Why Are the Unaffiliated Becoming Religious Later in Life?

What we need is a set of celebrations that commemorate real-life things that we can all appreciate. Christians celebrate the resurrection of their saviour in the Spring time, which happens to be a great time to celebrate the birth of new life anyway, what with Spring lambs and the giving of chocolate eggs. The changing of the seasons and the resulting changes in our food and our lifestyle is something we can all relate to. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Easter falls in the Spring, though it may be difficult to argue considering it really coincides with Passover. Anyone know anything about that?

I think even the most change-hungry Liberal appreciates doing many of the same things every Christmas time. There’s a lot to be gained from tradition and ritual. We as humans have an affinity for the familiar in many ways, so yes, we need to find some way of keeping that. I’m not sure a weekly gathering is exactly called for, and it would be difficult to organise something like that without a religious motivation. I saw a documentary on the BBC involving something called a Burning Man gathering in the desert of (I think) Nevada. It’s a sort of pseudo-religious ritualistic gathering – one of the ‘events’ involves writing messages to deceased or lost loved-ones on a wooden structure and then burning it. I though it was a fantastic way to say goodbye in a spiritual but non-supernatural sense.

I think people become religious later in life because they hear the tick-tock of existential angst getting louder and louder as they get older.

Can a non-religious movement solve that problem? I doubt it.

I think people become religious later in life because they hear the tick-tock of existential angst getting louder and louder as they get older.

This doesn’t account for the group Charles is really talking about: people who join churches in their 20s and 30s. The pre-ticking years.

Actually it quite disturbed me in the parenting beyond belief book that unless USA atheists are generally very different from English atheists or Canadian atheists or the atheists from the USA that I’ve met, it was written for atheist parents very, very different from that which I’ve known, and that have very different needs and desires.

It sounds like you and I are quite similar. These things don’t appeal much to me either. When people wax poetic about the need for community, or the need for Something Greater Than Myself, my eyes glaze over. But the problem with our movement to date has been our stubborn refusal to see that this makes us different from most people, and that we better damn well wake up to that fact if we are to grow as a movement.

I think its simply fear of dying and looking for a “get out of death free” card.

A more mature mind-set knows that death is eventually necessary to “clear the stage” for others to exist.

All of the “wanting to belong, etc” would only be a motivation earlier in life.

My wife and I have belonged to a Humanist “Sunday School” (for lack of a better term). It was focused on gently introducing kids to the ideas of myth and religion, from an even and rational viewpoint, and science’s wonder. It also gave the parents a chance to chat and talk about raising kids in a predominantly religious society. The main reason we haven’t been going is that we live further out from the meeting place than anybody else.

This sort of thing does not have to be as rigid and structured as a regular church, certainly nothing approaching the usual church time commitment, but it still provides a sense of community.

I don’t agree at all. First, are these “unaffiliated” already religious, or are they real atheists or agnostics who don’t know they can be atheists or agnostics without being demonized?

I think this is a good point to bring up as the survey doesn’t really seem to specify what they mean by “unaffiliated.” Do they simply mean people who already believe in Jesus and the inerrancy of the bible but didn’t really think about it much or go to church any until they had a mid life crisis or is it people who actually don’t believe in any gods? Also, does the survey show which churches and religions are the unafilliated joining? Is it the liberal churches like the Unitarians or more fundamentalist churches? I don’t think we can say what needs to be done until we know more about who’s actually joining the churches and which ones because that would give us more of an idea as to why. The article seems to be jumping to conclusions that the people joining must be the hardcore materialist Dawkins-types and blames atheism’s inability to be something it’s not as being responsible for what other people do yet doesn’t offer any evidence for how they came to these conclusions. I also second the suggestion that we need more Unitarian churches.

I think this explains it all:

The main reason the non-religious said they later became religious was that “spiritual needs were not being met.”

The people referenced above are not atheists or agnostics but are people that would define themselves as “spiritual but not religious” (see Greta Christina’s blog about this nonsense).

I believe people like this are not raised strictly religious, as in not going to church every week, celebrating dead and risen Jesus on Easter, blah blah blah, but more likely taught that Jesus was a real person (who was possibly divine), there is a creator God and there is an afterlife. Taken this way it makes perfect sense for people to “become religious” later in life because becoming religious to them means doing the exact same thing they have already been doing but now adding in a little church.

Atheism, as it stands by itself, brings no added value to people.

Proper reasoning brings value.(And may lead towards atheism) Inclusionary attitudes bring value, Tolerance brings value (and may lead away from religion).

Right now many people believe that faith brings value. Salvation, and fellowship with believers and the sense of connection with a greater being, etc. are all added “extras” they believe that the “religious product” brings. And certainly if people are innately social beings then church fellowship fulfills that particular need quite easily.

Atheism needs soaring art and architecture and literature and song and humor, products that attract people. And especially it needs good, happy, secure, tolerant, well reasoning people with outstretched hands to welcome other people.

I raise my glass to all of you good people. Cheers!

But the problem with our movement to date has been our stubborn refusal to see that this makes us different from most people, and that we better damn well wake up to that fact if we are to grow as a movement.

Thank you!

Every single time we have a discussion about this, someone says “well, I don’t feel this way, so this is rubbish”, and then five or six other people chime in and say “I agree, I’ve never felt this, so this must be superfluous”, and it never occurs to some people that maybe that makes you different and not everybody is exactly like you??

It’s frustrating sometimes. It reminds of a conversation I had with Dan Barker. He told me that sometimes, if he tries hard enough, he still can recall a “spiritual” sensation, and he believes that there is something like a bell curve of individuals who feel these sensations strongly or not at all, and various points in between.

What I suspect is that many of the people here are at one end of the bell curve, and do not understand why other people would have a need that they don’t have. If Barker is right, then we need to seriously acknowledge this and stop telling ourselves, “well, I find no value in this, so this must be rubbish”.

Why can’t you get the community, affirmation, and companionship through volunteering or joining some hobby or sports team.

In the long run, Shane, I agree. But in the shorter term: A lot of hobby or volunteer or political groups that aren’t specifically oriented towards non-believers may not be so welcoming towards us. We need places we can go where we can be out about who we are without fear of shunning or reprisal.. or even just without fear of making a scene and getting into an argument.

One of the big benefits of atheism is you don’t have to get out of bed early sunday morning, you don’t have to get involved in the petty politics of a local community. You don’t need to do silly rituals.

“Have to” being the operative words, PrimeNumbers.

Many people want that stuff, or stuff like it. Many people want and enjoy ritual: it seems to be a pretty basic human need. You may not need it, but lots of people do. Very few people want petty politics… but a lot of people do want to be involved with their community in a direct, non- virtual, in- person way. And some people don’t hate getting out of bed early on Sunday morning. (Besides, since we’re atheists, we can have our gatherings whenever and wherever we want. We can have them on Saturday night at a bar or an orgy if we want.) If we’re going to continue to thrive, we need to provide the genuinely valuable things that people get from their religious communities.

Have we got a few working definitions of spirituality or are people all talking about different things? It’s not good enough to say what it’s not, and it’s not good enough to pull out psychological explanations for these desires. There’s a lot of talking about nothing, as the religious do. Lets actually get some working definitions.

I’m not convinced “spirituality” is a need, as I am not convinced that superstitions or faith are needed. Lots of people say its needed, but then lots of people say a lot of things to protect religion, they say its needed for morality too. Oh, perhaps us atheists don’t need to believe in a divine punisher for morality, but theists would rape and pillage without their beliefs. Swap out morality for comfort, hope, or enjoyment.

Further, wants are not needs, benefits are not necessities. Would people benefit in a particular activity associated with religion? Yes, therefore its only sensible for us to see if there’s a secular alternative. A good example would be meditation. There are plenty of activities most people don’t do, or don’t do enough, that would be beneficial.

Also, community, art, and ritual might be associated with religion, but clearly they’re not inherently religious, and there are already secular alternatives where there are secular people. If you call them “spiritual” you might as well give up on a useful definition.

Maybe if I lived in the Bible Belt I’d have a different opinion and feel more of a need for an atheist community?

There is a certain subset of atheists that feels a prime directive to push for atheist identity, just like certain hispanic groups feel a need to press recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. These groups have their own agenda, but we don’t have to play along just because they want us to.

The rest of us are happy to live our lives as normal human beings without pretending to be special because of accidents of birth or belief. Just because you don’t buy into the whole God thing doesn’t mean that you have to create an atheist little league.

Instead, you could just do what a normal human being does: send your kids to a regular little league without ghettoizing yourself in the way that orthodox Jews do. I’ll take assimilation with everyone around me over unnecessarily creating enemies anyday. When it comes to religion, you just do the same that you’d do with politics, sports teams, or any other controversial topic: don’t talk about it. Talking about something else really is no big deal.

G’day
As suggested by others, I don’t think we can read too much into the conclusions of this survey when we don’t know how they classified “unaffiliated”. There is a history of surveys on religion drawing pro-religious conclusions from ambiguous categorisation of the non-affiliated.

It may be instructive to look at Europe (especially Scandinavia), where secularism has a much longer history, to see how non-religious societies fair without the spiritual or community opportunities that religion currently provides in the US. Though currently in the US there may be specific issues related to a transitional phase in the movement towards a secular society that are not at play in such countries. I’m in Australia, a much more secular country than the US, and I don’t see these issues as being particularly significant for non-religious Australians – I could be wrong about that though.
Cheers

Brooks, that video was funny.

What I would like to see is a group that’s a reminder of and spur towards humanist ideals. UU churches don’t fit very well for me — they’re too accepting of “all paths lead to the same place” woo. However, that kick in the butt or nudge in the right direction on a regular basis can be useful.

I’ve given up on every straight-out “humanist” or “atheist” group I’ve encountered other than online gathering spots for atheists who have something else in common. Why? SOOOOOO much time is devoted to what we’re not rather than to what we are. I hear a lot of bitterness. I understand that people have been wounded by religion, but frankly I have kids and wouldn’t want them around some of the stuff I’ve heard in such groups.

I suspect that if there were an Ethical Culture group around here, I would be involved in it. There isn’t one around here, though. The American Atheists vein is strong where I live, and I’m not comfortable with it.

I’m not going to abandon my atheist ways because of the shortcomings of the group, but I do understand to a certain extent.

Hemant, first time reader here who digs your take on the Pew survey results. I have read analysis on other sites from a Christian perspective, which focused on the outflows of people from religious affiliations into having no religious affiliations, so it is cool to read a breakdown from the atheist perspective where you are flipping that around.

Your conclusion that atheists are “hurting ourselves if we shun all the positive things churches provide just because we find their beliefs so irrational” is right on, in my opinion. As someone about to finish college, I’ve often thought about the opportunities for working for religious institutions and how those opportunities are not exactly available in the secular world. Sure, there are spiritual counselors and charity or social workers, but the job of a pastor, for example, is so clear cut and well-defined: teach from scripture, relate your spiritual counseling to the outside world, help the needy, and so on. In thinking about this, I’ve wished for a “church” that offers a position like that, only without the scripture behind it. Does Unitarianism provide the answer?

The concluding sentence of your post is key: I’m not sure if they Pew results back this up, but surely there is a large group of people who become regular attendees of a religious institution because they feel they need to raise their kids in “that kind of environment,” one that provides the teaching of morals from some power that is not the childrens’ parents as well as a sense of community. So I agree: there exist options other than buying into attending church, which should be the most serious of commitments, to raising your kids. Don’t say you’re religious when you’re only at church for familial, perhaps non-spiritual reasons.