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I generally agree though, and I know this is going to come off defensively so might as well admit that right now, I don't think the reason religion has lost its sway is because it falls apart under scientific scrutiny. Sure that might be true in some cases but are Gen Z folk really applying scientific scrutiny in their day to day lives even when it comes to critiquing religion? I doubt it. I think the deeper reason is that the ambient culture is both materialist and consumerist and neither of those things predisposes one towards religion but rather away from it.From the Gen-Z suicide thread. Bringing it here to get the lounge's feedback, which are hopefully deeper than the generation is inherently weak, therefore nothing can be done to help them, therefore fuck 'em, therefore I am justified in fucking them over
Something that the topic made me think about was that Gen Z kids have a very different sense of humor compared to other generations. They really lean into Absurdist style humor. Your comment on Church made me think of Kierkegaard and Camus's takes on Absurdity, which admittedly I am only casually familiar with. People more familiar with them, please chime in and correct me.
Absurdism is roughly defined as a conflict occurring when people feel a need for their existence to have deeper meaning when the universe tells them existence is meaningless. When faced with the absurdity of trying to find meaning in a meaningless existence, the main resolutions are:
1. Escape existence (suicide)
2. Believe that meaning can be found in a realm beyond this existence (religion or spirituality)
3. Accept the absurdity (create your own self-fulfillment)
Given this kind of framework, the rise in suicide rates makes complete sense. Religion, while having benefits for community building, often falls apart under scientific scrutiny. Someone who cannot mentally close that gap for solution 2 will have to turn to 3. Next, if you look at the people trying to find their own fulfillment, they might see that the things that brought meaning to previous generations, like education, a career, attaining wealth, owning a home or having a family, are further out of reach compared to previous generations. The combination of an illusion of spirituality being harder to sustain with traditional self fulfillment milestones being out of reach mean that people are going to turn to other forms of community building with low barriers to entry, such as focus on online communities and/or political identities, or suicide unfortunately.
I'd love to hear people's thoughts.
And like you said young people are turning towards other forms of community building that have lower barriers to entry and those tend to reinforce the consumerist and materialist worldview that is already present in the culture around us. Of course high profile negative news stories about religious institutions and religious folks like the Catholic Church sex scandal and Islamist terrorism aren't helping either.