spoke-, I do not believe that isolation lead to increase Amounts of religion, but the other way around. In my opinion, the need to convert other, in religion is due to a psychologically need for others to agree with one’s self. When a person can not find such solace in the company of others, they will tend towards staying away from “Those godless humanists”, so as not to be exposed to other points of view. If religion is one the way down in your neck of the woods, however, IMHO, is due to exactly what you have said, which is that the outside world has a certain influence. Personally, I believe this is a good thing.
And… even though I’m not that old, I can recall many people going to church when I was younger (1970s and 80s) and it was not the focus of their lives. Even my grandparents, who were pretty devout, were reasonable, secular people for 6 out of 7 days of the week. Their lives did not revolve around their church, not even in their late seventies.
Nowadays, it seems like the people that profess to attend church are very outspokenly religious, and that their church is the focus of their lives- their friends are church friends, their social events are with church people, they transact business with “Christian” organizations (only if they can’t do it with fellow parishioners), they listen to religious music, etc…
I actually had someone argue with me that the mere presence of someone at church is reason enough to be friends with them and hang out with them outside of church.
I choose my friends a bit more carefully than that.
True, but according to the generational-cycles theory of William Howe and Neill Strauss, we’ve already had a spiritual Awakening within the lifetimes of most Dopers: The 1960s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Strauss Only in that case, the content of the Awakening was not definitely Christian and in some respects anti-Christian – which might be a foreboding of things to some.
Nobody has an opinion or information on the generational aspect? (See post #74.)