Comments on: Generation Y Turning Away from Religion

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 10:44:05 +0000

That’s a good point, except the chances of me being home are quite slim… I’m out nearly every night, and at school for most of the day….

By: Matt Glover

Matt Glover — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 10:24:35 +0000

I know where you live…

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 06:34:31 +0000

Matt, I have to say it…. “old”, and I’ll accept the consequences… but you have to catch me first…

By: Matt Glover

Matt Glover — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 05:46:43 +0000

I can’t remember what happened yesterday. What does that make me…?

Anyone that says ‘old’ will get a wedgie.

Seriously though, I wonder whether the generation thing is really a question of mood rather than age, time or event. The way we define a generation seems to be through their moods anyway - attitudes, likes, dislikes, habits and so on.

If the mood for our time is one that says there is no God, then I think you will find people of all ages subscribing to that view point. Others will hang onto a mood from the past because it makes them feel good - not becasue they are part of that generation.

But what shapes our moods? Is it the corporation, their marketing ‘priests’ or events that we have no control over?

Any thoughts?

By: Alison

Alison — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 02:07:33 +0000

there is the year approach and the event approach.

If you were too young to remember (long term memory starts at age 5) an event, then you don’t get into the generation. Like the baby boomers come after the end of WWII, gen Y don’t remember the challenger disaster (or Chernobyl) and it ends with remembering the trade center stuff.

But then again, it’s all subjective. Where does gen X end and gen Y begin? it’s hard to say.

either way, young people are “rebelling” against religion, which just means that we have more of a chance to witness…

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 11:33:43 +0000

Yes Alison, tail end… to quote the article

“Generation Y, defined as those born between 1976 and 1990″

Yeah, but I dunno, their resource may not have been as reliable as wikipedia.. they’re normally pretty good!

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:58:30 +0000

it’s not new- something about gen X’s that I found while looking up gen Y’s-
”
The study revealed teenagers who “sleep together before they are married, don’t believe in God, dislike the Queen and don’t respect parents”
”

anyway. We’ve got to love ‘em regardless…

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:50:09 +0000

tail end of y, dave? I’d say right in the middle. Of course, it is a term that changes as people want it to- but according to wikipedia, it’s 1978 to 1999 in the most broad sense- the last generation to be born in the 20th Century. I guess 20 years defines a generation.

this article seems to define it as those 13-24 right now.

Anyway- I think that we can say, like Robert Forsyth, Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, says- “It is sad, but in my view it is entirely what we expected to happen.”

But I think that similar trends have been going on for ages- look at the 50’s etc- people went to church out of habit- but did they mean it? They would have been counted as “religious”. Today, people have let their feet do the walking.

Another interesting observation is- what has happened to the two day weekend? with people working 6 days, Sunday is the only free day- and they don’t want to use up half of it going to church.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 09:46:02 +0000

Maybe I’ve just been a little too pessimistic but I was actually in some ways a little encouraged to see that only 20% of people are closed to the idea that there is a God. That does seem to me to be much less than I’d have thought.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 05:42:42 +0000

It’s quite sad that people are turning away from God, but I must admit, those results in the article didn’t surprise me too much… I’m at the tail end of Gen Y, being ‘89, but I see that kind of thing at school, there’s very few church-goers around… But, it does mean we have an increasing mission field all around us.