Study: Education liberalizes religious views

[Ahimsa]

Each year of education ups the odds by 15% that people will say there’s “truth in more than one religion,” says University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Philip Schwadel in an article for the Review of Religious Research. Schwadel, an associate professor of sociology, looked at 1,800 U.S. adults’ reported religious beliefs and practices and their education.

People change their perspective because, as people move through high school and college, they acquire an ever-wider range of friendships, including people with different beliefs than their own, Schwadel says. “People don’t want to say their friends are going to hell,” he says.

For each additional year of education beyond seventh grade, Americans are:

•15% more likely to have attended religious services in the past week.
…
•13% more likely to switch to a mainline Protestant denomination that is “less strict, less likely to impose rules of behavior on your daily life” than their childhood religion.

 

[Sufjon]

Ahimsa:
Makes sense.

Your friend,
Sufjon

 

[Young_Thinker]

13% more likely to switch to a mainline Protestant denomination that is “less strict, less likely to impose rules of behavior on your daily life” than their childhood religion.

It is obvious that many people still think that they really can have their cake and eat it, too (that is such a weird saying!). However, I find a little odd that the percentage of young people attend church regularly would actually increase by age.

 

[St_Francis]

And to think there was once a time when education led us ever closer to the Truth…

 

[FabiusMaximus]

Ahimsa:
That’s because the American educational system is biased towards liberalism.

Me, I become more conservative and convinced of only one truth every single day.

 

[Oldtimer_7]

Thanks for sharing that bit of good news!

 

[exnihilo]

I completely agree that there is ‘truth in more than one religion’. But where and what that truth is in any religion is vitally important. The problem as I see it is people mistake thinking the possibility of truth being in many places means there is not more truth in one religion. I could just as well say there is truth in more than one person. But any reasonable person should know that there are more and less truthful people.