Religion is Declining Faster Than You Think

We discuss statistics showing the rapid decline in belief in God among Gen Z, and how conservative Gen Z splits into different ideological camps. We analyze why historic techniques for passing down traditions intergenerationally are failing, how Gen Z hides changes from parents, and why the parents' generation isn't transmitting culture properly to their kids.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] when we're looking at you know, the extent of the urban monoculture, and we're talking about how much culture has changed recently, people see this as sort of a linear change that is linearly Going from the boomers, you know, up to modern generations, right?

It is not. It is, it is an asymmetric change. It's logarithmic. It is happening incredibly quickly right now. What has happened in this last 20 years is not comparable to what was happening in our own childhood. Mm hmm. Culturally speaking. these iterations of conservatism I see within Gen Z is really different from their parents generation.

And it means that the parents are not passing culture intergenerationally with fidelity, even when they believe they have.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and also like, I think, you know, like, as you say, a lot of kids are hiding that, which is, Not helpful, I guess, in helping parents course correct, [00:01:00] but also, if the parents knew that their kids had lost their religion, would there be anything they can do?

Malcolm Collins: a lot of the techniques. That people have historically used to pass down these traditions intergenerationally are just not working very well.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Task item regards to that? I already did. Yeah. And in addition to that, could you um, send yourself a to do item about emailing her the, I already sent her the

Simone Collins: email. Look at how on top of things they are.

Malcolm Collins: No, I'm sorry, Simone. I'm sorry. I don't, you are amazing. This is a great way to start so people see how it is.

When I ask you to do things, you just camera, well, like you were in the

Simone Collins: middle before that we were rudely interrupted by a call. You were telling me how Chavez, Castro, and Che were doing. With, you know, like AOC and Bernie. Like, are they okay?

Malcolm Collins: They looked terrified when I first met them. So, you are chickens after communists.

And they seemed fine. They seemed fine. They were making they were complaining a lot. They were, and in a separate part of the cage. So they [00:02:00] were talking.

Simone Collins: Okay. So they're, they're okay. Were they, were they being attacked by

Malcolm Collins: AOC I don't know. They were in a different part,

Simone Collins: you know. Okay. So they're, they're like, they're, they're, they're clustering together.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They're not like dead or anything. Okay. I just, I don't know. Like, I'm,

Simone Collins: I'm worried. I don't want them to be like stressed out or anything. And like, they're the friendliest ones. So

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. You are the sweetest chicken mom which I appreciate because we're getting lots of great eggs which means egg everything these days.

So, you, right before this, you know, being ever diligent sent me some statistics you thought I would find interesting. Yeah! And they were so shocking, I then did a sanity test on them after you sent them to me, just to be like, come on, this can't be... So first you know, you're going to see the statistics on the screen if you're watching on YouTube.

What it shows is the share of Americans This is Americans, right? I think so. Who believe in [00:03:00] God without doubt. And if you look at the silent generation, it's around 70 percent slight decline over time. You look at boomers, it's like 65 percent slight decline over time. You look at gen X actually goes up over time from like just under 60 percent to almost around where boomers are now 65 percent then you get to millennials and it's like things drop off a cliff in the early days like 1998 they were only around 55 percent and now like well 2018 where this recording stops they're all the way down to like what Around 45 percent then Gen Z when they start recording, they're, they're dropping even faster.

They go from like 50 percent to now, you know, I don't know, 33%. It's just plummeting, plummeting, plummeting. And so then I looked and I was like, okay, what are religious people saying about this? Right? Like did, do, do sources that are looking into this religiously. So there was this article over [00:04:00] half of Gen Z.

teens feel motivated to learn more about Jesus. Now you can tell this was written from a conservative perspective. So this data is not going to be skewed, whatever, right? So they show among US young adults only 17 percent are committed Christians. And 52 percent aren't Christian at all anymore. And this is a US young adults.

anD so this is really meaningful to me for a number of reasons. The biggest is, I think that there's this general perception that the rise in secularity, when we're looking at you know, the extent of the urban monoculture, and we're talking about how much culture has changed recently, people see this as sort of a linear change that is linearly Going from the boomers, you know, up to modern generations, right?

It is not. It is, it is an asymmetric change. It's logarithmic. It is happening incredibly quickly right [00:05:00] now. What has happened in this last 20 years is not comparable to what was happening in our own childhood. Mm hmm. Culturally speaking. Things have exploded at a rate, like, this is why I just so confidently can make a bet.

I often mention this, my mom, before she passed, she's like, you know, you're really publicly tying yourself to this fertility rate thing. Like, what is this, it's just a fad, what if fertility rates shoot back up in a couple years, you know? You're gonna look really stupid, and I'm like, no, no, no, no. I am confident from what I am seeing in the data that it is going to get infinitely worse in the near future because everything correlated with fertility is collapsing.

And one of those things is religiosity, right? And That has fundamentally transformed for people of this generation. The next thing that I would note, and this is something that so if, you know, Simone and I, we are hip with the Gen Z conservatives, right?

[00:06:00] Like that is the, the market that we probably speak to the most in terms of the nature of our message and in terms of who we're interacting with because of our school system, because of who we know, but we also know a lot of really conservative families, and I can't mention, like, who they are because I don't want to give these kids away because these kids feel honest being open with us.

So, a lot of these Gen Z kids, they still... Identify as very conservative. If they're culturally,

Simone Collins: what would we say? They, they, they appear to be conservative and religious, like on the surface.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But, many of them, from very religious families, are no longer religious. They just hide it from their parents because they don't want to hurt their parents feelings, and they still, like, broadly believe in religious value systems, because, like, they really don't, I agree, was, like, the woke.

not jobs, right? But they are just not religious anymore. And I think that this creates a big problem when you look at the [00:07:00] statistics, which is a misperception among older conservative millennials who are