Pew Research Center: The Age Gap in Religion Around the World

On the other hand, in sub-Saharan Africa, where overall levels of religious commitment are among the highest in the world, there is no significant difference between older and younger adults in terms of the importance of religion in 17 out of 21 countries surveyed.

Age gaps are also more common within some religious groups than in others. For example, religion is less important to younger Christian adults in nearly half of all the countries around the world where sample sizes are large enough to allow age comparisons among Christians (37 out of 78). For Muslims, this is the case in about one-quarter of countries surveyed (10 out of 42). Among Buddhists, younger adults are significantly less religious in just one country (the United States) out of five countries for which data are available. There is no age gap by this measure among Jews in the U.S. or Israel, or among Hindus in the U.S. or India.[...]

These explanations are not mutually exclusive – it is possible that young people will become more religious as they age, but will still be less religious than previous generations if their countries become more affluent and stable. Pew Research Center surveys and other international data provide some evidence for both societal and life-course influences on religious commitment. [...]

This has led many researchers to observe that people in poorer parts of the world are, on average, more religious than those in societies with advanced economies.3 Other indicators of economic development – such as education, life expectancy and income equality – also tend to align with measures of religious commitment. [...]

Research has shown that religious attachments tend to peak during adolescence, decline through young and middle adulthood, and then increase through most of late adulthood. For instance, Pew Research Center’s analysis of Gallup poll data suggests that U.S. adults born in the 1930s attended worship more frequently once they reached their 60s. Other longitudinal studies (which surveyed the same people at intervals over decades) find a “retirement surge” in religiosity among older people. While not ruling out the influence of other factors – such as when and where people live – one research team argued that “life course trajectories may trump generational placement as predictors of religious behaviors and orientations.” [...]

Overall, in the average country surveyed, 54% of adults say religion is very important in their lives. However, levels of religious commitment vary widely around the world, as well as between countries within the same geographic area. In the Asia-Pacific region, for instance, the share of those who say religion is very important in their daily lives is highest in Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia and Afghanistan; in these countries, more than 90% say religion is very important. Meanwhile, Japan (10%) and China (3%), where majorities of the population are religiously unaffiliated, have the lowest shares of people who say this. 

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Jacobin Magazine: A Soldier for Peace

He later recalled how he misunderstood the French war effort as a restoration of legitimate French authority after the Japanese occupation, imagining a kind of fraternal occupation based on close contact with the local inhabitants. Yet he could not escape the thought that he was not a liberator but an occupier, that the Vietnamese nationalist forces resembled nothing so much as the maquis he had led only months before. [...]

De Bollardière would not yet abandon the old military ideal of a colonialism of service and fraternity. He understood “pacification” very differently from its institutionalization in violent French counterinsurgency, including the systematic use of torture. His command was staked on developing relations between the European settler community and indigenous Algerians, taking the protection of both equally seriously, refusing to view every Muslim as a suspect, and initiating work projects to secure employment and an income for the local population. This involved the cooperation and development of mutual trust between French troops and the local inhabitants. [...]

De Bollardière’s evolving views were also shaped by his work in the field of public housing, largely for immigrants from North Africa but also Portugal, Yugoslavia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Likewise, he threw himself into the provision of adult education, which he described as a particularly enriching experience. As a catalyst to continual self-reflection and questioning existing conceptions and values, he was convinced it had great potential to humanize society. He was also drawn to the regionalist movement in his native Brittany. His developing grasp of social and economic structures manifested itself in an interpretation comparable to an analysis of uneven development, seeing the decline of Breton culture and its relative economic underdevelopment as twin symptoms of a centralizing French state.

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Politico: Angela rises from the ashes

For the Bavarians, the spat was always more about Merkel than refugees anyway. The past week offered the CSU leadership a chance to test Merkel’s support in the CDU. On that score, she emerged the clear winner. Any illusions the CSU may have had that the CDU would abandon Merkel in the heat of the moment have evaporated.

The crucial moment came on Thursday, when the two parties’ parliamentary groups, who normally meet together, convened separately to discuss the crisis. Dozens of CDU MPs, even some who disagree with Merkel’s migration policies, stood up to support her leadership. Within the CDU’s executive committee, only Health Minister Jens Spahn, Merkel’s most vocal internal critic, voiced opposition to her course.   [...]

In the event of a divorce, however, the CDU would almost certainly make a run for Bavaria — which it never does, out of respect for the union — thus diluting the CSU’s position just as it’s trying to fend off the far-right Alternative for Germany. In fact, it was concern over its tepid poll numbers ahead of an October state election that has likely prompted the CSU to challenge Merkel head on. [...]

A central fallacy of Seehofer’s plan is that Germany couldn’t actually turn refugees back at the border. In almost all cases, this would entail pushing them back over Germany’s 800-kilometer border with Austria, the last country most refugees pass through before arriving in Germany. Because Germany’s border infrastructure is located inside German territory — not on the border as was the case before the Schengen agreement for freedom of movement took effect — it’s not possible to simply turn people away before they enter the country.

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Vox: What does “denuclearization” mean?

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un struck a historic deal to work toward “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. The trouble is they don’t have a shared vision of what “complete denuclearization” looks like.

And while handshakes were exchanged and agreements were signed after unprecedented talks in Singapore, no country with a nuclear program as advanced as North Korea's has ever denuclearized. 

IFLScience: Canada Votes To Legalize Cannabis For Recreational Use

The new bill, known as The Cannabis Act, controls and regulates how the drug is grown, distributed and sold. It means that Canadians can now legally grow up to four plants in their own household, and carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis for personal use. Anyone found to be carrying more than this amount, or providing it to minors – anyone under the age of 18 or 19 depending on the province – will be breaking the law. [...]

It means that Canada now joins Uruguay as the only two countries in the world where recreational cannabis is now legal, as technically it is still illegal in the Netherlands although the law is not actually upheld. In Portugal, which famously relaxed its drug laws, the possession and use of the drug is decriminalized, but not legal.

The move by Canada is likely to cause a headache south of the border, and twist an already strained relationship with the current US government. Currently, 29 states have legalized medical marijuana, with nine of those going the whole way and opening it up to personal use. But there have been previous suggestions that the White House may try and stem the recreational use by enforcing federal laws to override individual states.

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