The Atlantic

Why Educated Christians Are Sticking With Church

New data suggests religious Americans with college experience tend to participate in services more often than their peers.
Source: John Gress / Reuters

The idea is peppered through the writings of scholars, great thinkers, and New Atheist-types: Education is the cure for religion. Freud wrote that civilization “has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers” who have rejected religion. And “if religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason,” maintained Christopher Hitchens, “we would be living in a quite different world.”

New data from the Pew Research Center doesn’t disprove these claims, but it does challenge them. While Americans with college experience are overall

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