By Celina DeCastro
A news report in Jamaica shortly after the recent Easter celebration drew attention to the fact that young people do not have the same views of Easter as their parents. The findings of that report was accurate as religion has little or no appeal to millennials.
The Pew Research Center, has found that fewer millennials are less likely to affiliate with any religious tradition or identify themselves as part of a Christian denomination.
One in four adults under the age of 30 consider themselves atheist, agnostic, or have no religion, the center stated.
While some believe that the higher power no longer exists to them, others believe that the label of religion keeps us from understanding each other.
South Florida Ryan Nisman, 22-year-old of Puerto Rican descent, who recognizes himself as agnostic, feels that religious labels cause prejudice and hate towards other religious groups.
“Why hate someone because they choose to call your god by another name?” Nisman said.
Agnostics feel God’s existence cannot be neither proven or unproven. They subscribe to the notion that it is impossible to know if God exists.
While some argue the existence of God or a higher power and are avid church goers, some millennials also believe in a higher power but choose not to join a church.
Leila Gonzalez, 35-year-old of Palestinian and Columbian descent, was raised in the Catholic church but left after finding faults with the church.
“My religious base means having more of a relationship with God rather than having to follow the man-made rules and laws we were taught in Catholic school,” Gonzalez said.
Other millennials feel the church also does not agree with the lifestyle they have chosen.
“I’m not waking up before 10 on a Sunday morning to go to a place to be told that I’m going to hell because I would prefer to marry a woman,” 18-year-old Panamanian-American Hailey Crosthwaite said.
One millennial who did not want to be named felt that God was not working in his favor.
“When I was a kid I went through a lot and somewhere throughout the challenges, I started praying to God, but nothing worked. I kept on praying and praying and then one day I just stopped and took in the pain from my challenges. I just stopped believing in God,” he said.
Millennials although they do not follow a religion all seemed more in tuned with their own spirituality. Most will march for the causes they believe in, help the poor and those in need, donate, but chose not to be defied because they do not follow mainstream religions.
