The rise of US youth street gangs can also be attributed to unmet emotional needs; another interesting parallel is the gangs' greed for wealth, power, etc.

@MizJ I agree.

@Betty Perhaps the next question should be what society needs to do to support the next generation. I am not naive enough to believe that in a country where banning Maus happens that anything will be done of course.

@MizJ Maybe a good start would be to become aware of the neighbors around us and offer emotional support, possibly by providing an unjudgmental ear.

@Betty There's an African saying, "It takes a village to raise a child". In the grocery store recently a child was standing in the cart and I said, "Please sit down, it's really easy to fall out of there". My words were met with stony stares from both mother and child. It almost feels as if society is broken. I'm not all that fond of kids but the spawn of my friends all know that they can show up at my door anytime for any reason.

@MizJ Defensiveness and distrust is plentiful. This divides communities. It's going to take a lot of time, patience, and understanding to make a difference. First, people have to be willing to a least try.

@Betty Others will do whatever, as individuals we can make choices that make a difference.

@MizJ I agree.

That's not the only option.

@skado What is the other option?

@xenoview
The "invisible man" is religious literalism. Another option is religious figuratism. The man is a personification of an abstraction - not an actual person.

@skado Religious literalism is why some people claim they would die for this crap. They believe their god stuff literally. In other words, a great many of them think they will actually go to a place called Heaven to be with their god, and the big guy has a body just like they do.

@DenoPenno
That’s right . They’re just not the only religious people out there. The fundamentalists are the squeaky wheel that gets all the press, but they don’t represent religious people at large.

Oh, you mean extirpation of heretics, witch burnings and crusades?

@LenHazell53
No. That’s not religious, originally.

@skado Well if you go back much further than that you have people sacrificing one another to the sun, the moon and seeing eclipses as a sign that a multitude has to die to make the light come back.
It is a myth to believe that religion was EVER anything but an excuse for exploitation of fear and gullibility, the gaining of wealth and a shameless grab for power.

@LenHazell53
You can't go back far enough to get in front of ignorance. It has always been there. But ignorance has never been the point of religion. Religion was always an effort to get above ignorance, but ignorance always finds a way to corrupt, and blame the corruption on the sincere party. That's how ignorance works.

@skado The ignorant can be educated, but you can't do anything for the stupid.

@xenoview
There are some who seem incapable of learning, but they are not excluded from the ignorant - ignorant is ignorant, regardless of the cause. And educating the capable is still not an easy project. Once they are an adult, they will learn only what they want to, capable or not.

What if they are not promoting superstition?

@skado that would be terrific, but it would mean they were no longer ministries, just community youth groups. Church ministries are by definition religious, and as has been pointed out many times there is no definition of religion that cannot also be applied to superstition and vice versa.

@LenHazell53
By your definition, but apparently not theirs, and definitely not mine. There is no consensus such that any one of us has the authority to claim our definition is the only one. That would be superstitious, and fundamentalist.

@skado
Religion, from Latin ligatura to bind fast (as in ligature) and re- =again
therefore, to rebind to a new deity. That being the case, belief in and subservience to a deity is inherently superstitious (from Latin superstitiosus "filled of dread of the supernatural" )

Like it or not @Skado words have meanings, and just because you don't know those meanings does not allow you to make up your own definitions and declare them to be true.

@LenHazell53

Religion is one of those words, the origins of which are unknown. There are three or four possibilities, depending on which source you ask. Relegere, religare, religiens, and so on. And there are those who say it's only a Western concept anyway, since many world languages don't have an equivalent word.

So, unfortunately, it's not as cut and dried as we would all like. We can choose a favorite and pretend it is the official one, or we can recognize that all language is a flexible, "living" thing, and communication requires a willingness to see things from unfamiliar perspectives. That doesn't mean we have to adopt the other person's view, but before we can decide whether to adopt or reject it, we first have to understand it. And that requires a willingness to consider ideas that we haven't considered before.

And not only do the experts not agree on the origins of the word religion, they also don't agree on the concept itself. It's an area of scholarship that is very complex, and very contentious. We can all have our preferred view, but to claim that it can only be one certain way, is to set oneself up as an authority over all authorities. I don't take myself or anyone else that seriously. All I claim is that my view is mine, and that I can justify it with facts, and sound reasoning, if given a chance. That still doesn't mean it's the only view that can be reasonably justified, but it isn't just a belief - it's a reasoned position.

Yes, words have meanings - lots of them.

@skado In my experience, “ministry” is one of those words that tend to mark a religious context, and a specifically christian one. “A monkey in silk is still a monkey.”

@The-Krzyz
I’m not quarreling with that, but this: “ there is no definition of religion that cannot also be applied to superstition and vice versa.”

Religion and superstition are not synonymous. Scholars don’t agree on a single definition of religion. The best anyone can claim is that they know what it means to them.

I agree, no youth ministries need to end!

@skado OH.. how clever, I forgot a comma, do excuse me while I wallow in my shame.

@LenHazell53
No shame implied. I’m just agreeing.