40%
| L6ZXO4: Avertizing? Yes, Harvest seems to do a special effort to advertise, getting radio stations & even-non-religious newspapers (as OC Register) to list their event on the front page, and it markets ahead via a SWAT Teams. And, probably most significant of all, evangelitic Christianity has no hesitation in in saying it's a good way to go (to put it mildly!), in contrast to UUs who will often (MIS-)think of evangelising a dirty activity; indeed UU does a crappy job of advertising. But still, today we've got world-wide-web and UU is on it, so if literally anybody with a cool enough concept or creation can get known world-wide within days ("it goes viral" as they say), so that still seemingly wouldn't explain the 1 to 3333 ratio!
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40%
| L7408L: Making young adult involvement a priority. Yes. Else the religion doesn't provide a lifelong solution.
- The huge Harvest Crusade was specifically designed to attract young adults, and fills Anaheim Stadium with mostly young adults; UU has nothing remotely comparable, indeed “4 of 5 UU congregations in Orange & LA Counties not only lack a young adult program, they have virtually no young adults”. Indeed the best thing UU has got going for it as far as young adults is my group UU* YOUNG ADULTS! International and recently (2010.06-08) UU leadership support for this has been a disgrace as "Expect pioneers to have Enemies" hints of. But this just shows dramatically different priority placed on young adults, so...
- L74182: What explains why young adult involvement really helps the faith?
- L7418G: Well one indicator is the success of the faith; if Christianity is 3333x more popular than UU, and is many times more emphasis as far as young adult involvement, then it it is not proof but a reasonably that is a factor, and I believe it is, which will I will attempt to explain below.
- L741C1:Immediate motivators/dissuaders.
- L741IU: Now in both faiths (and in most all faiths) the young adults are the hardest to recruit (now finally out from under their their parents influence and wanting to go on their own way) and young adults seemingly would bring the least immediate support tot he faith (have the least money & time, often don't yet have kids to train; only if we need them to fight religious wars (as Taliban) are young adults really valuable and that-thankfully is the exception!).
- L741LH: However for Christians (and other faiths that feel they are the only answer, or by far the best), keeping the young adults involved has the obvious result of marriage within the faith, keeping the faith strong & pure.
- L741LY: Interestingly, for UU, they probably more prefer the opposite, for instance the Catholic who has married a Jew for instance, as they provide a home to these mixed faith marriages, and the mixed faith encourages more open-minded thinking align with UU views (several paths to truth); so UU might say "Go out and marry someone of a different faith, it will then make it more obvious why UU makes sense, and likely then we will be your own only home." --yes, this would seem true, but also in letting up on that young adult's involvement (when they can finally get away, they do) may keep them away forever: probably even more likely is the young adult gets disillusioned with religion in general; indeed, in a mixed marriage they may discover "both religions were wrong (that each is THE path), so scratch religion all together. Or else just get caught up in some other more conservative religion which obviously doesn't care to let their young adults to just casually walk away, so they seems to really care that, yes, this is a lifetime solution.
- L7423H: UU's may have an additional drive: recruiting & keeping young adults is the hardest job of all, and UUs are typically paranoid of being pushy. Indeed, UU is all about finding one finding ones own spiritual path ("free & responsible search for truth in & reason"). Indeed UUs teach kids all the major religions and say "You don't have to pick UU". While I can see logic in the latter, UU's paranoia of being pushy is understandable given UUs origins but still disgusting & sad, and here provides another why UU would loose young adults to others religions who at least show they have the guts to speak with strength, or to loose young adults to non-religion.
- But while conservative religions may be strongly involving young adults for selfish reasons (as keeping their faith strong & pure, thru say marriage), and UU is neglecting involving young adults for altruistic reasons (not telling young adults (or anyone) what to believe), reasons seem less important than the result:
- L742DM:Conservative religions involve the young adult, sometimes big time, indeed even though the young adult is the hardest to involve. In the end, this shows to the young adult that they are cared for by the religion, and that the religion indeed is a life-long solution. Whereas UU, for whatever reason (good or bad, whatever), UU principly doesn't bother really involving young adults (typically beyond lip-service that "it would be nice, but not if it takes more than 5 minutes to talk about it"), which then naturally this shows the young adult (as it did for me) that they are NOT supported here (by UU), and that this thing really isn't a lifetime solution. So will they be coming back? Well I certainly wouldn't. The only reason one would come back is because they really had no other truly scientific alternative (as is the case), not because they're coming to something with a life-long solution as they aren't: unlike most other religions, UU doesn't effectively have young adults!
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| L6ZXM8: Supernatural & other unscientific promises? Yes. Yes, UU for the agnostics (and generously say 50% of Buddhism (minus it's Karma)) seem to be only religion(s) to be scientifically accurate (by simply not stating things as supernatural where we don't have solid scientific basis), and while this has been very key to me and probably to most any full scientist, it seemingly isn't enough to explain a 1 to 3333 ratio, because- L70964: most every modern educated person knows of science and knows we really don't have scientific proof of the supernatural, yet still only 13% are religiously purely scientific (choose religion without the supernatural (UU for agnostics or only Buddhism minus it's Karma) or just are non-religious (~6%)), which means the vast majority (~87% of people) choose religion with supernatural even though many/most know that supernatural is not scientific.
- L70718: Spreadsheet of major world religions - where these calcs are from.
- L743QQ: Harvest makes these feel-good but absolutely non-scientific promises:
- L74387: From Christianity, you'll get....
- L743EL: paradise after death if you comply (Heaven), pergatory if you don't (Hell). Removal of the fear of death if you just comply.
- L743EU: someone who is all powerful who always (is there for you, loves you, looks out for you, wants the the best for you): God/Jesus.
- L743NE: a seemingly-easy way to be forgiven for all your sins, not matter how bad
- L74440: total assurance that all injustice will be set right eventually.
- L743H3: And from evangelical Christianity, you'll also get...
- L743TI: a religion which is not just a good solution, not just the best solution, but the only solution.
- "knowing" that our holly book (the Bible), taken literally, is 100% true.
- L74461: "knowing" that at least our holly book (the Bible) has clear answers.
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