Yet Ben Shapiro, in his July 21, 2023 podcast, said he thinks it goes deeper that than. He said he believe that the rise in loneliness in our country is "directly" correlated with a decline with religion in our country. And the statistics back me him on this. Let's discuss.
Consider the following statistics that Ben gave. These are according to Gallop:
- A decline of 6-7 percentage points in people who believe in God, Angels, Heaven, the devil, and hell.
- Currently, only 70% believe in God, a notable decrease from 90% reported in 2001.
- 80% of Republicans believe in the four entities of God, Heaven, Angels, hell, and the devil
- 56-66% of Democrats believe in the four entities of God, Heaven, Angels, hell, and the devil
- Less than half of Democrats believe in heaven and hell.
- 87% of Republicans believe in God
- 66% of Democrats believe in God
- 79% of Republicans believe in hell
- 48% of Democrats believe in hell
I'm going to try to paraphrase Ben here. Ben has a tendency to use big words. So my goal, as always, is to make the complex understandable.
As you can see, these poll results show a strong drop the number of people who believe in the five entities of religion: God, Heaven, Angels, devil, and hell. Likewise, this drop shows a strong correlation with political affiliation. And this makes sense as more and more people in our modern world (particularly those who lean democrat) are hesitant to accept the notion of actual punishment for wrongdoing, including the concept of sin.
In church you have a higher goal. And that goal is to be the best person you can be in this life so that you can get to the next life. You also have a conscience about doing what is right and not doing what is harmful to others under the fear of being punished in the afterlife.
With no fear of being punished in the afterlife, this leads to the perception that one has greater freedom in this life to engage in hedonistic behaviors. Worded another way, without the need to worry about hell, this opens the door for you to do whatever you want so long as it makes you happy.
So what does this have to do with loneliness? Well, those who claim to be non-religious do not go to Church. And the decline in Church attendance is directly linked to the increase in loneliness. This is because Churches are places where people gather to meet like minded people; people with similar beliefs. You meet people you can easily connect with and this fosters friendships that can last a lifetime. And this gives you a feeling of safely and a feeling of involvement. And it ensures that your children have peers to interact with and play alongside.
In a Church and religious setting, you and your peers judge one another. And the adults judge the children. And this assures that everyone in the Church community grow up with similar values and beliefs. And this is what makes religion so valuable. Even the most ancient civilizations realized this without even doing a single study on the matter. Yet, in our modern world, many studies have been done. And nearly every single one of them shows that upwards of 80% of people who identify with a Church are more likely to be good and productive members of society.
So, now let's remove religion from this equation. Let's remove Church from this equation. When you do this you end up with people who are lonely. And they have no place to go to meet like minded people. And when you get lonely you get depressed. And some people love this because the Church comes with strings. They believe that community is just a bunch of people sitting around not judging each other. And this is what lead to cancel culture, where we cancel people who judge others.
Religion requires that you have a personal investment in the Church. This personal investment is a sacrifice you make to be a part of the Church. And this personal investment means that you have a vital interest in the success of the Church. And this means that being a member of that Church comes with personal restrictions: things you cannot do or things you should not do. For instance, the Catholic Church says that you cannot have premarital sex; you cannot have abortions; you cannot get divorced.
And some in our society do not want people to have personal investments. they do not want you to feel like you have limits to what you can do. They do not want you to feel a sense of guilt if you don't do what the Church requires. They believe personal investment in the Church is a direct imposition on your self identity. It prevents you from doing what you really want to do to feel happy.
What you end up with is people who are isolated and alone. They are not participating in Church. They are not hanging out in Clubs such as the Eagles and Knights of Columbus. These clubs are going away and it's because of loss of community and increase in individualism.
And you end up with loneliness. You end up with a rise in mental health issues and depression. And exacerbating this social media. Today you have kids isolated at home and their only connection with the outside world other than school is Facebook. So you end up with a bunch of lonely kids with no investment in Church. And some of these kids get lost in the system. And from this you end up with chaos. You get kids who are depressed. And you have a rise in suicides and school shootings. And then the media is shocked about this. They can't figure it out.
I'll conclude with this: Us respiratory therapists face the repercussions of this chaos as we work tirelessly to save individuals who attempt to end their lives and those who become victims of shootings and other crimes.
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