Countries with the best standard of living are turning atheist. That shift offers a glimpse into the world's future.
Religious people are annoyed by claims that belief in God will go the way of horse transportation, and for much the same reason, specifically an improved standard of living.
The view that religious belief will give way to atheism is known as the secularization thesis. The specific version that I favor (1) is known as the existential security hypothesis. The basic idea is that as people become more affluent, they are less worried about lacking for basic necessities, or dying early from violence or disease. In other words they are secure in their own existence. They do not feel the need to appeal to supernatural entities to calm their fears and insecurities.
The notion that improving living conditions are associated with a decline in religion is supported by a mountain of evidence (1,2,3).
That does not prevent some serious scholars, like political scientist Eric Kaufmann (4), from making the opposite case that religious fundamentalists will outbreed the rest of us. Yet, noisy as they can be, such groups are tiny minorities of the global population and they will become even more marginalized as global prosperity increases and standards of living improve.
Moreover, as religious fundamentalists become economically integrated, young women go to work and produce smaller families, as is currently happening for Utah's Mormons.
The most obvious approach to estimating when the world will switch over to being majority atheist is based on economic growth. This is logical because economic development is the key factor responsible for secularization. In deriving this estimate, I used the nine most godless countries as my touchstone (excluding Estonia as a formerly communist country).
The countries were Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These nine countries averaged out at the atheist transition in 2004 (5) with exactly half of the populations disbelieving in God. Their gross domestic product (GDP) averaged $29,822 compared to $10,855 for the average country in the world. How long will it take before the world economy has expanded sufficiently that the GDP of the average country has caught up to the average for the godless countries in 2004?
Using the average global growth rate of GDP for the past 30 years of 3.33 percent (based on International Monetary Fund data from their website), the atheist transition would occur in 2035.
Belief in God is not the only relevant measure of religion, of course. A person might believe in God in a fairly superficial way without religion affecting his or her daily life. One way of assessing the depth of religious commitment is to ask survey participants whether they think that religion is important in their daily lives as the Gallup Organization has done in worldwide nationally representative surveys.
If fewer than 50 percent of the population agreed that religion was important to them, then the country has effectively crossed over to a secular majority. The godless countries by religiosity were Spain, South Korea, Canada, Switzerland, Uruguay, Germany and France. At a growth rate of 3.33 percent per year it would be 2041 before the average country in the world would be at an equivalent level of affluence as these godless nations.
If national wealth drives secularization, the global population will cross an atheist threshold where the majority see religion as unimportant by 2041.
Averaging across the two measures of atheism, the entire world population would cross the atheist threshold by about 2038 (average of 2035 for disbelief and 2041 for religiosity). Although 2038 may seem improbably fast, this requires only a shift of approximately 1 percent per year whether in religiosity or belief in God. Using the Human Development Index as a clock suggests an even earlier arrival for the atheist transition (1).
Is the loss of religious belief something fear? Contrary to the claims of religious leaders, Godless countries are highly moral nations with an unusual level of social trust, economic equality, low crime and a high level of civic engagement (5). We could do with some of that.
Sources
1. Barber, N. (2012). Why atheism will replace religion: The triumph of earthly pleasures over pie in the sky. E-book, available at: http://www.amazon.com/Atheism-Will-Replace-Religion-ebook/dp/B00886ZSJ6/
2. Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2004). Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Barber, N. (2011). A Cross-National test of the uncertainty hypothesis of religious belief Cross-Cultural Research, 45, 318-333.
4. Kaufmann, E. (2010). Shall the religious inherit the earth? London: Profile books.
5. Zuckerman, P. (2008). Society without God: What the least religious nations can tell us about contentment. New York: New York University Press.
Conversely, being educated allows people to more easily see the "God of the gaps" arguments for what they really are (particularly when they are used on areas which aren't even gaps; Bill O'Reilly's famous comment about how we can't explain the tides comes to mind), which can lead to more questioning and rejection of religion.
I guess, as a summary of what I'm trying to say, getting an education makes people more likely to realize that there are alternatives to whatever beliefs they were raised with.
The left in Europe - which is most concerned with protection for the old, the weak, the sick, the disabled - has traditionally been less religious than the right (the center-right parties in Europe are called "Christian Democrats" while the center-left parties are all "labor" or "social democrats").
I just love reading that part over and over again. It helps to bring me warm and fuzzy feelings about humankind again.
Religion is and has been THE leading cause of hatred, racism, war, death, civil unrest, genocide than any other reason in all of history.
It appears as though the transition may be speeding up thankfully because just 7-10 years ago it was supposed to be around 2050 before there are more Atheist in the world than theist.
Hopefully this will happen in my lifetime.
The biggest problem we have in this country are those infected with religion voting against their own best interest because they are so easily fooled.
and Religious luna.tics being voted into positions of power and destroying everything they touch.
I rejoice at the loss of religion also. ;-)
I honestly could not care less what portion of the population was religious, so long as the religious population paid more heed to the verses about caring for their fellow man and less about the verses condemning sin.
However, as this seems to be a sticking point for more religious people than not, I'm left approving of the secularization of the world as well. :)
Some excerpts from this article for you - 'In Indonesia, jailed for non-believing'
"On Thursday, the 32-year-old civil servant from Dharmasraya in West Sumatra was been sent to prison for two and half years and ordered to pay a fine of around $10,000."
"Atheism appears to be growing in Indonesia, with nearly 1,000 followers on Twitter for a group called Indonesian Atheists. Most of the members are too afraid to expose themselves, a fact which underlining the existing intolerance towards “non-believers”.
"Until this day, atheism and communism are practically synonymous in Indonesia. But a new generation has long forgotten these painful historic events. Some decided to join the atheist community after witnessing growing intolerance in name of religion."
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/blog/asia/indonesia-jailed-non-believing?utm_content=blogs&utm_campaign=Trial4&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=socialflow&utm_medium=tweet
Neither Indonesia nor Turkey was so religious in the past so going backwards is what concerns me. Atheists in general tend to be very individualistic, they don't have strong united communities like christians and muslims so maybe it is time atheists/agnostics unite and fight against intolerance.
All religion is basically the same.
Pray to end hunger, no way, enact policies that work against hunger.
Pray for peace, how about negotiate to end conflict.
We are not gods. We are men and there are no gods to do our work for us.
My prediction: Atheism growth plateaus out in the next decade and begins rapid decreasing!
Technology has changed the landscape of belief tremendously, by helping demolish the centuries old taboos that religions carefully erected to insulate themselves from criticism. But that alone likely is not sufficient to destroy religion, which are, after all, the oldest and most successful human institutions ever created. Like all institutions, the one and only drive religions have is self-preservation; they will say or do anything to protect themselves, which we see today in the RCC's response to the worldwide, decades old pedophile scandal.
I think you underestimate the power of the internet and todays world. We learn and grow now like never before. The internet also provides an alternative that many of the poor or isolated have never had. And the world gets easy access to the truth now. Even what other great men have said of it, like Einstein, Hawking, Adams. Jefferson for example that said, "Christianity is the most perverse system that has ever shone on mankind". All this and more that are now just clicks away. The kids aren't as stupid as many adults. They will see it like never before.
I think the biggest reason more become Atheist is education, the higher the education the more likely one is to be Atheist.
The Bible is filled with stuff that can't even stand up to 5th grade science. Be it the proposed age of Adam and Noah, the construction of Noah's boat, the supposed age of the earth, Jonah's fascinating vacation in a digestive tract - you name it!
The only miracle about Christianity is that it lasted as long as it did. But it's about time that Jesus found a place on the shelf: Somewhere between I for Isis and K for Khepri.
Millions of people didnt write documents. If Tom Clancy writes that millions of people saw a city destroyed by a nuke, that doesnt make them real.
With all due respect, there is nothing in 5th grade science that can refute any of the "stuff" you mention. As someone with a postgraduate degree, I can tell you that education may impact religious beliefs but not through compelling, scientific argument. There is nothing in the Bible, not one thing, that can be proven false. There may be things that seem improbable or even impossible by our human understanding or by the current scientific standards, but yet, they cannot be proven wrong or impossible.
Who can prove than men did not live 8-10 times longer at one time than they do today? The Bible nowhere states the age of the earth (although it may show a lineage from Adam to Jesus) but only lists the lifetimes of certain members since Adam's creation. There is plenty to support that the 7 days of creation may have lasted much longer than seven 24 hour days.
The miracle that Christianity ever even got off the ground is much bigger than the miracle of its continuation.
First and foremost, I find it nonsensical to quote the Bible to prove/indicate that the Bible is true. Would you be in any way convinced if I dug out a similar quote from the Qu'ran?
Second of all: We do have scientific data concerning life expectancy of earlier times. All data proves that life expectancy has only skyrocketed within the last 100 years or so and that it had previously been very low. Average life expectancy is now somewhere in the 60s, and yet somehow you think it's possible that it could have been 8-10 times that despite the lack of medicine, antibiotics or surgery?
Don't even get me started on the story of the ark. Now that's the pinnacle of implausibility.
"Proof" or not, a little quote from an ancient book is not enough to satisfy people in this day and age. God could make it so easy and have a wonderful relationship to all humans by just revealing himself, but believers have a nifty cop-out for that too: "He's testing our faith".
I respectfully disagree. We have proven I think that women were not made from a rib. We have also proven evolution. We have proven that snakes do not have an ability to speak. We know that nobody can walk on water, or part water, etc etc. This list is endless as to what mankind has proven wrong in the Bible.
"There is nothing in the Bible, not one thing, that can be proven false." I think an absurd statement.
Atheism in NOT a religion. I suggest a 10 year old could tell you that.
The difference between the religious and atheists is a simple one. We put mankind first, and you put it second, to a God or Gods. The result and evidence of this is everywhere, and we tire of it.
But the horror of it all people can take no longer. I recently watch this "Jesus Camp" documentary. Tell me that that isn't a group of completely insane adults turning beautiful children completely insane. Simply gross child abuse. And this is why we can sit back no longer. You must be stopped. You are void of any ability to think rationally.
You are even quite prepared to walk into a paradise fully knowing others will be burning. You need to be a special type of a person to do such a thing. If I am ever at some pearly gates I would rather burn with my brothers and sisters than to enter your paradise. The ideologies of religion are completely disgusting. I will go to my grave not understanding the religious and how you think. The evolution statistics say much here I think. It is an amazing thing to me.
Atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief in the supernatural and that is not a religion.
7.1 billion people on the planet
6.9 billion people are religious.
2038? Really??? LOL.
The US is a perfect case against this as is China were their economic growth and the growth of Christianity out pace us, the same for even more developed countries in Latin America. It fails to account for affluent Christians of which there are millions.
It presupposes, rather erroneously that religion is ONLY a function of economic insecurity or a lack of education. I personally know of thousands of people who are affluent, educated at top universities who are passionate Christians, old and young.
None of those issues deal with the notions that many, even in the scientific community believe we are hard-wired for such beliefs. This would explain the permanency of religion since the inception of mankind. So after millions of years, religion will disappear in 26 years?
That's so comical it barely deserves a response.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_religion
That is almost certainly the lowest proportion in history. The broad sweep of history is that religion is losing ground in the developed world.
That is incorrect. Its 6.9 billion, maybe 6.6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
Not losing ground.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
Also,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion