Teens are fleeing religion like never before: Massive new study exposes religion’s decline
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/teens-are-fleeing-religion-like-never-before-massive-new-study-exposes-religions-decline/JOAN SHIPPS
28 MAY 2015 AT 11:33 ET
A young atheist (Shutterstock)
Religion is rapidly losing the youngest generation of Americans, according to new research.
America’s rising generation of adults are the least religiously observant of any generation in six decades, determined an expansive study led by Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State.
“Unlike previous studies, ours is able to show that millennials’ lower religious involvement is due to cultural change, not to millennials being young and unsettled,” Twenge says in a San Diego State University news release. .
In one of the largest studies ever conducted on Americans’ religious involvement, researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the University of Georgia collaborated with Twenge and her colleagues in California to analyze data from four national surveys of U.S. adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18. The surveys were taken between 1966 and 2014, and include responses from some 11.2 million people.
more at link
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Given the weird font, that girl may be sad because "There is no cod" and she was really looking forward to fish and chips.
One can believe in a higher power and NOT go to church. In the language of articles such as the linked one, people who don't believe that you can put a fence around God and charge admission are "atheists" (and "selfish"
. This is a false dichotomy.
Religion is an institution, an organization, people and literature and dogma. Spirituality is a more personal view of one's relationship to the Universe.
I think a more interesting article would look at WHY kids aren't as interested as their grandparents in going to church and how do they pursue spirituality without the archaic, ritualized, sexist institutions of religion. The trend may have little to do with spirituality and more to do with church as a social gathering point. One hundred years ago, going to church was like going on FaceBook in that it was the place where you connected on a regular basis with neighbors and like-minded people.
If church is more about feeling than thinking then what church members and non-members think about God is far less a factor than how going to church makes them feel.
I just got back from my morning bicycle ride. It was the best ever. I have to take the garbage to the county site and get a few things done in town. Oh the joys of rural living. 
Like everything else has pluses and minuses.
I explained it the best I can in post 8. I think the use of stock photos is often lazy journalism.
Totally off subject but an example of poor use of stock photos was a piece on the death of lead guitarist of The Ventures Bob Bogle. Instead of showing a picture of Bob either alone or with the group the pasted a pic of a guitar. This guitar:
A Gibson ES-335
Bob may have played a Gibson to see what it sounded like but my ears tell me that he always played a Fender a JazzMaster early on like this: 
Later a Stratocaster like this: 
These are not Mr. Bogles instruments but he would have never got his signature sound out of a Gibson especially a simihollow body archtop.
Here's a pic of Bob with what looks like a Fender Stratocater
And?
If you're going to fake something, go all the way.
And it's hilarious.
