In earlier posts (here and here), I documented a clear pattern where atheism blossoms in developed countries but is virtually absent in less developed nations . The implication is that as countries around the globe get more prosperous religion will decline. In a new study, I have found the most compelling evidence yet for this possibility.
It seems that people turn to religion as a salve for the difficulties and uncertainties of their lives. In social democracies, there is less fear and uncertainty about the future because social welfare programs provide a safety net and better health care means that fewer people expect to die young. In social democracies, people who are less vulnerable to the hostile forces of nature feel more in control of their lives. So there is less need of religion.
In a recent (2011) study of 137 countries (2) I found that belief in God was higher in countries with a heavy load of infectious diseases where inhabitants could expect to die young and to suffer from chronic illnesses such as malaria. Fewer people believed in God in wealthy and well-educated countries where life is not so hard or uncertain. I also found that atheism increases in countries with a well-developed welfare state (as indexed by high taxation rates). Countries with a more equal distribution of income -- and hence less social problems, such as violent crime -- had more atheists.
My study controlled for whether a country was mostly Muslim (where atheism is criminalized) or formerly Communist (where religion was suppressed). It accounted for three-quarters of country differences in atheism.
Yet, the 2011 study had a weakness.The data was not collected in the same way in different countries and were not strictly comparable. Instead, the numbers were compiled from numerous different studies. This introduced an element of "noise." The conclusions one draws are only as good as the evidence on which they are based.
Conversely, good data is the lifeblood of science. In a yet-to-be-published study (3), I analyzed Gallup data on the importance of religion in people's daily lives. As one might expect, there is a strong relationship between the proportion of people who believe in God in a country and the percentage who say that religion is "important" or "very important" in their daily lives (the statistical overlap being 80 percent).
The key advantage of the Gallup data is that the same polling methodology was used in each of the 114 countries for which they collected nationally representative data in 2009.
My results in the new study mirrored those of the earlier one on belief in God. More people agreed that religion was important in their daily lives in countries with a heavy load of infectious diseases. Religiosity declined in countries having a well-developed welfare state. Residents of more developed countries, and better educated populations were less religious. Countries with a more equal distribution of income were lower on religiosity also.
Why is religion in decline in modern democracies where ordinary people enjoy a good standard of living? It seems that with better science, with government safety nets, better health, and longer life expectancy, there is less fear and uncertainty in people's daily lives. As a result there is less of a need for religion to help people cope with the otherwise uncomfortable feeling that they have little control over their lives.
The fast-paced modern world brings plenty of food, scientific medicine, climate controlled homes, reliable weather forecasts and many other innovations that put God out of business. The comforts of modernity lead to atheism. Of that, there can no longer be any reasonable doubt.
Sources
1. Zuckerman, P. (2007). Atheism: Contemporary numbers and patterns. In M. Martin (ed.), The Cambridge companion to atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This book is not held by any U.S. Library.
2. Barber, N. (2011). A cross-national test of the uncertainty hypothesis of religious belief. Cross-Cultural Research, 45, 318-333.
3. Barber, N. (under review). Country religiosity declines as material security increases. International Perspectives in Psychology.
Materialism will.
True Christians have been warned and expect a great deception at a future time (Matt.24:23-24). Afterward a great falling away from the faith.
No surprise here.
And one of the most commonly used strategies is threat, fear. Our limbic systems are particularly attuned to threat, our amygdala, part of the system, is also central to emotions and memory, add that to what brain researchers have revealed about political orientation and hemispheric functioning and you have a perfectly natural "set up" for the political use of religion as a poltical tool.
I'm just funny that way..... and I see more love in a puppy's face than in all of the religous right combined.
In fact my dog and my cat set a better example of how to be tolerant,get along and love each other.
Regards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purpose_Driven_Life
Mind you, I am in fact myself an atheist. But I refuse to accept the prediction by this author that "atheism will replace religion" for the simple fact that he has overconfidently stated that he has identified and controlled for ALL of the relevant variables that predict the state of a person's beliefs regarding the existence of deities.
And oddly, I would have thought that his background in psychology would have informed him about the inherent and inescapable psychological biases that cause people to routinely be overconfident about what they know. And tend to predict.
Try again, good sir, because I know you mean well.
I'd also argue that it will take many centuries for civilization as a whole to become enlightened and prosperous enough to reach the point where atheism replaces religion, if it even happens.
I applaud the revisons you propose to moderate the definite prediction offered by the article's title. To incorporate both of your suggestions, this might be a more appropriate one:
"A 'Healthier' World Breeds More Athiests"
hard to shake off
From the article -
"Countries with a more equal distribution of income were lower on religiosity also."
Right now America has the income inequality of a banana republic.
And this scenario has repeated itself with similar results throughout history since then. Our pride in our own ingenuity tends to diminish our reverence for God and then we transfer our worship from the Creator to the created; in other words we will worship ourselves in the place of God just as Lucifer would have it.
God has offered us His wisdom in the various scriptures and as I see it we disregard this wisdom at our own peril. The Bible says that without vision the people perish and from where I sit we are the living proof of this truism. Human leadership has been found drastically wanting just look around and it should be obvious that vanity and greed will always cause corruption, injustice and mayhem; the rich will always oppress the poor because human nature is what it is.
The wisdom of God is available but it must be utilized for it to be effective and we much prefer to do it our way even if we destroy the earth in the process.
Perhaps you do not agree that the qualities of kindness, justice and humility are superior to meanness, injustice and pride. Perhaps you believe that the rich are just plain special and have every right to take advantage of the poor, and since there is no heaven they shouldn’t be worried about not getting in or only getting in when camels jump through the needles eye.
Perhaps you believe that this world is not evil and stamps out anyone who would bring up such a crazy thought that it is evil. What a superb con to tell His followers that love conquers fear and death; who offers His followers life with more abundance and contentment than money can buy, who would want such a thing?
and the earth is not yours to destroy
Odd that your studies presume that people suffer from a need to fill a gap of uncertainty which social security cures, but not that people who accumulate strength and power inflate their sense of significance and suffer from the hubris that they can tame and even subvert the forces of nature. Wouldn't that be the flip side of the same coin, after all?