Nick is the technical guru behind USU SHAFT and responsible for keeping the website and e-mail list going so you can get your weekly fix of free thinking electronically.
Hey kids! Did you know that your Christian friend may in fact be a “mutant”? According to some Christian minister-turned-author, today’s teens are only embracing a watered-down Christianity where God is viewed as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem (gasp!) Obviously, this feel-goodery must be stopped!
Dean drew her conclusions from what she calls one of the most depressing summers of her life. She interviewed teens about their faith after helping conduct research for a controversial study called the National Study of Youth and Religion. [...] The study, which included in-depth interviews with at least 3,300 American teenagers between 13 and 17, found that most American teens who called themselves Christian were indifferent and inarticulate about their faith. The study included Christians of all stripes — from Catholics to Protestants of both conservative and liberal denominations. Though three out of four American teenagers claim to be Christian, fewer than half practice their faith, only half deem it important, and most can’t talk coherently about their beliefs, the study found. Many teenagers thought that God simply wanted them to feel good and do good [...]
[Most] teens who are articulate about their faith [...] come from Mormon and evangelical churches, which tend to do a better job of instilling religious passion in teens, she says.
What ever shall we do to stop this horrifying new generation of “imposter” Christians whose takeaway from church is a nebulous belief in a God that wants them to be nice people and feel better about themselves?
Just a quick technical update here: USU SHAFT is now using the FeedBurner service. This makes it very easy for you to subscribe to our blog in your favorite feed reader and stay up-to-date with USU SHAFT. If you’re not already subscribed to our feed or if you don’t know what a feed even is, now is a great time to add USU SHAFT to Google Reader (or any other feed reader). You can learn more about Google Reader and feed readers in general by watching the video below or by reading this page.
Also, if you want to follow the USU SHAFT blog but feed readers aren’t for you, we now offer a blog e-mail list as well! Just click on the “Blog Post Emails” link at the top of any page and you’ll receive a daily e-mail with the new posts from the USU SHAFT blog (note: the blog post e-mail list, which sends one message every day, is separate from our club events mailing list, which sends one message about every three weeks).
With an overwhelming majority of our posts being about religion, I think it is high time we break up the monotony and explore more of our club’s free thinking aspiration.
If you’re reading this blog, you probably have at least one online profile, be it at Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, LinkedIn, or any of the myriad social networking web sites. You’re probably also aware that the combination of Web 2.0, geopositioning technology (such as GPS, Wi-Fi location databases, and cell tower triangulation), and the explosive growth of mobile data networks has taken social networking and the location-aware web to new heights. Facebook lets you meet people and make friends with those in your same town. Many Twitter-based services show you if any of your friends are nearby and looking to catch a movie or go to dinner. Google Maps helps you get driving directions and public transit information based on your current location, and Google Latitude even e-mails you when people you know break out of their ordinary routine and are nearby (e.g., friends who have the night off, or family visiting from out of town). LinkedIn helps you get a job in your area through the power of word-of-mouth. There are countless useful applications for a location-aware web, but at what cost?
USU SHAFT will soon be starting a guest blogger series! Once a week, we’ll be posting an article written by a guest blogger on a variety of interesting topics.
We need your help! Do you know something interesting about science? Do you have something thoughtful to say about religion? Have you found or even conducted an interesting piece of research? Is there something that you’ve been wanting to get people thinking about? We’re looking for anyone interested in writing one or two short, thought-provoking blog posts for the usu-shaft.com site. If you are interested in writing something, please leave a comment and we will set you up with a guest account.
America has always been a religious country. But a recent study finds that might be changing; the percent of the country who considers themselves atheists is rising rapidly. While they still make up a minority in comparison to the major religions, the current trends indicate that we may not be one nation, under God, forever.
Hello SHAFTers! I’d like to thank everyone who came to the Mountain Meadows Massacre discussion on Friday. If you are interested in seeing the rest of the PBS documentary “The Mormons” or if you missed the discussion and want to watch the chapter on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, you can watch the entire program online thanks to miracle of the series of tubes.
We hope to see all of you tonight at SHAFT’s Opening Social!
Hey everybody! Summer is almost over and school will be starting in less than two weeks! Can you believe it? I hope you all had a great summer doing… summery things. In the meantime, USU SHAFT finally has a real web site. Legit! We’ve got some great things planned for the coming year, so make sure you join the e-mail list and come back to our site again soon.
In the meantime, there is a Humanists of Utah BBQ happening TONIGHT at 6 pm in Salt Lake City. This BBQ will be co-hosted by SHIFT, our sister group at the University of Utah. If you’re around or interested, please try to attend. It’s important to support and socialize with fellow secular humanists across Utah. And why pass up free food and fun, anyway? See the complete event details on Facebook.
Once a week, we’ll be posting an article written by a guest blogger on a variety of interesting topics.