Already Gone: Why Kids are Quitting Church

[sweetsweatyfeet]

Of course kids are leaving---many no longer believe in bronze age nonsense for no good reason and embrace reason and skepticism. In today's information age it's inevitable because we no longer live a cloistered monotheistic existence but instead are exposed to a vast array of contrasting ideas. The forces against religious indoctrination are stimulating kid's critical faculties like never before. Religion is slowly fading into oblivion.

[oneuniqueman777]

I'm a christian but I will never go to any church again. The seek to control people. They are mean, hostile and standish and expect you to fit into their clique.Most of these churches don't believe in healing or deliverance, many are out for money, Just like the government, the media, and the worldly system around, they too have done mind conditioning to people. I am out of their religious sstem.

[duxinarowe0]

I think the fact that the church parrots political correctness to the rafters is part of the problem. They basically tell the congregation that they are evil and need to recruit outsiders into the church regardless of cultures. If they say all religions are equal then why go to any church at all? I can see the modern church reserving a special place in Heaven for athiests.

[duxinarowe0]

I think the fact that the church parrots political correctness to the rafters is part of the problem. They basically tell the congregation that they are evil and need to recruit outsiders into the church regardless of cultures.

[EmmittBrownBTTF1]

Abortion is biblically authorized Hos 13:16

[Phalanx3800]

I was brought up Baptist. Had to get drug out of bed every Sunday at 5 AM. Sunday school between 6-8. Then regular church services between 8:30 till 11 or even noon.

Such a fucking chore to go to church once a week. It killed a whole damn day. Than, on Wednesdays I had to go some stupid Youth Group service for 4 hours. I am an atheist now, if no other reason than the fact that I was not at all encouraged to go to Church.. I was told to be Christian, I was told to go to Church. So I resented it.

[EmmittBrownBTTF1]

@Phalanx3800 Congradulations on breaking the chain. Past tense of drag is dragged, drug is a noun (usually prescribed by a doctor), not a verb :)

[Phalanx3800]

@EmmittBrownBTTF1 Don't really care about grammar on youtube bro.

Also, It's not some snarky indictment of religion. It's pointing out that if I ever believe in god again it's not gonna come at the compulsion of someone else telling me to.

[EmmittBrownBTTF1]

@Phalanx3800 I care that people get their message out clearly, so I offered a pointer to help you honour your message. Sadly people reading a poorly worded message either lose the point or mischievously use it to indict the author & their argument.

I get that, of course religion does have a habit of telling people what to think, how to act and sometime what to say and it often sees teaching how to think as counter productive at least in regard to itself and sometimes more generally.

[centraldrummer]

So pretty much the way they want to combat the secularization of children is have more intense indoctrination at a younger age... wow...

[2cabs2toucan]

I wonder how much effect the Internet has had. We now have continuous access to a global market place of ideas. What people were fed in their parochial congregations was once unchallenged. Bad ideas like the earth being thousands of years old are dismembered mercilessly.

Ken Ham can't give answers or a reasoned defence despite what he says in this interview and its patently obvious to many young people.

[RUKEAL]

Strange that everybody worries about these kind of things when they are clearly prophesied in the Bible. Life is not meant to be getting better and we aren't meant to be 'fixing' the situation - this is the end of the age - all these things are meant to be happening as we live through the birth pangs of the coming of the end. This is part of what Jesus called the 'Great Falling Away'.

[sweetsweatyfeet]

More than ever young people are opening their eyes and their minds as they no longer mindlessly following the bronze age dogma they've been brought up to believe. Critical thinking and skepticism play a much stronger role due in part by exposure to a diverse arena of ideas and beliefs aided in part by a growing community of outspoken scientists and atheist thinkers.

[jknengr796]

People are leaving because of the inflexibility, intolerance, scientific ignorance and the willful lying of Biblical fundamentalists. 

[MrSpock1100]

@xxtheistigxx1 Or 15 like this example? Or forever (1 Kings 2:33, 2 Kings 5:27, Romans 5:12) In Romans Paul says we are born guilty because of Adam's sin.

Saul killed all but one Amalekite, Agag the king. Samuel killed Agag. The genocide is complete. (1 Samuel 15) Later David killed all of the Amalekites again. (1 Samuel 27: 8-9) Later David killed them yet again, but 400 escaped. (1 Samuel 30: 1-17) Question: How can a nation come back after being wiped out, twice?

[MrSpock1100]

@xxtheistigxx1 Amalek attacked the Jews coming out of Egypt. (Exodus 17:8) Many generations later, God sends Saul to wipe the Amalekites out for what their great, great, great, great grandfathers did about 450 years before. Question???Does God punish people for their own sins? (Deuteronomy 24:16, 2 Kings 14:6, Jeremiah 31:30, Ezekiel 18:20) Or their children for 3 and 4 generations? (Exodus 20:5, Exodus 34:7, Deuternonmy 35:9, Numbers 14:8) Or 10 generations (Deuteronomy 23:2)

[VforVideo]

Kids are leaving Church because of this Bullshit.

On behalf I the Body of Christ, I apologize for anyone who has told you that in order to believe in the Bible, you have to accept a 6,000 year old earth. This is a lie.

You can't KNOW the Bible is true.Your epistemological assumptions are bastardizations of reason. You mock Reason. You mock the Bible. Ken Hamm is a false prophet.

Any honest Christian will tell you that some questions don't have Biblical answers. I don't know everything.

[sleazybtd]

It's funny how these guys want to teach kids christian apologetics from the first grade to high school. That's the best time to teach them because that's when kids are most receptive to indoctrination. If the arguments they're proposing are so good, then why not teach it to adults and have adults defend their faith?

[xxthestigxx1]

@sleazybtd I'm not going to get into argument w/ anyone here...think what you want about who is indoctrinating who. Our kids are being indoctrinated by our government run schools which teaches them they evolved from animals, so it's ok to act like animals. So they ARE acting like animals which can PARTIALLY explain why teen pregnancy, abortion, violence, suicide is so high as opposed to the stats from 1962 when the Bible was outlawed from our schools. Don't reply, I won't reply to trolls

[sleazybtd]

@xxthestigxx1 Oh, I see. People act like animals because they believe that they came from animals.

Check the statistics for yourself. Check the crime rates, teen pregnancy rates, and divorce rates. Compare the numbers from the more religious states with the less religious states. Also compare them to the most secular countries. If you're actually an honest person, you'll notice an inverse relationship.

[TheMorningStar1991]

they leave because we're getting better and better educated, and young people today can think for ourselves.  we don't just go along with it, we question it. i became an atheist, and lots of people like me loose their religion. many people change religions, and many just read or study the bible themselves and decide what THEY think about it, they don't just sit there and listen to what their pastor says. it's all about questioning. organized religion is no match for a critical mind.

[muterabbit]

Sorry, I meant that people generally stay in church all their lives because they don't examine their beliefs. Questioning your beliefs is good, but when I became an Atheist, all I really had to do was take a close look at what the bible was saying. All of the things that I had never noticed before when reading the bible blew me away, including inconsistencies, contradictions, factual errors, immoral behavior on god's part, etc.

[xxthestigxx1]

@muterabbit Mighty big claims you got there dude, inconsistencies, contradictions, factual errors, immoral behavior on god's part. Easy to just say something like that. Back it up with fact dude. Show proof of your claims as someone trying to convince others NOT to believe you should WANT to show proof of what you say. I can just as easily say that all Atheists are pedophiles and leave it at that. But that of course is asinine without proof, as are your claims.

[xxthestigxx1]

@muterabbit Mighty big claims you got there. inconsistencies, contradictions, factual errors, immoral behavior on god's part. Easy to just say something like that. Back it up with fact dude. Show proof of your claims as someone trying to convince others NOT to believe you should WANT to show proof of what you say. I can just as easily say that all Atheists are pedophiles and leave it at that. But that of course is asinine without proof, as are your claims. I won't reply so don't borher

[muterabbit]

@xxthestigxx1 Sure you won't. That last statement I made was meant to be a challenge to Christians to prove me wrong, thus exposing them to the bible's flaws. Since there are Christians like you that need the flaws to be spoon-fed to them, I will provide some examples of the bible's flaws in my next reply so that there will be plenty of characters to work with.

[muterabbit]

@xxthestigxx1 So here are my examples, taken from the KJV version of the bible, widely regarded as the most authoritative version:

Inconsistencies: 2 Kings 8:26 vs. 2 CHR. 22:2; 1 Kings 4:26 vs. 2 CHR 9:25; 2 Kings 24:8 vs. 2 CHR 36:9

Contradictions: ISA 14:21 vs. DEU 24:16; MAT 27:46,50 vs. LUK 23:46 vs. JOH 19:30; II SM 24:1 vs. I CHR 21:1

To be continued in next reply...

[muterabbit]

@xxthestigxx1 Factual Errors: LEV 11:13-19 talks about bats as though they're birds. LV 11:20-22 says that insects have four legs when it's obvious to us that they have six. MT 13:31-32 says that the mustard seed is the smallest and grows into a tree; both claims are false. The petunia, begonia, and orchid seeds are all smaller than the mustard seed and the mustard seed grows like a weed, not like a tree.

To be continued in next reply...

[RUKEAL]

@muterabbit - Bats are included in the list of birds because their was no separate 'category' in the days Leviticus was written. 'On all fours' is a figure of speech not a scientific description (it doesn't actually say 'four legs as you mis-quote). The mustard seed is the smallest that was cultivated back then - and does grow into a large tree - Google it!

Check your facts next time.

[muterabbit]

@RUKEAL If god is omniscient (as the Christian god is often described), was therefore aware of all future scientific facts, and supposedly whispered the words of the bible into the ears of the authors of the bible, then how are your apologetics about the stupidity of Bronze Age men relevant? Secondly, if you read Leviticus 11:20-22 in the King James Version (the version I quoted), it clearly describes insects as having four legs. I'll quote it for you word for word in the next part of my reply.

[RUKEAL]

@muterabbit - 'On (all) fours' - so you're right, 'on fours' is a weird way to describe insects! At the end of the day it's surely semantics though - and you evidently don't believe any of it anyway!

[muterabbit]

@RUKEAL Yeah, I don't believe any of it, but that's not why I replied to this video in the first place. Every once in a while, I try to leave bread crumbs under these religious videos for Christians sitting on the fence that might lead them to the same realization that I had: there is no Emerald City or Wonderful Wizard of Oz over the rainbow or at the end of the yellow brick road. Most religious people ignore the man behind the curtain, if they even realize he's there.

[muterabbit]

@RUKEAL "All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you. Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind."

Leviticus 11:20-22 KJV

The words "flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four" seem pretty clear to me.

[muterabbit]

@RUKEAL Plus, there's the additional context of "locust," "bald locust," "beetle," and "grasshopper." Anyway, the plant that is thought to be the one that Jesus referred to in his parable is brassica nigra, which does grow upwards of 8 feet tall, but in no way does it resemble a tree; if you're being generous, it looks like a flowering plant, but if not, it just looks like a big weed.

[muterabbit]

@RUKEAL Brassica nigra is sometimes known as "black mustard," but it's not closely related to "white mustard" or sinapis alba, the plant used to make the yellow condiment that is so well known in the West. Brassica nigra is actually closely related to cabbage, it has a nutty flavor, it's commonly used to make Indian curry, and the oil from it's seeds is commonly used as a cooking oil in India. In Ethiopia, people eat its shoots and leaves as vegetables.

[muterabbit]

@RUKEAL My point about the differences of "black mustard" compared to "white mustard" is that if the Christian god is indeed omniscient and he wanted Christianity to be spread throughout the world, then why the hell would he make reference to a plant that only people in the Mediterranean, Africa, and India would be familiar with? It makes no sense. Furthermore, why would he lie about a seed growing into a tree? Personally, I suspect the tree thing was artistic license on the part of translators.

[muterabbit]

@xxthestigxx1 Immoral Behavior on the Part of God:

1. Adam and Eve and their children were cursed for sampling fruit.

2. Lot offered up his daughters to be raped by the mob outside his house, yet god never scolded him for it or punished him for it. Furthermore, god turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt merely for looking back at her home.

3. Job's life was destroyed by Satan as part of a petty wager between god and Satan.

[muterabbit]

Pull your head out of your ass, radio host. Rejecting the claim that god exists is not a result of watching too much TV, it's a result of closely examining what the bible says. The more you expose young people to the bible, the more they're going to leave Christianity. People generally stay in church their whole lives because they don't question their beliefs, which you touched on when you talked about senior members of a church not being prepared to answer critical questions about Christianity.

[DarkAngel182]

Its basically thanks to people like Ken Hamm, with their fundamentalist interpretations of the bible, that people are turning away from the church.

It is one thing to believe in something that MIGHT be true, like whether or not a god exist, but it is another to believe in something that is definately NOT true, like creationism or any of the other nonsense verses in there, like talking snakes, talking donkeys and showing striped patterns to a pregnant cow it'll bear striped calves.

[xNoReligionx]

@saynotodarwin Saying it don't make it so :)

[mmaaxx1198]

They leave the Catholic church because of the molestation, well, because the church hides the molesters and helps them to molest again. That and the pope was a nazi, I know I know, its sounds untrue but remember, fact is ALWAYS stranger than fiction!

[bigboy45454545]

Bye bye Christian religion, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Say hello to your invisible friends for me, you fucking Retards.

Is magic Jesus going to come flying out of sky real soon?

I'll bake a cake.

[mmaaxx1198]

@bigboy45454545 Forget the cake, Jesus likes bread, fish, and wine!

[gregrutz]

Keep telling the kids lies,

like a global flood, man walked with dinosaurs, etc. and they will all leave your religion.

[javonne]

as science continues to grow the younger generations from 29 and younger are extensively becoming more aware of the irrationality stupidity that Religion forces onto people, they have begun to see how the "good book" is no more legit and real than a Dr. Suss book. the youth of our time WILL overcome the influence of Christian dogma and the shekels of ignorance that it imposes onto it's followers

when the power of love overcomes the love of religion, out world will finally know peace!

[rgj798]

When Culture destroys science, then it NEEDS to change.

[inkling43]

The comments at this site illustrate the truth of what Ken Ham is saying. No one can expect that 40 hours of evolutionary thinking will be overturned by 1 hour of milk toast Chrisianity per week. I spent 14 years in the U.S. public school system and regular church attendence, but it has only when I began studying on my own that I have developed a truly Biblical World View.

[entyrion]

I am an atheist, so I really don't have a dog in the fight about youth leaving church. Just to hazard a guess though: I would hypothesize that the more rigid and ridiculous the teachings of the church, the higher the dropout rate. If you preach blatant bull**** like creationism or anti-science or cruel, obsolete morality that is fixated on abortion and homosexuality, your church will be in trouble.

[Oddnoggins]

Perhaps because as we continue to EVOLVE, it's getting harder to convince people that there's an invisible magic space daddy in the sky that wants to party with our ghost forever. Religion is like seeing the man in the moon. A brain tries to make sense out of chaos, and when it can't, imagination kicks in, and we try to rationalize what we think we see. This gets passed down from people that are looked up to and trusted with relatively good intentions, regardless of validity. Just like racism.

[jwissick]

Why are kids leaving church? Simple. They are smarter and have better BS detectors than their parents. They should leave church. Christianity and the other religions are a joke.

[manueljavierpena]

@jwissick Jesus Christ saved my life from the horrible negative life I was living...I suggest you accept him into your heart...

[jwissick]

@manueljavierpena No, YOU saved your life. Jesus didn't do anything except get the credit.

YOU did it.

[AtheismandSkepticism]

Why are kids quitting church?

Because they pay attention in school?

[quammski]

Whoo Hoo!

[Vinetia]

Oh thank goodness. Maybe within the next millennium we will be done with this desert cult known as Christianity.

[socksumi]

Why are young people losing their faith? The answer is obvious. People like (anti-evolutionist) Ken Ham and other lunatic fringe fundamentalists are destroying any credibility for Christianity. Young people are waking up and discovering reason and critical thinking. It is a change I welcome.

[tammyterry]

Ken Ham is delusional. Go to the "Creation Museum" and you will see what I mean. That place is an embarrassment to the United States. Dinosaurs living with humans is insanity!

Noahs Ark: INSANITY! T Rex being a vegetarian: INSANITY! Ken Ham: INSANE and DANGEROUS!!!

[Azarthes]

ok, why would we kids want to stay inside and only listin to our pastor and go back to the regular norm of our lives, we want to start living like jesus in our community and lives, not this alternative life that we have put on for our church family, we want to find god in our own lives, not the way we have lived since our parents first took us to our sunday school program, i personally believe that the church is not the only way to find god and not even remotely the best way to find him in us...

[herbs814]

Accountability in the curriculum is an important reform. Of course, we would better understand how to teach our children if we were homeschooling more.

[herbs814]

"Sunday School" worships on the wrong day. God's Sabbath has always been the seventh-day (Saturday) (Gen 2:3) and it always will be: until the end of this world (Matt 5:18) and even into eternity in the New Earth (Is 66:23)