- Feb 5, 2002
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In a recent article entitled Why Do Some Americans Leave Their Religion While Others Stay?, Pew Research found that the vast majority of U.S. adults (86%) were raised in a religion. The Pew data “shows that the nature of their religious experiences as children – that is, whether they were mostly positive or negative – plays a significant role in whether they stay in their childhood religion as adults.”
Pew found that 84% of Americans who were raised in a religion and had a mostly positive childhood experience with religion still identify with that religion as adults: “Just 10% of people who grew up in a religion and had a positive childhood experience with it are ‘nones’ today, while 6% identify with a different religion than the one they were raised in.”
But in sharp contrast, “69% of those who grew up in a religion and had a negative experience with it no longer identify with any religion at all. Far fewer (24%) still identify with their childhood religion, and 7% identify with a different religion.”
Such findings play well into the hands of religious skeptics who have long argued that the primary reason most people adhere to a religion is because of their upbringing. They say, for example, that the only cause behind the vast majority of U.S. Christians identifying as such is that America is mostly a Christian nation, spiritually speaking. They say if the same people were raised in Saudi Arabia, they’d likely be Islam devotees, given the fact that the majority of citizens (85-90%) are Sunni Muslims.
Continued below.
www.christianpost.com
Pew found that 84% of Americans who were raised in a religion and had a mostly positive childhood experience with religion still identify with that religion as adults: “Just 10% of people who grew up in a religion and had a positive childhood experience with it are ‘nones’ today, while 6% identify with a different religion than the one they were raised in.”
But in sharp contrast, “69% of those who grew up in a religion and had a negative experience with it no longer identify with any religion at all. Far fewer (24%) still identify with their childhood religion, and 7% identify with a different religion.”
Such findings play well into the hands of religious skeptics who have long argued that the primary reason most people adhere to a religion is because of their upbringing. They say, for example, that the only cause behind the vast majority of U.S. Christians identifying as such is that America is mostly a Christian nation, spiritually speaking. They say if the same people were raised in Saudi Arabia, they’d likely be Islam devotees, given the fact that the majority of citizens (85-90%) are Sunni Muslims.
Continued below.
Why every Christian (including me) will stay in the faith in 2026
So, it seems the skeptics are adhering to their childhood faith also
www.christianpost.com
