organized religion. Outright rejection of everything that contradicts it. I never even actually claimed it was evidence of god. Just something that certainly felt real, yet I am forced to admit I just don't know what it was. It's asking why can't there be something more conclusive? People lie. The universe doesn't. If there are gods, they are found in the Cosmos. Not in books written by someone who claims to be speaking for god. That, in my opinion, is human arrogance. It demands we are somehow important in the universe, but it doesn't explain how this is so now that we know we are but tiny germs living of a speck of moss covered iron hurtling through a space that we don't know if it is truly infinite or has defined dimensions. We want to say there is nothing outside the universe, but we used to insist there was nothing outside the solar system. Then nothing outside the galaxy. We thought atoms were the smallest, know the smallest we see is a cloud of energy.
Where have the messengers of any god ever discussed such things? These a realizations causing paradigm shifts in how we think of ourselves in the universe.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes, and if the question is whether or not some kind of sentient entity created the universe, one may not be able to find any evidence of such on Earth - or even inside the construct we call "the universe."

I believe that anything is possible, but I also know the universe is a pretty big place - and the Earth is just nothing but a speck within that vast place. Humans are even smaller. Our sun is just one of billions of stars in a galaxy which is one of billions of galaxies (or maybe trillions).

I honestly don't know how or why any of this came into being. I don't know if any sentient entity created all this, or if it just happened. The only thing I can really do is differentiate between that which I know to be true within objective physical reality - versus the realm of speculation and guessing, or reading the guesses of others about who or what created the universe.

And I like speculating. Speculation can be rather interesting at times. That's probably why I enjoy Star Trek and other sci-fi shows and movies.

I sure like your curious and open-minded attitude.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I grew up very religious and I have never seen an example of critical thinking being discouraged.

It is my opinion that it is not science that is driving college students from religion - but the efforts of their professors to turn them into liberal nut jobs.

While being church-schooled, I was taught Alexander the Great was preparing the world for the birth of Christ. The church library discarded literature of conflicting viewpoints and different denominations. Evolution was dismissed as a tool of Satan. I was taught that women have an extra set of ribs that men don't have and all the world's languages literally came from one place and one moment.
And your second claim lacks supporting evidence, making it dismissable, especially as it contains emotionally charged and highly subjective language. More akin to tabloid journalism.

 

[Trailblazer]

That's what you believe, but not many others believe.
And it's a problem with organized religion. Outright rejection of everything that contradicts it.

Yes, I am well aware that other people do not believe what I do, but the way I look at it a religion is either true or false, so anything that contradicts that religion (or religions) is false.

Where have the messengers of any god ever discussed such things? These a realizations causing paradigm shifts in how we think of ourselves in the universe.

Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha addressed such things in their Writings. For example: Tablet of the Universe

 

[Rival]

Baha'is believe that all the true religions of God were founded by a Messenger of God or Prophet that received a revelation from the one true God, as Moses did on Mount Sinai.

You said this though,

'The only real proof that God exists are the Messengers of God and the religions that are established thereby.'

My question is that there are plenty of Pagans who believe in God and have no messengers - what would you say accounts for that belief?

 

[Heyo]

As a Brit and more broadly as a European it is seven levels of baffling to me.

What is even more baffling is that the US used to be scientifically literate or at least science and progress minded. YEC is a relatively new phenomenon.

 

[Trailblazer]

You said this though,

'The only real proof that God exists are the Messengers of God and the religions that are established thereby.'

My question is that there are plenty of Pagans who believe in God and have no messengers - what would you say accounts for that belief?

I would say that there are non-religious people who believe in God for reasons other than the Messengers of God.
Apparently, they have come to realize that God exists without the need to believe in Messengers or the religions established thereby.

 

[Rival]

I would say that there are non-religious people who believe in God for reasons other than the Messengers of God.
Apparently, they have come to realize that God exists without the need to believe in Messengers or the religions established thereby.

How are Pagans non-religious??

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Yes, I am well aware that other people do not believe what I do, but the way I look at it a religion is either true or false, so anything that contradicts that religion (or religions) is false.

And where does that leave people like me?
Open, but needing better evidence. Something beyond my own senses that aren't always right, and more than humans who aren't always correct or accurate, sometimes intentionally so.
It's sort of like people say the evidence is there for those who seek it. Well? Well, I may have found something, but where's the evidence that allows me to know?

Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha addressed such things in their Writings. For example: Tablet of the Universe

They didn't. These are things we're just learning. When I was a child I was so stressed I was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer. Today we know it's caused by bacteria. We thought we saw all of the cell when I was in high school, but when I went back to college I learned of mRNA.
There is so much we have recently discovered with the aid of technology that it directly defies many long established religious traditions. We can't even be assertive when we claim we're special among animals, because we've recently learned other animals can think, reason, read, solve problems, have feelings and emotions, can emphasize with each other, and that some are very highly intelligent, some even having their own cultures and subcultures.
Traditional religions amd the worldviews they give are being eviscerated. And newer ones have been concocting nonsense like the so-called "law of attraction."
In many ways, religion is killing itself off.

 

[PureX]

Using the opinions of college students as some sort of avenue to truth is probably not the wisest idea. College is where young people are invited to doubt and question and seek new possibilities.

 

[Heyo]

How does it do that?

By enabling people to put two and two together. Spiritual "truth" often contradicts itself, the spiritual "truth" of other denominations or reality. Doublethink is the ability to hold all those "truths" in one brain without feeling cognitive dissonance because one doesn't make a connection between them. Critical thinking is making the connection and realizing the contradictions.

 

[Colt]

That does not appear to be the case. At least not here. It just does not happen.

It doesn't happen for you but it does happen for billions of other human beings who are open minded.

 

[Colt]

And you know it when you have it.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

As I say to atheists who want proof, God could have made everyone into believers, but God wants people to have faith. God also wants everyone to seek and find Him by virtue of their own innate powers for the reasons stated below. Those who find Him will be rewarded.

“If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people.” His purpose, however, is to enable the pure in spirit and the detached in heart to ascend, by virtue of their own innate powers, unto the shores of the Most Great Ocean, that thereby they who seek the Beauty of the All-Glorious may be distinguished and separated from the wayward and perverse. Thus hath it been ordained by the all-glorious and resplendent Pen… ” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 71

Atheist activists aren't really "neutral" or strictly scientific like they portray, they have a Godless philosophy of life and the universe. When you share your experience with God all that they can do is tell you that you aren't having such an experience, but when you ask them "how do you know that I do not know" they are left with blind assertions.

"A mechanistic philosophy of life and the universe cannot be scientific because science recognizes and deals only with materials and facts. Philosophy is inevitably superscientific. Man is a material fact of nature, but his life is a phenomenon which transcends the material levels of nature in that it exhibits the control attributes of mind and the creative qualities of spirit." UB 1955

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It seems we are talking about a certain kind of religiosity usually found in the US. This is clearly a topic all its own.

It also seems that we're talking about a convenience sample of university undergrads, which has its own issues.

 

[Fallen Prophet]

While being church-schooled

What is "church-schooled"? Does that mean you went to a religious school or Sunday school at church?

I was taught Alexander the Great was preparing the world for the birth of Christ.

I'm sure that's not all you learned about Alexander the Great - was it?

As long as you learned all the facts about him - why can't someone share their opinion about him as well?

The church library discarded literature of conflicting viewpoints and different denominations.

Are you saying that every library at every school needs to house books on every subject?

Cause that might not jive with all the liberals at schools who ban religious texts and books written by conservative authors - and even Dr. Suess! - from secular schools.

Evolution was dismissed as a tool of Satan.

If you claim that a school not teaching evolution is "discouraging critical thinking" - then can't I say the same about all schools that don't teach Creationism?

Until they start teaching Creationism as an alternative explanation for Man's existence in secular schools - I see nothing wrong with religious schools doing this.

I was taught that women have an extra set of ribs that men don't have and all the world's languages literally came from one place and one moment.

I was taught that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree. That an apple fell on Newton's head. That Columbus first discovered America.

I was also taught that the African slave trade was began by Europeans raiding African villages - not that the Persians first brought African slaves to Europe after purchasing them from African warlords.

I didn't go to a religious school. Teachers often inject their own biases and false information.

And your second claim lacks supporting evidence, making it dismissable, especially as it contains emotionally charged and highly subjective language. More akin to tabloid journalism.

That same could be said about everything you just said. Kinda throwing rocks from your glass house.

I've seen enough "demonstrations" and "protests" instigated by college professors to be fairly certain where the drive to liberalism comes from.

 

[Stevicus]

I sure like your curious and open-minded attitude.

I try. My main beef with religion is that it's all too often presented with certainty, as if they believe they have all the answers.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It doesn't happen for you but it does happen for billions of other human beings who are open minded.

It does not appear to have happened to anyone. Mere claims are not worth much. And hand waving is the enemy of theists in this matter. When they do they harm their own claims. How do you prove your claims?

 

[Colt]

It does not appear to have happened to anyone. Mere claims are not worth much. And hand waving is the enemy of theists in this matter. When they do they harm their own claims. How do you prove your claims?

Subjective experiences can be lived but not proven. Your claims that billions of religious people aren't having spiritual experience is just that, an unprovable claim.