Right now on NPR, Tom Ashbrook is speaking with Christian Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Notre Dame, and Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, about the moral and religious sources available to, and taken up by, today’s youth:
If you’re twenty-something, you know it. If you’re not, think about it: It takes some courage to be stepping into the world right now. Scarce jobs. School loans. War and terror and the climate itself in trouble.
What’s the rock, the hope, the inspiration you cling to? For some it’s God. For some it’s not.
Today’s twenty-something Americans grew up in a time of religious fundamentalist ascendancy and atheist pushback, evangelical power politics and the anti-religion rebukes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
Now they’re making their own decisions, their own way, on the moral life, the spiritual life.
Two guests today. One, from Notre Dame, has polled thousands of young Americans on their spiritual and religious lives now. One, from Harvard, says humanism is the way—be “good without God.”
This hour, On Point: Looking for goodness, for grounding, for God. We’re looking at young America’s search for meaning.
For a live stream of the broadcast, click here.
Late update: In case you missed it, the audio of this discussion will be posted here at 3 this afternoon.