Not religious doesn't necessarily mean atheist

[John V]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-mi...2017-10-20

Why millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology

[Silver]

From my perspective, ditching one irrational belief system for another is not conducive to rational thought or critical thinking processes, meaning that witchcraft is no more representative of reality than christianity.

[brewer]

Apparently religious does not necessarily mean religious.

[The Grand Nudger]

That a person believes in astrology doesn't tell us anything about their god beliefs, if any.  The posted content has little to do with the OP conjecture.  A more illustrative example would be irreligious cultural christians who believe in a god, but not necessarily the god of magic book or their daddy's church. You know the type...buddy jesus believers. A group heavily influenced by new age spirituality.

[Harry Nevis]

From my perspective, ditching one irrational belief system for another is not conducive to rational thought or critical thinking processes, meaning that witchcraft is no more representative of reality than christianity.

But there is much more evidence for witches then for Jesus.

[Minimalist]

Your childish beliefs are not important.  What is important is that people are leaving established churches and thereby diluting their political power.

It's no skin off my nose if you believe a dead jew came back to life for your sins and flew up to fucking heaven.  What does matter is when some holy joe uses the membership numbers of his church to push for legislation on social issues which would set the country back to the fucking 6th century.

[FatAndFaithless]

Not sure why you would call astrology or healing crystals or witchcraft as anything to do with atheism/religion. And it's not hugely surprising, since the more unstructured nature of the woo-pseudosciences is way less structured than most religions.

Astrology has been debunked by numerous academic studies, but Banu Guler... said the lack of structure in the field is exactly what drives young, educated professionals to invest their time and money in the practice.

Bolded mine, and I think he's right. Young people seem to be less willing to be put into a structure or system simply because they're told to (I know I am). However, the second half of his statement is not supported by the very study the article points to (or rather, the article it points to which points to the study, since people can't be arsed to link to the actual fucking study anymore).

Not surprisingly, those with less science education and less "factual knowledge" have become increasingly willing to accept astrology as legitimate science, with 65 percent of such individuals considering the pseudo-science credible in 2012, up from 48 percent in 2010.

Of course more young people will be less educated...because they're young. Just irks me that this woo-slinging asshat in the article (and most woo-slinging asshats) always inevitably try to use education as a factor in their favor, when it is so obviously the other way around.

By the way, here's the actual study that both articles refer to but only one of which provides the link. https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/i...-7/c7h.htm

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Erm...witchcraft IS a religious belief. 

Boru

[Aegon]

The girl I'm seeing is into astrology. It's my fault; ever since I've become invested in Eastern philosophy I knew I would attract them.

[The Grand Nudger]

Erm...witchcraft IS a religious belief. 

Boru

It's not, actually.  I think that people sometimes confuse it for a religious belief because it very often inhabits the mind of a person with religious beliefs.

---

The girl I'm seeing is into astrology. It's my fault; ever since I've become invested in Eastern philosophy I knew I would attract them.

Made your bed and now they lie in it, eh? 

(I do something similar...I surround myself with neo-pagan iconography to signal that I dig people who dig plants, for you it's a consequence..for me it's intentional, lol)