Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

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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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