Quote Originally Posted by Beskar View Post
Sorry to burst your bubble, it might be in your Christian circles, but I know many churches who lack any "youth" and over the last decade or though, simply disappeared.

There was a church near us which had a massive youth segment, and we are talking about at least a 100 under-18s. A decade or so later, it has been reduced to 20-30ish, and it isn't because they are aging and going up in the church either, they have all left.

When I was at my Nephews baptism the other day, the priest spoke about how no one even does baptisms anymore, and said about a decade ago, 8 in 10 children were baptised, now it is 1 in 10.

Most of this isn't the raise of atheism and agnosticism though. It is the raise of apathy and "cannot be bothered".
I don't mean to re-hash what PVC said in reply to this, but he is right in saying that while established churches have declined, there has been significant growth in smaller, more fundamentalist, and I dare say extreme churches. A lot of local Baptist/Brethren churches near me are full of young people, in my moments of disdain with the Church of Scotland I often feel like joining them.

I think the failure of the established churches to offer anything is what has caused this polarisation, with people either turning agnostic, or turning to more fundemantalist churches. People don't grow up from a young age with the spiritual leadership of the church anymore. We don't have that 'innoculation' against religion anymore which Dawkins talked of, with the quaint old country vicar etc. Young people aren't exposed to their influence anymore by the old traditional upbringing of trailing along to church every Sunday followed by Sunday school after the service.

But people do seem to have some inherent affinity for religion, so when people look for it, they often end up with less appeasing/liberal/whatever sources than the old eccentric country vicar. When I converted, the first sources I turned to were the Protestant Reformers, eventually settling with Calvinism and reading many Puritan theologians. My other 'influences' come from my relatives in Northern Ireland, who send religious tracks entitled 'No Surrender' that would get me arrested if I tried to hand them out on the streets of Glasgow.

The same has happened in the Muslim community. I remember a documentary recently where second generation immigrants lack the strong religious network their parents had, so they turn to the more extreme forms of Islam like Wahhabism, because they never had a moderating influence when they converted. There's a phenomenon where people in their late teens do it but then their fanaticism wears off, they called it 'Salafist burnout' IIRC.