Close to half of all Baby Boomers have dumped their affiliations with organized religion.

Here’s the research I stumbled on this morning revealing this interesting baby boomer trend:

Study: Generation X more loyal to religion

Baby Boomers are 40 to 50 percent more likely to ‘disaffiliate’ from their faith

Generation X, the set of Americans who came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is often branded as a rules-rejecting, authority-questioning group.

But when it comes to religion, new research has revealed that Gen-Xers are surprisingly loyal to their faith – a finding that also suggests the rising non-religious tide in the United States may be leveling off.

In a study published in the latest edition of The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist Philip Schwadel showed that Gen-Xers are, in comparison with their Baby Boomer predecessors, far more likely to adhere to their religion. In fact, Boomers are 40 to 50 percent more likely than Gen-Xers to “disaffiliate” from their faith.

As Generation X continues to grow older, this loyalty may translate into a more stable nation in terms of its religiosity, he said.

Schwadel examined General Social Survey responses from more than 37,000 Americans from 1973 to 2006. Using age, period and cohort models, the research zoomed in on two aspects of U.S. religious behavior through the decades:

• Non-affiliation, which is the total percentage of Americans not involved with any particular religion; and
• Disaffiliation, which measures those who had a religious affiliation while they were adolescents but then had no affiliation at the time they were surveyed.

“The proportion of Americans with no religious affiliation doubled in the 1990s and has continued to rise in the 21st century,” Schwadel said. “With the decline in religious disaffiliation among post-Boomer cohorts, it is possible that this growth in non-affiliation may soon level off.”

Though Generation X’s religious adherents are relatively durable, the generation as a whole is still more likely than previous ones to be raised with no religious preference, according to the research. Religious non-affiliation in the United States grew from between 6 percent and 8 percent in the 1970s and 1980s to nearly 16 percent by 2006.

Like previous researchers, Schwadel attributes this to the so-called “1960s effect” — Americans who were children and young adults in the 1960s were disproportionately likely to disaffiliate with religion compared with previous generations. Consequently, many Boomers raised their Gen-X children in a non-religious environment.

Schwadel’s research, however, shows that Gen-Xers are behaving differently than their parents. Although Gen-Xers are relatively likely to be raised with no religious affiliation, those who are raised with a religious affiliation are considerably less likely than their parents to separate from religion.

So why are religious members of Gen-X so much less likely to leave religion? For one, Schwadel said, the American religious scene is more dynamic and textured than it was when Baby Boomers were coming of age in the ’60s and ’70s, which has left the younger generation more choices. If they aren’t happy with a particular religion, they can more easily find a substitute instead of falling away entirely.

“Social scientists have noted that what we call the ‘religious marketplace’ has greatly expanded in recent decades,” Schwadel said. “Historically, it was thought that this religious pluralism was detrimental to the vitality of American religion. While many still hold this view, others suggest that more choices lead to greater religious affiliation and commitment.”

The long-term impact of the decline in disaffiliation among post-Boomers remains to be seen, he said.

“While this trend is good news for those who worry about declining religious adherence, the Boomers’ enmity toward organized religion is still evident in the relatively large proportion of their children and grandchildren who are raised with no religious affiliation,” Schwadel said.

Pretty interesting, eh?

I mean, seriously, organized religion — especially the crazy fundamentalists found in most religious sects and denominations — have done more to support war and hatred than Genghis Khan on one of his worst days.

Did I leave anything out?

For the last Monday in August of 2010, I’m sharing an interesting press release that I stumbled on a few minutes ago:

OVER 50? YOU PROBABLY PREFER NEGATIVE STORIES ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE

COLUMBUS, Ohio (August 30, 2010) – When given a choice, older people prefer to read negative news, rather than positive news, about young adults, a new study suggests.

In fact, older readers who chose to read negative stories about young individuals actually get a small boost in their self-esteem, according to the results.

And what about younger people? Well, they just prefer not to read about older people. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick

These results come from a study of 276 Germans who were asked to read what they thought was a test version of an online magazine featuring carefully selected stories about younger and older people.

“Our results bolster the argument that people use the media to enhance their social identity,” said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, lead author of the study and associate professor of communication at Ohio State University.

“Older people and younger people have different goals when they use the media, and it shows in what they choose to read.”

Younger people, who are less certain about their own identity, prefer to read about other younger people to see how they live their lives, Knobloch-Westerwick said.

Older people, on the other hand, have greater certainty regarding their identity. However, living in a youth-centered culture, they may appreciate a boost in self-esteem. That’s why they prefer the negative stories about younger people, who are seen as having a higher status in our society.

Knobloch-Westerwick conducted the study with Matthias Hastall of Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen in Germany. Their results appear in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Communication.

The study included 178 younger adults (18 to 30 years old) and 98 older adults (50 to 65 years old). All came to a computer laboratory, where they were told they were testing an online magazine that was not yet available to the public.

The experimental magazine was created specifically for the study and contained 10 carefully pre-tested stories. Each story focused on one individual, but there were two different versions: one that had a negative spin and one with a positive spin (each participant was offered just one of the two versions).

For example, one positive article was headlined (translated here from German) “Visitation rights gained after daring protest – Demonstration at 100 feet high a success.” The negative version had the headline, “Visitation rights denied despite daring protest – Demonstration at 100 feet high in vain.”

The stories included a photo of the person involved: half were clearly an older person and half were clearly a younger person.

Participants in the study were told they would not have time to read all the stories and were asked to click on the stories that they found interesting. Each was given a random mix of positive and negative stories about younger and older people.

The computer secretly logged which stories each participant clicked on and how long they spent reading each article.

All of the stories were extensively pretested by other participants to ensure that the stories were clearly positive or negative, and that the photos were clearly differentiated by age and that the people pictured were similar in how likeable they appeared, Knobloch-Westerwick said.

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Older people have greater certainty regarding their identity. However, living in a youth-centered culture, they may appreciate a boost in self-esteem. That’s why they prefer the negative stories about younger people, who are seen as having a higher status in our society.

Results showed that the older participants were more likely to select negative articles about younger people, but they did not show a strong preference for either positive or negative stories about people in their own age group.

Younger people showed low interest in articles about older individuals – regardless of whether the stories were positive or negative. They did choose to read more positive stories about their own age group than they did negative stories, she said.

After participants finished browsing and evaluating the online magazine, they were given a short questionnaire aimed at measuring their self-esteem.

Results showed that younger people showed no differences in self-esteem based on what they had read. However, the more that older people read negative stories about younger individuals, the higher the older people’s levels of self-esteem tended to be.

This study came about because a previous study by the same researchers, using this same data, had produced unexpected results, Knobloch-Westerwick said. The original study had hypothesized that people prefer media messages that portray people like themselves – people of the same age and the same gender, in this case.

Overall, the original study found that was indeed true. However, the researchers were puzzled by the fact that older people in that first study seemed as equally interested in stories about younger people as they were in stories about older people like themselves.

“Now we know why older people liked reading about the younger people – they were looking for negative stories about them,” she said.

“Our new results go along with other research showing that people’s social identity helps shape what media messages we choose. Age is just one type of social identity which may affect our media choices.”

I don’t know about the conclusions in this study. Personally, I rarely read anything about young people. And I certainly don’t have any particular negative feelings about them.

But the parts in the above about social identity I do find interesting.

Do YOU have any ideas on this? Please comment.

For this week’s Feel Good video, we turn to the late great Bob Marley and his hand clapping, foot stomping Every Little Thing Gonna Be All Right…

What a shame Bob Marley passed on so young. Thinking of all the great music he didn’t get a chance to make makes me sigh in frustration.

Thoughts?

Let’s turn to Ireland for this week’s Feel Good video, shall we?

Here’s Beautiful Day with U2 performing live at Slane Castle:

Have a beautiful day, too, you hear?

Ideas anyone?

Tags: Beautiful Day U2

Last night at a few minutes after two a.m. a lightning flash produced a crack of thunder so strong that our house shook.

Those who know me would probably tell those who don’t that I’m a pretty tough old guy who at age 62 can still go outside in 95 degree heat and mow close to an acre of lawn in under an hour and a half…

• that I’ve been known to continue to mow our lawn even with multiple wasp bites…
• that neighborhood dogs won’t bite me because I can stare them down with a green-eyed steely gaze.

So, yeah, I’m not a wimp.

Well, I’m not a wimp unless a big thunder storm is blasting away around me.

Then I turn into a quivering 67 inch mass of warm jelly.

You see, as much as my pride in being a tough old bird hates to admit it…

… Thunder storms scare me half to death.

I don’t like the noise, I hate the shaking house, I tremble thinking about strong winds blowing trees over on our car in the driveway, and flashes of really intense lightning are enough to make me think about adult diapers.

Seriously, I’m not exaggerating too much at all with the paragraph I just wrote.

Storms scare me.

It’s that simple.

They bring fear out in me the way the same way a hot flame brings out invisible ink on a sheet of paper.

So, anyway, last night this storm rolls in just after two in the morning, shakes the house, wakes me up out of a sound sleep, and starts to scare the crap out of me.

But do I curl into a ball of fear and whine and complain about it to my life partner of almost 40 years now?

Heck, no.

Well, actually, I do give her a poke to wake her up.

And I do then babble about how “I’m really scared of this one, baby,” for a few minutes.

But my wife laughs at me, as she’s done every time we’ve ever had a storm roll in from the west, tells me to relax, and then she rolls over and goes right back to sleep.

To sleep!

With white flashes of lightning arcing every few seconds and thunder shaking the house so hard our Australian Cattle Dog Pepper has jumped into bed with us for a little security.

Happily, I know what to do during these intense North Carolina thunderstorms.

To kill my fear and maintain my sanity, I pop my EarthLeaves CD into the CD player, jack the volume up a notch or two, wrap the headphones around my ears, and then lay back down on the bed and chill out to the relaxing and body-slowing EarthLeaves CD experience.

This is the same thing I do every time we have a really intense thunderstorm around here.

And I also use the CD to slow me way down when fear feelings about one thing or another upset my serenity.

I hope fear isn’t a big part of your life, but if it is I have an audio tool you can use that’s guaranteed to wipe out fearful thoughts while relaxing you as deeply as you’ve probably ever relaxed in your life.>

And for this week’s special offer, you can obtain a copy of my EarthLeaves CD for a 30% discount.

For full details on this special deal that expires at midnight this coming Wednesday, hurry over to…

http://chetday.com/go/WeekendSpecial

Enjoy this post? Leave a comment below and add to the discussion. Thanks!

Tags: thunderstorm

By gum, Simon and Garfunkel sound better as aging boomers than they did back in the day.

And they sounded fantastic then!

Well, let’s feel good, shall we, with a 21st century rendition of their classic Feeling Groovy:

It doesn’t get a lot better than that, does it?

Agree or disagree?

Tags: simon and Garfunkel

I predict you’ll find this video of the late great Australian musician, Slim Dusty, singing the classic Waltzing Matilda, fun to hear and watch.

I hope you were singing along.

Agree or disagree?

Tags: slim dusty

For a useful and powerful happiness meditation, let’s turn to 4th century Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu, who tells us…

Perfect happiness is the absence of happiness.

These days many, many people run around thinking about how unhappy they are. Near as I can tell, this is especially true of busy people who have a lot of stuff. It seems like the busier you are and the more stuff you have, the more apt you are to be unhappy.

Of course, people who don’t have any stuff are capable of being unhappy and miserable, too.

The point?

Happiness. Unhappiness. Neither really matters.

What matters is to be aware and present in every moment.

When you do that, you’re moved beyond happy and unhappy.

Here, try this.

Take a deep breath.

Hold for a second.

Exhale slowly and start to focus inwardly.

Repeat two or three more times.

Think of the unhappiest moment of your life.

After savoring that unhappy memory for a few moments, breathe in that memory again, but this time let it go completely when you exhale.

Poof! It’s gone.

Now think of the happiest you’ve ever been. Savor the memory for a few moments. Breathe that memory in one more time. Now let it go completely as you exhale.

Poof! It’s gone, too.

Now breathe and just be.

Allow yourself to just be in this moment.

See?

Perfect happiness IS the absence of happiness.

And it’s never more than a few conscious breaths away.

What's your next move, after having read this post?

Tags: happiness

Wouldn’t it be nice to feel content and happy all the time with what you have?

Well, with today’s contentment meditation I’m going to show you how to do just that.

Let’s get started by turning to Chinese philosopher Lin Yu-tang, who tells lus…

The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach.

Personally, I think contentment can be best found by letting go of the desire for all things… not just those things beyond your reach.

So take a few long, slow deep breaths and deepen your awareness of this moment.

Repeat this breathing pattern until you feel the shift of consciousness and experience the quiet peace of the pause between breaths.

There.

Now become aware of something you want.

Take another breath and as you exhale, let go of wanting that something.

Note how much lighter and more blissful you feel by letting go of that wanting.

Repeat this pattern as many times as you can and let go of as many desires as possible.

Ah, contentment!

What about you? What do you think?

Tags: contentment

During my vegan daze, T. Colin Campbell’s China Study was endlessly bandied about by the vegan gurus as PROOF that a 100% plant-based diet was the ONE TRUE healthy way to eat.

I started writing against veganism in January of 1999 when I finally came to my senses and realized that human beings are opportunistic omnivores who require animal fats and protein to thrive (duh!), but I never did take the time to seriously pick apart Campbell’s research.

By that point in my disillusionment with the many lying gurus who promoted veganism to gullible followers, T. Colin’s whole trip just seemed absurdly ridiculous and not worth digging into.

Today, almost a dozen years later, I’m several months into a low-carb, zero grain diet, including lots of animal fat and protein that has me feeling great at age 62.

So it goes without saying that I regret the years and the energy I used and wasted promoting a plant-based diet as being a healthy way to eat.

Well, as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. remarks so often in his wonderful Slaughterhouse-Five… So it goes.

Anyway, thanks to Richard Nikoley’s informative and fun-to-read Free the Animal blog, I became aware today of a rich and fact-filled dissection that shines helpful illumination on what I’ve always felt were selective and prejudicial interpretations presented to promote veganism in T. Colin Campbell’s China Study.

If you’re a struggling vegan or vegetarian who has accepted as gospel the work of T. Colin Campbell, you must click here right now to read Denise Minger’s outstanding expose of the China Study, a work that in my opinion does not at all well serve health seeking men and women.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

I’m updating this entry on Saturday morning, 17 July 2010.

First, T. Colin Campbell’s very lame reply to Denise Minger’s initial 9,000 word analysis of his China Study can be found here, though there’s nothing in it of real substance that I could detect.

Second, on 16 July 2010 Minger posted a “must read” response to Campbell’s lame reply here.

I hope you’ll point struggling vegans and as well as anyone interested in nutrition and health to Denise Minger’s informative and entertaining website at http://rawfoodsos.com.

I'm eager to hear your comments...

Tags: china study