The Evidence for the Invisible Man: not Convincing to young people (or to me)

Ok, this is heartbreaking to me because I love frogs and toads. But this is nature; sorry but I fail to see evidence for intelligent design here. I see the result of a blind, heartless process.

Or

It is no secret that young people are not flocking to the church:

And the Barna group carried out a five-year project to determine why so many young people are leaving Christian churces. The preceding link gives the results:

Overall, the research uncovered six significant themes why nearly three out of every five young Christians (59%) disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15.

Five of the reasons involve the church being overprotective, affording young people only a “shallow” Christian experience, being too simplistic and judgmental in sexual matters, being intolerant of other faiths, and being unfriendly to doubters. These are all good reasons to abandon faith completely, and bode well for secularism. But the most interesting reason is this one:

Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science.
One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity and science. The most common of the perceptions in this arena is “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” (35%). Three out of ten young adults with a Christian background feel that “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%). Another one-quarter embrace the perception that “Christianity is anti-science” (25%). And nearly the same proportion (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.” Furthermore, the research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.

Frankly, that is fact: when religion speaks on “truth” as in “things are this way for this reason”: they are flat out wrong. Religion can be useful to some for private reasons (inspiration, solace) and, as my wife likes to say, “it is one of the few places where you are challenged to live a better life”. But the “theology” behind the comforting, inspiring (to some) myths is just plain wrong.

Of course, this generational divide is lamented in some quarters (note: this article is mostly about the political divide):

Today, the split between young Americans, their parents and grandparents is as glaring as the difference between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. It extends to their votes but has its roots in racial, economic, religious and demographic differences.[...]

The differences at this year’s Thanksgiving tables will be obvious from the start. According to a recent Gallup poll, older Americans are much more likely than younger folks to say a prayer to begin their Thanksgiving dinner.

The poll found 73 percent of Republicans saying religion is important to their daily lives. That’s much higher than the 59 percent of Democrats who make the same claim. Similarly, 40 percent of Republicans say they go to church once a week, compared to only 27 percent of Democrats.

Now what about that power of “god”? Well…Jerry Coyne shares a cartoon with us:

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