Why are the millennials so "spiritual but not religious"?

[buritobr]

Let's talk about one specific point about the millennials.

The millennials have a share of religiously unaffiliated much bigger than the previous generations have. However, the millennials don't have a share of atheists so much bigger than the previous generations have.

Many millennials don't follow traditional religions, like Catholicism, Protestantism or Judaism, but they are not atheists too. They like meditation, astrology, wicca, jediism etc

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Because organized religion shot itself in the foot over the late twentieth century by choosing the wrong political hills to die on, but the New Soviet Secular Man is still not a thing. "Spiritual but not religious" is a terrible non-worldview worldview, but it's not a particularly surprising or difficult to understand one.

[Blue3]

Distrust of institutions, especially organized religion


And I don't think you can call astrology, wicca, or jediism anywhere near even a significant minority among millennials.

Meditation is just as natural as eating and sleeping. You probably do it all the time without know that it counts as meditation.

[Antonio the Sixth]

"Jediism" is a thing?

Hahahahahahaha omg.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Because organized religion shot itself in the foot over the late twentieth century by choosing the wrong political hills to die on, but the New Soviet Secular Man is still not a thing. "Spiritual but not religious" is a terrible non-worldview worldview, but it's not a particularly surprising or difficult to understand one.

     This pretty much. Religion is gauche now, so many young people want an alternative form of belief.

[RINO Tom]

It makes sense to assign a good chunk of people born since the early eighties to this category based on their expressed beliefs and practices, but I've never seen numbers that show a large chunk of voters at any age who actually identify with the "spiritual, not religious" term. Most millennial are religiously passive and nominally Christian - either outright non-practicing but with belief in a very amorphous God who just wants you to be nice and feel good, or partially adherent while being unable to give a cogent account of anything that resembles Catholicism or Protestantism as they were known as recently as a few decades ago.

I think this is largely correct, and - if history is any indication - this more "liberal" interpretation of religion (specifically Christianity) will begin to be seen as more mainstream, and those people won't be seen as "non-religious" (which is why I'm always skeptical of there ever being a time where atheism is widespread).  It's not like a lot of folks living in the Nineteenth Century wouldn't be largely horrified by American Christianity in the 1980s and how comparitively relaxed it was, yet we look at that as a much, much more religious decade than our current one (and it was).  Having a liberal interpretation of Scripture, going to church on Christmas Eve and Easter and adapting your religious beliefs to scientific findings but still identifying as a Christian won't be seen as "barely Christian" in a few decades, IMO.