Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

Pointing and laughing at religious lunacy for more than half-a-century

Absence of belief in God blamed for ‘destructive behaviour’ among the young

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SCHOOL shootings, self-harm and destructive thoughts among young people, especially in the U.S. and the U.K., are the result a “shocking” move away from “spirituality” and God, a new study has revealed.

The study—reportedly the first of its kind—can hardly be called objective because it was carried by The Center for Bible Engagement, headed Dr. Arnie Cole, above, in conjunction with Our Daily Bread Ministries.

Cole’s research involved 4,700 teens, ages 14 to 17, in nine countries.

According to Faithwire, Cole believes trend could be reversed by “engaging with the Bible four or more days a week”, and using a special a custom Bible  &  Ministry engagement app developed by the his organisation.

Cole told Faithwire his organization—part of Christian ministry Back to the Bible, which also offers a “spiritual fitness app— has long explored how people become “spiritually formed”.

He said the current mental health crisis—including more than 50 percent of middle and high school girls who report feeling hopeless and depressed—and the general move away from faith has set off alarm bells, and the data provides a real reason to worry.

Cole said:

We were absolutely shocked when we started gathering the data about their struggles—their spiritual struggles, their mental health, and then it just progressed.

Research, he said, grew to explore young people in numerous countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, the U.K. and the U.S.

The survey found destructive behaviours among teens were more common in the U.S. and U.K.

In a YouTube video, Cole suggested these behaviours might have something to do with some of the “transgender and sexual confusion” going on in the West, among other related factors.

Faithwire quotes him as saying:

The further away they get from Jesus, the more lost they are.

Spirituality: what is it really?

In various debates I have had over decades, the most heated have been with people not of faith but with those who claimed to have eschewed religion in favour of spirituality.

When asked what this actually means, all I ever got was woolly-minded guff about being guided by “a Higher Power”, rather than rules set out in holy tomes, or words mindless spewed from pulpits.

Whenever I made clear that not a fibre of spirituality exists in my mind—and never did from the moment of my birth—I would be called “shallow”, “materialistic”, “close-minded” or “nihilistic”.

My standard retort would be “I’m none of those things. If you going to label me, try the word “rational.”

Image via YouTube

The issue of spirituality was addressed in depth in a 2020 Psychology Today article by psychiatrist Ralph Lewis MD who, in reporting the decline of religion as well as spirituality, wrote:

Today, more and more people, especially young people, forgo the spiritual label. For many, the word carries connotations of believing in spirits or ghosts and things supernatural or paranormal.

It carries connotations of being unscientific, of being governed by intuition (another word no longer regarded as an unqualified compliment)—a person governed by emotion rather than rationality.

And he concluded:

In today’s world, for a variety of well-studied reasons, the less strong a society’s belief in a higher power is, the more peaceful and compassionate it tends to be, and the greater its likelihood of being cooperatively interdependent with other societies.

Highly secular democracies are far ahead of nations of religious believers on the path toward creating more peaceful, compassionate and flourishing societies.

• Lewis is the author of the 2018 book Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even If the Universe Doesn’t.

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3 responses to “Absence of belief in God blamed for ‘destructive behaviour’ among the young”

  1. Broga Avatar
    Broga

    Before judging atheists as “shallow, nihilistic etc” we might consider the paedophile epidemic amongst those bible reading exemplars of spirituality : Roman Catholic priests.

    To read the bible without being appalled requires reading it with extreme selectivity. Should the spiritual reader encounter some of its disgusting passages they must, to their mental and emotional cost, refuse to think.

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  2. Matilda Avatar
    Matilda

    I’m fully aware of the views of the likes of Dr Cole. I was an ardent fundy for many years who believed god had called me into the teaching profession. Heck, one place I lived, a group of mums had a monthly prayer meeting just for the x-tian teachers in local schools. Mea culpa, I’ve been involved in and led, initiatives to get x-tians into schools to take the mandatory daily acts of worship, take RE lessons, get bible story books into school libraries and much more. And you know what? Though I believed, erroneously, as fundies are brainwashed into believing, that god would honour my evangelistic efforts, as my bible teaching was subtly geared towards my fundyism, that you need jesus in your life, accept him now before its too late, I don’t recall those efforts harvesting any souls. I was told that even 20-30yrs later the holy ghost might make some heathen adult remember that story I told them when they were 6yo, of those cutsie animals on the ark, or the miracle of the Red Sea parting and then drowning the egyptians. RE teaching and daily acts of worship have been mandatory in the UK since 1947…..and it ain’t made us a x-tian nation as Cole et al think it will if they get their way and do even more of their bible bashing in schools.

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    1. Broga Avatar
      Broga

      It is curious that evangelistic Christians have such a need to indoctrinate children despite their apparent certainty in their beliefs. As an atheist I felt no such need to indoctrinate my children nor did we (my wife shares my views) try to prevent them attending classes in religion at school. Nor to attending Sunday School with friends although they soon chose not to continue that.

      What we did was answer any of their questions and they heard our exchanges of view on the subject of religion. We now have grandchildren and their parents have treated them in the same way. None of my children or grandchildren have shown any sign of Christian belief. Indeed, they are far less interested in the issue of belief than I was and still am.

      I suppose the reason may be that not to believe in my youth was a seriously big deal. To discover the challenges to religion, when I was an adolescent was exciting and something of an intellectual adventure. For my children and grandchildren it is nothing very special.

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