Posted: 06/19/2010 at 7:52am | IP Logged

Some of America's founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson, are believed to have been Deists. A new study says there is a strong wave of Deism among teenagers today, although it doesn't seem to be as well thought-out as Jefferson's beliefs.

The Rise of the New Deism Among Teens

by Albert Moehler, The Christian Post

CHAPEL HILL, NC - When Christian Smith and his fellow researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took a close look at the religious beliefs held by American teenagers, they found that the faith held and described by most adolescents came down to something the researchers identified as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism."

As described by Smith and his team, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these:

·         A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.

·         God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions."

·         The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

·         God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

·         Good people go to heaven when they die.

That, in sum, is the creed to which much adolescent faith can be reduced. After conducting more than 3,000 interviews with American adolescents, the researchers reported that, when it came to the most crucial questions of faith and beliefs, many adolescents responded with a shrug and "whatever."

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