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Sociologists Peter Berger and Grace Davie report that “most sociologists of religion now agree” that the secularization thesis—that religion declines as a socie
by jmahyoung 8y ago
Sociologists Peter Berger and Grace Davie report that “most sociologists of religion now agree” that the secularization thesis—that religion declines as a society becomes more modern—“ has been empirically shown to be false.”
Most striking of all are the demographic studies that predict that it is not religious populations but secular ones that are in long-term decline. The April 2015 Pew study projects that the percentage of atheists, agnostics, and the religiously unaffiliated will slowly but steadily decline, from 16.4 percent of the world’s population today to 13.2 percent forty years from now. University of London professor Eric Kaufmann, in his book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, speaks of “the crisis of secularism” and argues that the shrinkage of secularism and liberal religion is inevitable.
- git_rancher 8y agoThis probably mirrors the concentration of power that’s happening.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoThat seems at odds to the decline of religion across Europe. UK is now majority atheist, and Ireland once devoutly catholic is far more secular than it was. A majority voted to end the ban on abortion in Ireland only this year. So I am baffled at what "crisis of secularism" Kaufman is imagining.
- gruez 8y agomakes sense, if you'd consider that atheists probably reproduce at a lower rate. kinda like Idiocracy (the movie).
- jmahyoung 8y agoI put forth that if the premise of that movie were true, why would we have technology advancement today? Why not continuous regression of knowledge. I will also note of the past, great men of both science and faith, like James Clerk Maxwell.
- rootusrootus 8y agoAt least in America, I wonder how studies like this account for people lying about their religion. Can't tell you how many people I've met that will tell you they are Christian, even though they never go to church or otherwise participate in religious activities. I think a lot of people just like to fit in, because to admit that you are an atheist is to immediately invite condemnation and ridicule.
- kevindong 8y ago> Sociologists Peter Berger and Grace Davie report that “most sociologists of religion now agree” that the secularization thesis—that religion declines as a society becomes more modern—“ has been empirically shown to be false.” This statement is directly copied from page 24 of 'Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World' by Timothy Keller [0]. I make no judgement of how true/false this is. > Most striking of all are the demographic studies that predict that it is not religious populations but secular ones that are in long-term decline. The April 2015 Pew study projects that the percentage of atheists, agnostics, and the religiously unaffiliated will slowly but steadily decline, from 16.4 percent of the world’s population today to 13.2 percent forty years from now. The citation for this study is [1]. tl;dr on it is that the global population is growing much faster than atheists are growing. But the number of atheists aren't shrinking. [0]: https://books.google.com/books?id=kzNODwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA24&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=kzNODwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA24&pg=P... [1]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-w...
- mbrodersen 8y agoThis is the opposite of all data I have seen. The long term decline of religions is a real thing.