College Leads to Loss of Faith?

[Doug]

"A recent UCLA study found many college students drift away from their religious upbringings. In the study, 52 percent of the students said they attended religious services frequently the year before entering college, but by their junior year attendance had dropped to 29 percent."

You can read the rest at:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1375842&page=1

[Savonarola]

Now there's a stat that's none too shocking. Exposing people who have had nothing but exclusionary indoctrination to a learning environment that promotes critical thinking .. well, it's a fundy's worst nightmare.

There are a couple of incredible threads on iidb.org that compare belief systems with education level and certainty of beliefs. (If this topic interests you, I highly recommend following the links therein.) Here are some excerpts:

Now I'm breaking out origins beliefs themselves by educational level. There's simply no way to read this as anything but a strong correlation between creationism and ignorance.

Some people think humans & other living things have existed in their present form [PF] since the beginning of time. Others think humans & other living things have evolved over time [EV]. Which comes closest to your view?

PF / EV / DK — Category (sample size)
42 / 48 / 10 — total sample (2000)

Education
27 / 66 / 07 — College grad (710)
42 / 51 / 07 — Some college (465)
50 / 38 / 12 — High school grad (661)
50 / 30 / 20 — < High school grad (158)

PF / EV / DK — Category (percent)
42 / 48 / 10 — total sample (100)

Biggest influence on view of how life developed
60 / 29 / 11 — religious beliefs (43)
14 / 80 / 06 — education (29)
43 / 44 / 13 — other (28)
___________

Here, I've ranked on break size (and combined all "other" influences). Note that religious beliefs trump education in overall influence (43 vs. 29), but that education is a better predictor of an evolutionary viewpoint.

As the evolution/creation debate is somewhat a pet topic of mine, I find this information extremely relevant, and the last section ties this in very well with Doug's point. It shows that, by far, most believers in creationism base that belief on their religion, whereas people who accept evolutionary theory do so on the scientific facts. Between that, the previous analysis that correlates belief of biological origin, and the remainder of the Pew study (links below), we can be quite certain that education is the bane of fundamentalist religious beliefs.

A good overview of the Pew Forum research can be found here. Expanded research results can be found here (.pdf).

[Doug]

DOUG says:
Good stats, Savvy. I'm going to make sure to use those!

[Guest]

just curious, what does the FSM in your avatar mean?

[Dardedar]

just curious, what does the FSM in your avatar mean?

DAR
That would be the "Flying Spaghetti Monster"!

Here is a better picture:



I recommend you read all about it here:

http://www.venganza.org/

D.

[Savonarola]

Thanks Dar, somehow that question escaped my notice.

The best info is on the site Dar linked, but briefly, FSMism (or pastafarianism) was concocted to parody the Intelligent Design movement, as each has the same amount of scientific credibility: none. Or as some fellow on IRC somewhere put it:

If 2 billion people believed in FSM.. we would use ID as the joke.. "YEAH, an invisible man just created everything".."Har har"

[Coralie]

Well, hopefully the students are getting enlightened, but there's also the factor that before they leave home, it's simpler to comply with the parents' expectation that they attend church with the family--and maybe some of their own social life is tied up with church youth groups.
But after they've been away, older and on their own, students might just prefer to sleep in on Sunday morning like they often wanted to in high school.

[Doug]

But after they've been away, older and on their own, students might just prefer to sleep in on Sunday morning like they often wanted to in high school.

DOUG
Good point. Sleeping physically instead of mentally.

This reminds me of Dan Barker's tune "Sunday Morning Blues."

You can hear it at the end of this segment of NPR's 2004 broadcast of letters and corrections. At the end of the segment, they play some of Barker's tunes, including "Sunday Morning Blues."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=1615533

"It's Sunday morning and I'm lying in bed.
The church bells are echoing around in my head,
but I won't
get up
'Cause my religion is to worship at the Temple of the Inner Spring."

[Betsy]

"noodly appendages"...hahahahahah that's funny