So Much for the Religious Impulse

From Britain comes a report sure to have all the "Everybody needs religion" types choking on their breakfasts. It turns out that most people can live satisfying lives without yearning for solace in the supernatural.

THE Church of England has debunked the widely held view that young people are spiritual seekers on a journey to find transcendent truths to fill the “God-shaped hole” within them.

A report published by the Church today indicates that young people are quite happy with a life without God and prefer car boot sales to church.

[...]

The authors began their work believing that even if the young had little knowledge of Christianity they would still have religious or spiritual yearnings. They were shocked to find that they did not.

[...]

Nevertheless, young people do not feel disenchanted, lost or alienated in a meaningless world. “Instead, the data indicated that they found meaning and significance in the reality of everyday life, which the popular arts helped them to understand and imbibe.” Their creed could be defined as: “This world, and all life in it, is meaningful as it is,” translated as: “There is no need to posit ultimate significance elsewhere beyond the immediate experience of everyday life.” The goal in life of young people was happiness achieved primarily through the family.

The researchers were also shocked to discover little sense of sin or fear of death. Nor did they find any Freudian guilt as a result of private sensual desires.

Britain's youth seem to be doing just fine without peddlers of superstition drumming guilt and fear into them, and the world would be a far better place than it currently is if the youth of other nations held the same attitude towards life. A person who needs an imaginary friend in the sky to validate his or her existence is to be pitied, not admired.