Religion, Morality and 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.
You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.Guests:

Joining us from South Bend, Indiana, is Christian Smith, professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. He's co-principal investigator in the National Study of Youth and Religion, a longitudinal study started in 2001. His previous findings were published in "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers." His new book is "Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults."
Read an excerpt from "Souls in Transition."

With us from New York is Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University. His new book is "Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe."
Read an excerpt from "Good Without God."