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No, because religious people don't reliably raise religious children. Most current atheists were raised by religious people. It's likely been true in the US fo

by smt88 4y ago

No, because religious people don't reliably raise religious children. Most current atheists were raised by religious people. It's likely been true in the US for decades that the birth rate among religious groups (e.g. Latino people) has been far higher than non-religious groups, but there has still been a stunning decline of religiosity.

jleyank 4y ago
This is probably made worse when the religious folks talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. The next generation sees the hypocrisy and moves on.
skissane 4y ago
> No, because religious people don't reliably raise religious children. There is a great deal of variation between religious groups in terms of their reliability in passing on their views to their children. Some groups have very high retention rates (>80%, even >90%), many others are at the opposite end of that spectrum. Natural selection is at work: those groups who do a good job of passing on their beliefs will grow and prosper, those groups who do a poor job of doing that will dwindle and die. Right now, the religious marketplace is dominated by massive-yet-sclerotic incumbents, whose children are abandoning religion en masse–they may still be huge, but these groups have a very dim future. Meanwhile, there are many smaller groups who have a far brighter future, due to high birth rates and low attrition rates, but they are coming up from such a low base, it is going to take them many decades, even centuries, to overtake the incumbents. But I think it is likely to happen - the next two centuries may end up being far more religious than this one, and the contemporary rise in irreligiosity may well turn out to be "just a phase".
- smt88 4y ago
  > those groups who do a good job of passing on their beliefs will grow and prosper, those groups who do a poor job of doing that will dwindle and die This is wrong because it ignores missionary activity. If a religion fails to retain its adherents' children, but it recruits adults at a greater rate, it will still grow despite failing to transfer beliefs to offspring. > Meanwhile, there are many smaller groups who have a far brighter future, due to high birth rates and low attrition rates, but they are coming up from such a low base, it is going to take them many decades, even centuries, to overtake the incumbents. Which groups, exactly? The fastest-growing major religion appears to be Islam, which is likely a consequence of its presence in many economically depressed countries with high birth rates, low security, and low education.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > If a religion fails to retain its adherents' children, but it recruits adults at a greater rate, it will still grow despite failing to transfer beliefs to offspring. The problem with conversion, is there is only a limited pool of converts. It is easy for small groups to grow rapidly by conversion, but soon they start to run out of potential targets for recruitment. In the long run, the "breed-your-own" strategy, if it can be sustained, will vastly outperform conversion. One does occasionally observe a new religion take over a society by conversion (much as Christianity did to the Roman Empire, or Islam to 7th century Arabia), but those are rare historical exceptions, which the vast majority of religious groups have no hope of ever achieving. > Which groups, exactly? The fastest-growing major religion appears to be Islam, which is likely a consequence of its presence in many economically depressed countries with high birth rates, low security, and low education. The right level of looking at this isn't religions, but rather much lower in the taxonomic hierarchy. Consider Catholics – despite Catholicism's immense size (over 1 billion adherents), Catholics have (on the whole) a rather low and declining birth rate, and do a pretty poor job of retaining their children – in many countries today, the biggest religion is "ex-Catholic". But, on the other hand, if you look at the conservative fringes of Catholicism, you find groups such as Opus Dei and SSPX, both of whom I believe do a far better job at retaining their (often large) broods in the parental faith than mainstream Catholicism does. Similarly, if you look at Judaism, non-Orthodox Judaism has low birth rates and high rates of assimilation and intermarriage, while Modern Orthodoxy does much better in those areas, and Traditional Orthodoxy does very well. I know less about Islam, but I'd be surprised if Salafists and Khomeinists didn't do a better job of retaining their children than more mainstream Muslims do.
- akhivae 4y ago
  >Meanwhile, there are many smaller groups who have a far brighter future, due to high birth rates and low attrition rates, but they are coming up from such a low base, it is going to take them many decades, even centuries, to overtake the incumbents. I would like to point out the fastest growing religious movement in the world was Pentecostalism. A movement that was limited to a few working class American churches in the early 20th century that has since exploded to 500 million followers across the globe, though this explosion is generally masked since Pentecostals are officially a sect of Protestantism and highly diffuse. The growth is best scene in Central America where countries that were almost universally Catholic two generations ago can be as much as 40% Protestant, which is almost entirely thanks to conversion to churches of the Pentecostal-Evangelical variety.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
quantified 4y ago
Does that extend to places like Pakistan and India? Religion seems pretty strong from generation to generation outside of the European-derived nations, but I admit that news reports of religious fervor don't necessarily correlate to overall behavior.
- smt88 4y ago
  There isn't great data from Pakistan, partly because of biased census takers and partly because it was founded as a Muslim nation and there is social pressure to be Muslim. In India, Hinduism is declining as a share of the population and Islam is increasing, but there, the Hindu-nationalist Modi regime has been cracking down on non-Hindus and has potentially skewed statistics. So with those caveats, it seems like India's religiosity hasn't changed much, but (if anything) has declined slightly, and Pakistan is anyone's guess. I can't find any data about it.

by smt88 4y ago

jleyank 4y ago

This is probably made worse when the religious folks talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. The next generation sees the hypocrisy and moves on.

skissane 4y ago

> No, because religious people don't reliably raise religious children. There is a great deal of variation between religious groups in terms of their reliability in passing on their views to their children. Some groups have very high retention rates (>80%, even >90%), many others are at the opposite end of that spectrum. Natural selection is at work: those groups who do a good job of passing on their beliefs will grow and prosper, those groups who do a poor job of doing that will dwindle and die. Right now, the religious marketplace is dominated by massive-yet-sclerotic incumbents, whose children are abandoning religion en masse–they may still be huge, but these groups have a very dim future. Meanwhile, there are many smaller groups who have a far brighter future, due to high birth rates and low attrition rates, but they are coming up from such a low base, it is going to take them many decades, even centuries, to overtake the incumbents. But I think it is likely to happen - the next two centuries may end up being far more religious than this one, and the contemporary rise in irreligiosity may well turn out to be "just a phase".

smt88 4y ago
> those groups who do a good job of passing on their beliefs will grow and prosper, those groups who do a poor job of doing that will dwindle and die This is wrong because it ignores missionary activity. If a religion fails to retain its adherents' children, but it recruits adults at a greater rate, it will still grow despite failing to transfer beliefs to offspring. > Meanwhile, there are many smaller groups who have a far brighter future, due to high birth rates and low attrition rates, but they are coming up from such a low base, it is going to take them many decades, even centuries, to overtake the incumbents. Which groups, exactly? The fastest-growing major religion appears to be Islam, which is likely a consequence of its presence in many economically depressed countries with high birth rates, low security, and low education.
- skissane 4y ago
  > If a religion fails to retain its adherents' children, but it recruits adults at a greater rate, it will still grow despite failing to transfer beliefs to offspring. The problem with conversion, is there is only a limited pool of converts. It is easy for small groups to grow rapidly by conversion, but soon they start to run out of potential targets for recruitment. In the long run, the "breed-your-own" strategy, if it can be sustained, will vastly outperform conversion. One does occasionally observe a new religion take over a society by conversion (much as Christianity did to the Roman Empire, or Islam to 7th century Arabia), but those are rare historical exceptions, which the vast majority of religious groups have no hope of ever achieving. > Which groups, exactly? The fastest-growing major religion appears to be Islam, which is likely a consequence of its presence in many economically depressed countries with high birth rates, low security, and low education. The right level of looking at this isn't religions, but rather much lower in the taxonomic hierarchy. Consider Catholics – despite Catholicism's immense size (over 1 billion adherents), Catholics have (on the whole) a rather low and declining birth rate, and do a pretty poor job of retaining their children – in many countries today, the biggest religion is "ex-Catholic". But, on the other hand, if you look at the conservative fringes of Catholicism, you find groups such as Opus Dei and SSPX, both of whom I believe do a far better job at retaining their (often large) broods in the parental faith than mainstream Catholicism does. Similarly, if you look at Judaism, non-Orthodox Judaism has low birth rates and high rates of assimilation and intermarriage, while Modern Orthodoxy does much better in those areas, and Traditional Orthodoxy does very well. I know less about Islam, but I'd be surprised if Salafists and Khomeinists didn't do a better job of retaining their children than more mainstream Muslims do.
akhivae 4y ago
>Meanwhile, there are many smaller groups who have a far brighter future, due to high birth rates and low attrition rates, but they are coming up from such a low base, it is going to take them many decades, even centuries, to overtake the incumbents. I would like to point out the fastest growing religious movement in the world was Pentecostalism. A movement that was limited to a few working class American churches in the early 20th century that has since exploded to 500 million followers across the globe, though this explosion is generally masked since Pentecostals are officially a sect of Protestantism and highly diffuse. The growth is best scene in Central America where countries that were almost universally Catholic two generations ago can be as much as 40% Protestant, which is almost entirely thanks to conversion to churches of the Pentecostal-Evangelical variety.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

quantified 4y ago

Does that extend to places like Pakistan and India? Religion seems pretty strong from generation to generation outside of the European-derived nations, but I admit that news reports of religious fervor don't necessarily correlate to overall behavior.

smt88 4y ago
There isn't great data from Pakistan, partly because of biased census takers and partly because it was founded as a Muslim nation and there is social pressure to be Muslim. In India, Hinduism is declining as a share of the population and Islam is increasing, but there, the Hindu-nationalist Modi regime has been cracking down on non-Hindus and has potentially skewed statistics. So with those caveats, it seems like India's religiosity hasn't changed much, but (if anything) has declined slightly, and Pakistan is anyone's guess. I can't find any data about it.