Religiosity and age
Here’s a study that purports to indicate that people get more religious over time:
Belief in God is highest among older people and increases with age, perhaps due to the growing realization that death is coming closer, University of Chicago researchers said on Wednesday.
Summarizing data from surveys performed in 1991, 1998 and 2008 in 30 countries from Chile to Japan, the university’s National Opinion Research Center found that, on average, 43 percent of those aged 68 and older were certain that God exists.
By comparison, an average of 23 percent of people aged 27 and younger were firm believers in God, according to the report, which gathered data from the International Social Survey Program, a consortium of the world’s leading opinion survey organizations.
The problem with this study is the same one encountered over and over in studies that purport to measure changes that come with age: unless the study is longitudinal, following the same people over time, it is just as likely (perhaps more so) that what is being measured is generational differences.
Without the ability to get the original study, I can’t say for sure whether the researchers here have controlled for this, but several newspaper articles I’ve seen about it seem to ignore the problem. Here’s is the most complete report I’ve been able to find so far, and in it the University of Chicago researcher, Tom W. Smith, simply “noted that the higher level of belief does not appear to be simply a cohort effect.” That’s not very informative.
Maybe irreligious/areligious/anti-religious people engage in behavior that is more likely to result in an earlier death (I.E. Sin).
Maybe women are more religious than men, and women live longer on average.
Maybe native born Americans are less religious but naturalized Americans more religious.
I believed in God when I was young. I dismissed God when I grew older. I am now, and until there is a reason to believe otherwise, agnostic about fundamental truths (i.e. non-scientific or existing outside of a limited frame of reference). I neither accept the existence of God nor its converse that rejects it. Both are articles of faith. I believe each faith is properly judged by the principles it engenders. To which there are two orders which determine our existence: natural (or God’s) and enlightened (i.e. conscious or individual dignity), and establish the principles by which we should live.
The word, God, should be defined before one can say much about beliefs or non-beliefs. How do you define God? Among Catholics you will find a different concept than among Mormons, or among Quakers, or among Jews, or among Buddhists, or among Shintoists, etc. Some do not believe that God is a white-robed man up in the Heavens, but do believe there is a Force, an unfathomable Essence, or a Higher Power. For some believers, such as Buddhists, there are Gods, not God. Then there is the argument over whether God is a personal God who looks over each of us and all is written in the Book of Life or whether we have free will and have some control over our destiny. This, of course, merely scratches the surface of the “who is God?” question. Many books have been written and more will be written about these issues.
What is obvious to an old codger like me is that each person seeks the answers to who God is or if God exists in differing ways. Hopefully as we grow old, our hearts open more to the love of our fellow humans and to the possibility of a Higher Power.
My concept of God has come as a result of being a parent. It seems to me that the love a parent has for a child is akin to the way God, the Creator, must love us. We want the best for our children, but we have to let them go and let them make their own way in the world. We cannot protect them from all hazards, mistakes, and other dangers. When they fail our hearts ache and when they succeed our hearts rejoice. So it must be with God as Creator whether He is a white-robed old man or an unseen Force
As we approach the end of our journey I think most people feel closer to the mystery and the love and acceptance that we all seek. IMO, acceptance of our mortality with some equanimity calls for it. So, it makes sense that we become more likely to believe as we grow older. Unfortunately, my opinion doesn’t say anything about whether the study is valid or not.
I’d believe in a transcended creator if we were creatures of unimaginable complexity interacting with each other like some great opera, while living on a huge planet whirling without end around the fireball of a star……wait a minute….we have that!
It’s intriguing that the study by NORC includes Israel?
Israel is a Jewish state.