What do you mean by “children?”

It has changed a lot since I was little. I always had “faith-full” friends but there was a time and a place. It seemed that there was more respect for people of different faiths or no faith and you just didn’t bring up religion in some situations.
I noticed the change when I was a teenager in the ‘70’s.
There was a conservative seminar called Basic Yourh Conflicts” that packed the college basketball stadium and we were watching it on video!
At the time it gave me concrete answers that my liberal faith avoided. I shudder when I realize how I drank the conservative cool-aide.
Also, there was the rise of the Moral Majority and Focus in The Family.
All these organizations were telling people that we needed to use our boice as Christians to effect change.
Ever since then, it has gotten louder and louder and meaner and meaner.
I DO ask for prayer sometimes on Facebook but I qualify it with only asking my faith friends (out of respect for my athiest friends.)
I don’t know what I would do today if religion had not evolved the way it did over the last 40 years. I know I would still have a deep faith but I’m not sure if I would be as vocal about it.
I am driven a lot by a desire to reclaim my faith from the political right who has so twisted Jesus’ message that I doubt he would recognize it.

@livelaughlove21 K-12.

@Judi Very interesting. I was born in ‘68 just to use a reference point.

@JLeslie , I think a lot changed in those 7 years between you and me! I was born in 61.

@Judi Where I grew up it was so diverse I think it was much less likely to be affected. Also, my closest friends were Catholic, and I don’t see the Catholics doing it so much back then or now. You made me remember the article I referenced in a recent Q about gay marriage. It actually touched on what I think you are talking about in the second half of the article.

I DID read that article. Christianity today used to be pretty balanced. They even had articles advocating the right to an abortion in the early 70’s. With the marriage to the republican party they went a little wacko. Looks like the pendulum may be swinging back around.

On another note, how did I just get the feeding frenzy award??

It’s the height of hypocrisy & fundamental bullshit to change your belief system, basically when it suits you.
Same as when folks get married & have their kids christened in church, probably the only time they go anywhere near the place.

@ucme I don’t see it as necessarily hypocritical to marry in the church and have your baby christened, and at the same time pretty much never go to church otherwise. Those things are rituals and traditions, and traditions can be a good thing. What I do find hypocritical is preaching to others how they should live, and not living up to it oneself.

Rituals & traditions steeped in bullshit, i’m one of the “guilty” ones too, it is what it is.

Here, people talk about God from a young age. The college years are a different story.

No.

You are not alone @JLeslie!

I was brought up in a very religious family with several ministers among my Uncles. Everything was related to God and prayers.

@Judi Thanks for that link. I blame Clinton partly. His Monica escapades helped usher in Bush on his “family values” sell.

Reformed Judaism is being part of a religion and not being fervently religious. Also, Jewish people are basically raised that we just want to be left alone, and you can believe whatever you want. America is a perfect fit for the Jewish people in that regard. At least it was back in the day before all this America is a Christian nation hooplah. Funny, my dad used to say years ago that he was glad America had a majority of Christians. He felt America being built on religious freedom was such an important amazing thing, and he did credit Christians for being the predominant religion in America and that they overall were committed to that idea. He, even though he is an atheist, felt strongly American Christians protected religious freedom, which was much more important to him than trying to force an atheist state. Now, he just thinks too many Christians have gone ‘round the bend and forgotten what America is.

Like the author I guess I feel very aware of the change, since she is Jewish also. You may remember my dad was a Republican for 40 years, and finally near the end of the Bush years he converted to the Democrats. He couldn’t stand the religious right in the Republican party anymore.

No, even though I went to Catholic school. We never talked about religion. There was way too much to do. All I remember talking about was baseball or football—and that was mostly about setting up a game—or where we were going to go exploring next. I think we talked about each other, who was a better ballplayer for the team or who was lousy, or who was a good guy to go camping, or fishing, or rabbit hunting with. We played a lot of war with a network of forts and BB guns. Not a lot of talking involved in that after the rules of engagement were settled. We went horseback riding and swimming. I remember a lot more doing than talking. We bonded by doing, not by talking. I think, if it was an issue at all, it was considered a private one, maybe something you discussed with your parents. School was school and everything else was everything else. We compartmentalized it all, just like people do with their business vs. social lives. Never really gave this much thought. With us, if a kid had brought up God or prayer, I think we would have just change the subject or, if he persisted, I think we would have wandered away from him—just like I do these days. Boring and nobody else’s business. But I don’t remember this ever coming up or being discussed outside of a few arguments about who was going to serve as altar boy at some funeral mass or something. Nothing religious at all.

These days, in the Caribbean, I would say the less educated take a more fundamentalist view and it plays a large part in the lives of that social stratum, just like back in Florida. They are more evangelical (among their own countrymen) and more demonstrative about it. Invariably, these are adherents of a protestant branch of Christianity. I don’t see a lot of evangelism among the Catholics in the islands or at home. Maybe they are more secure in their faith? I’ve never had a Jew buttonhole me and excitedly ask if I’d ever heard of Abraham or Moses, either.

I don’t know any of the guys that I hung out with in those days, so I can’t say if they talk more about religion today. I know I hear a lot of it among the nurses and doctors I work with in Florida. Not so much in Northern California, or during my short time in Haiti. I chose the group that I went to post-earthquake Haiti with specifically because they were not a faith-based group. Partners In Health, out of Boston. Excuse the plug, but they are really Good People.

People in the educated classes here are quieter, more candid about their religion, if they have any at all. It is rarely an issue in the educated class here. Unlike in Florida where nearly every politician must quote a biblical phrase nearly every time they are in public—and in that horrible accent with inflections reserved, in my mind, for the most ignorant jackboot preachers and their flock. And these preachers are rampant. Fire and brimstone, brother. No thanks. If I need the information, it is available to me everywhere. Even in the seediest motel rooms.

I believe most children do not talk like that. I never did.

I was raised to believe in God and for the most part prayed in my room behind closed doors. As I grew into my teenage years I shunned God and decided to search for other ideas which led me to a lot of bad places. Only as an adult have I realized my faith and now I am more confident to talk about God.

Children, IMHO will usually keep quiet because they know being bullied in school because of your skin color or choice of sexual orientation isn’t fun let alone being bullied about your faith and children are not always fair when it comes to equality in the schoolyard, and I think children are smart enough to know that. I saw a study that showed that even straight from infancy children can sense the difference between good and bad intentions. I wish I had the study to quote. But anyway, that’s why I think most children won’t say much, that and lack of knowledge or confidence.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and I don’t recall any of my schoolmates discussing religion other than the Jehovah’s Witness that I would have religious debates with in 1st Grade. I had friends whose families were Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and there were kids of Asian descent whom I never knew what religion they might practice, because we never discussed it. We also didn’t really discuss politics, either.

So now when I see these people posting on FB things that are religious or republican, I wonder where the heck that came from.

@hearkat Your experience is very similar to mine then.

The quick answer: as kids, we blame other people – our parents, our siblings, the bully next door—tangible people that we knew. Our problems/shortcomings were easily blamable on someone else.

As adults, we learned that we couldn’t get away with blaming other people – they would get pissed off. So we evolved into blaming god, because (a) his existence is unproveable, and (b) he can’t fight back if you blame him unfairly.

I find people in general use God in language as they get older. Probably because when we are young, religion demands some behavioral restraint. As we get older and we got all that stuff out of our system, so the only thing that remains is dying. So lo and behold, Christ is born again. LOL Or we find ourselves close to the end of the road and feel resentful and want to hold someone accountable for our crappy life. So Christ is born again but we want him buried.

This is why religion will never die. Fear of death or hatred will make a believer out of most. When you are young, you fear your parents most. Their rules get inforced at the end of a belt. The father in heaven seems to keep out things. Like most young people, they figure they will deal with that dad some other time. Right now, deciding to have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend is more urgent.

So no. I am not surprised that older people talk more about God than when we were younger.

As for facebook, I think people simply feel safer about mentioning God on their facebook because there is safety in numbers and of course there are those who mention God every 5 seconds and find no harm in breaking most of the commandments. They feel if they mention God that it automatically makes them a good person. At least in the eyes of their friends or the world.

I know this one Guy who has Christ on the cross tatooed on his arm and he would beat his wife and threaten to kill her and drank too much. But if you ask him about his tat, he says he loves God. He couldn’t find God if he was at the bottom of his beer bottle.
Point is, for some it is simply a kind of fad with no meaning.

I tend to agree slightly with @Pandora, but perhaps for a different reason.

As a child, I loved church and bible stories and all my friends, but when it came to a real ‘relationship’ with God, it didn’t start until I was 16–17 yrs old. I toyed with the idea of a nunnery, converted to Catholicism and took it all very seriously.

For me, it seems like part of our maturing process, learning what to take seriously and what not to take seriously. At that age, I had some real choices to make and I made a lot of wrong choices that I knew were against God’s will, and I truly believe it saved my life quite literally, knowing and adhering to those boundaries.

And I am not afraid of death in any way, shape or form.

@elbanditoroso Most people I know who are devout believers in God don’t “blame” him for much of anything bad that happens.

@Pandora @KNOWITALL Interesting answers. Actually, your answers along with @elbanditoroso‘s kind of goes with what I have said in the past when people just can’t understand how atheists can have any morals or be good citizens (I don’t mean that any of you have said such a thing). I always say children don’t behave because of some concept in God, they behave because of their parents expectations, reinforcement, and societies expectations. But, back to the actual main question at hand, I think all the God talk, blessings and prayer, have at least something to do with it being more commonplace or trending. Like adopting any common saying in every day talk. In some parts of the country it is much more commonplace. @knowitall has talked about witnessing in other q’s and I think that is the same thing as what I am talking about. I would guess teens who are starting to get into the recruiting mode use the language more? I don’t know for sure. To be clear I am not trying to say all Christians are out trying to convert people, but I do know some teens do it. My niece has been invited to more than one Christian something or other by classmates. Really annoys my SIL, it would me too.

I also think children are shielded from bad things to some extent, so they don’t have to ask for prayers for their friends and parents like adults.

Still, I find it very odd, especially having grown up similar to how @hearkat describes, to see my friends from schoolage writing it. My friends in the bible belt, it doesn’t surprise me at all, but it does make me uncomfortable. Less so know that I am more used to it. I don’t know if those bible belt kids are saying those things regularly also, because I was not around many children, and of course I am not facebook friends with many young children. Not any young children, except for a few teens who are either relatives or children of very dear friends.

@JLeslie In my area, going to church is like joining a club of cool kids because a lot of those families have money, are ‘good’ upstanding folks with good jobs (business owners, etc…)

One guy I know was completely shocked when his 13 yr old boy started taking a bus to church every Sunday and Wednesday, because he wanted to go. And my friend is not into religion at all, but he said he let him go.

As far as witnessing, it is a primary directive in most religions from what I understand but it’s a personal choice if you want to actively recruit door-to-door or one-on-one, etc… With the church tithes and attendence dropping we may start seeing more and more.

I am pretty secular, believe it or not, and since I don’t attend church anymore, you wouldn’t know I was a Christian unless you knew me. I truly believe how we act in our daily lives is the best witness for Christ, being kind and loving. I know a lot of people who are not Christians that are very nice, loving people as well.

@KNOWITALL I don’t judge how religious a person is by whether they use religious words all the time or not.

@JLeslie A lot of people do here, to show everyone how ‘good’ and ‘perfect’ they are. I’d love to hear what you think after a nice little visit here…lol

@KNOWITALL I would think it is similar to some of what I experienced in TN and NC.

At Japan 99.54% of population not believe of God. Kami no Michi (a.k.a. Shinto) and Buddhism main religions. My parents and friends not strongly religious. Now have more atheist friends.