More Young People Now Claiming No Religious Affiliation

(Citation: Twenge JM, Exline JJ, Grubbs JB, Sastry R, Campbell WK (2015) Generational and Time Period Differences in American Adolescents’ Religious Orientation, 1966–2014. PLoS ONE)

A new study was released in May of 2015. It surveyed 338,912 8th graders, 306,148 10th graders, 531,192 12th graders, and 9,959,250 college students (and because of these huge numbers of respondents, the margin of error is a tiny one). The study was about the religious affiliation of young Americans, and the complete study can be accessed at PLOS ONE.

I bring you here only what has happened to the religious affiliation of the young in this 21st Century -- since 2000. Note that the number of "nones" (those with no religious affiliation at all) has increased in every age group surveyed -- 4 points for 8th graders, 6 points for 10th graders, 8 points for 12th graders, and 13 points for college students.

Part of this is because more students now days have parents who are not religious, and part is because many young people just can't accept the hate being taught by many churches. But regardless of the reason, it is an undeniable fact that more and more of the young are abandoning religion. This has been happening since the 60's and 70's, and there is no reason to believe this trend won't continue.

It will be interesting to see what the numbers are after another 10-15 years.