Atheism to defeat religion by 2038?

Duggys Housemate · 07-06-2012 1:14pm #1

There is a train wreck of a thread on this in AH, where the usual suspects are calling each other unbelievers, or faith based idiots. For that reason I bring the topic here, and not Christianity or the Atheism forum where they would also post in similar fashion. Close the thread, if deemed not political enough.

Here is the huffingtion post, in part

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).

More at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-barber/atheism-to-defeat-religion-by-2038_b_1565108.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=2849238,b=facebook

My next post will be my feelings.

Duggys Housemate · 07-06-2012 1:16pm

This isn't a religious debate. It is a part sociological debate, and part a mathematical debate. You can be religious and disbelieve it, or atheist and believe it. I don't buy it, and I am a non-believer.

The post is wishful thinking. The correlation between secularism and GDP is probably the reverse - i.e. some forms of secularism, and property laws, helped wealth creating in Western Europe, and this is probably historically an accident. It's clearlynot universal. The US is richer than it was, including the South, and is getting more religious. The Saudis are not the poorest. Dubai is fairly rich, as it goes. Increases in oil prices, which make the middle east richer, don't make them less religious.

Which leaves the birth rates. There are defections from religious families in every generation, because being Amish is boring. The question is whether the defections are enough to counteract the very real fact that the birth rate of the Amish is much higher than secularists. That's a mathematical problem, and the solution is I think, telling the reverse of the story of the Huff Post.

They also missed immigration, and the nature of immigration, which is more religious than the countries taking the immigrants. There are, after all, people worrying about the Islamification of Europe, at the same time the atheists think they are taking over.

The truth is some where in between, but I think we are at secularisms high point. Take the 25 % of births to foreigners in London, are they born to more, or less, religious families than the preceding generation of 20-40 year olds? I say more more to religious families because they breed more, and because of the lower rights for women in religious groups, lack of access to contraception, opposition to abortion, early marriages and so on.

The future is more religious, not less, more likely.

Overheal · 07-06-2012 3:27pm

2038, that rings a bell. Well, 2036, but http://asteroidapophis.com/

Perhaps because the majority of people will be dead, the rest of us will be the Atheists?

Religion in general though is not something you're going to see disappear overnight or even over the course of a few centuries; it's something built into the human Psyche thats changed with the times, constantly. So now instead of worshiping wind Gods or Spirits (and well, some people still do. Fair play) We later get these religious sprouting out of later events in human history, like Jesus Christ, Mohommad, Moses, etc. because let's face it before moses there was still God worship in some form or another. Whats to say some other historic figure won't occur and create the next big religious denomination over the next few hundred years?

I'm curious about the history of Atheism all of a sudden though. Most historians I've talked to (which is to say few) suggest Atheism is a relatively new development but I'm doubtful of that.

Duggys Housemate · 07-06-2012 3:31pm

Its new as an organised force, there were plenty of shallow, or non-believers, who kept quiet. However before darwin, some kind of direction in the creation of life seemed like a logical conclusion. So most people were theists, including most scientists.

C14N · 07-06-2012 4:08pm

Overheal wrote: »

I'm curious about the history of Atheism all of a sudden though. Most historians I've talked to (which is to say few) suggest Atheism is a relatively new development but I'm doubtful of that.

I'm doubtful too, especially given historical figures from the last few hundreds years who really pushed atheism or at least criticism of religion (Nietzsche, Twain and Freud just off the top of my head come to mind).

I feel like atheism has become more visible recently though with it being talked about much more openly and with the fact that you don't get ostracised for being an atheist.

I think the OP makes some good points, financial success is not inversely proportional to religious belief. We should also consider that people don't always stick with the religion of their parents, many with religious parents choose to abandon religion and others from secular families take an interest in religion later in life so that aspect is hard to predict.

Zab · 07-06-2012 5:28pm

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The post is wishful thinking. The correlation between secularism and GDP is probably the reverse - i.e. some forms of secularism, and property laws, helped wealth creating in Western Europe, and this is probably historically an accident. It's clearlynot universal. The US is richer than it was, including the South, and is getting more religious. The Saudis are not the poorest. Dubai is fairly rich, as it goes. Increases in oil prices, which make the middle east richer, don't make them less religious.

Some degree of secularism may have enriched the western nations, but that doesn't explain why the trend is continuing. I think if we look at Ireland it really doesn't appear to be the case, I think it's pretty clear we got wealthier and better educated then started moving away from the catholic church (while also getting even wealthier and better educated), but I'm open to disagreement on that. I'm not sure that the States is getting more religious %-wise? (even if a subset of the population are leaning further than before), but the south sounds like it could be a good counter-example. I'd have to see figures though.

The article (or perhaps one of the ones it linked) talked about wealth, education and feeling safer about their future along with noting that most of this was happening in social democracies. Your examples of Saudi Arabia and the UAE aren't democracies so that could be a reason why they aren't following the curve. I also found indications that atheism could be on the rise there (such as this article) although actual stats are hard to find, perhaps because of the state attitude towards the subject. There's also the question of distribution of wealth in these countries (and all the other countries for that matter).

Which leaves the birth rates. There are defections from religious families in every generation, because being Amish is boring. The question is whether the defections are enough to counteract the very real fact that the birth rate of the Amish is much higher than secularists. That's a mathematical problem, and the solution is I think, telling the reverse of the story of the Huff Post.

The "defections" you're talking about are basically the entirety of what the article is arguing. The Amish are an interesting example because if they don't integrate at all then they won't get the education that the article assumes comes with the wealth (if they get the wealth in the first place).

Also, in the case of the Amish their higher birth rate might not make up for their smaller numbers by the 2038 date in question, but that's just taking a literal interpretation of the article.

They also missed immigration, and the nature of immigration, which is more religious than the countries taking the immigrants. There are, after all, people worrying about the Islamification of Europe, at the same time the atheists think they are taking over.

Sure, but this isn't an argument against the article. If the immigrants or children of the immigrants never become atheists then the article's premise will be incorrect, but the immigration itself is assumed.

All the same, I agree that reality won't be as simple as they're making out and certainly don't entirely disagree with your points. Furthermore. I don't think it's currently clear that the planet can sustain the entire population living as we live in the developed countries, and if it can whether our economic and manufacturing systems can support it. This would apply to the Amish too though (can they keep up their current growth rate without changing their methods? And does changing their methods not entail further integration with the rest of society?). So, we're relying on tech that hopefully will be invented but isn't a given.

Duggys Housemate · 07-06-2012 5:46pm

The Amish population is about 250,000, up from 5,000 in 1910. A similar growth rate would see them at 12.5M by the end of the century. Other religions do not have as high a population growth rate, but it just have to be higher than secularists. As for Amish defections, the 50 fold increase already includes defections, so the counter argument has to be that defections will increase as the numbers increase.

Certainly hostility is going to grow to the Amish, at their present population they are not much of a threat, at 12 1/2 million, as non-taxpayers - they have an exemption - they are going to be considered more of an problem. Other Christian groups have lower growth rates, and higher defections, but I don't see that balancing out either.

The secular bubble in Western Europe may be caused by historical factors, a growth in secularism after WWII also coincides with a baby boom which was significant and not exclusively religious. Everybody was popping them out. Then Catholicism and mainline protestantism in Western Europe collapse, but evangelical protestantism in the US, and Islam, do not. And birth rates have diverged, with secularist rates falling off a cliff, and religious births less so. Though all are less than the baby boom era. Nevertheless

1) religious peoples continue to have more children
2) There are fewer defections than people think.

I don't see secularism triumphing in 2038. Quite the opposite.

Zab · 07-06-2012 6:12pm

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The Amish population is about 250,000, up from 5,000 in 1910. A similar growth rate would see them at 12.5M by the end of the century. Other religions do not have as high a population growth rate, but it just have to be higher than secularists. As for Amish defections, the 50 fold increase already includes defections, so the counter argument has to be that defections will increase as the numbers increase.

Certainly hostility is going to grow to the Amish, at their present population they are not much of a threat, at 12 1/2 million, as non-taxpayers - they have an exemption - they are going to be considered more of an problem. Other Christian groups have lower growth rates, and higher defections, but I don't see that balancing out either.

Your argument doesn't apply to 2038 as I said, but you also haven't explained how the Amish are going to continue being Amish while also supporting a population explosion. The argument would be that their low rate of leaving the community is due to their lack of integration with the rest of society.

The Amish do pay tax and are not tax-exempt. They are exempt social security and also do not receive benefits.

The secular bubble in Western Europe may be caused by historical factors, a growth in secularism after WWII also coincides with a baby boom which was significant and not exclusively religious. Everybody was popping them out. Then Catholicism and mainline protestantism in Western Europe collapse, but evangelical protestantism in the US, and Islam, do not. And birth rates have diverged, with secularist rates falling off a cliff, and religious births less so. Though all are less than the baby boom era. Nevertheless

1) religious peoples continue to have more children
2) There are fewer defections than people think.

Atheism is on the rise % wise. Seeing as we're both agreed that "religious" folk have more children than "secular" folk, how are you explaining this fact if defections are less common than people think?

What might be an interesting study is whether any of the trends apply to Muslims, or is it mainly Christians and Japanese Buddhists that are becoming atheists. If not then that could definitely prove the prediction false.

Duggys Housemate · 08-06-2012 9:52am

This is hugely related to this thread. A new TED talk from hans_rosling

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies.html

Points related.

1) There has been a massive shift from high fertility, most of the world having a female TFR of 5+ to most (80%) of the world having a TFR of 2
2) The high birth rates were divided by religion - in the 60's the lowest birth rates were all in rich Christian countries. His graphs are a y axis of fertility, and an x axis of log income. The size of the bubble is the size of the country.
3) There were, however, plenty of poor Christian countries with high birth rates, as there were Eastern religions. ( of course some of the Eastern religions in his graph were communist, or secular). The only Eastern country with a low birth rate then was Japan.
4) The remaining high birth rate countries are equally divided between poor Christian countries, and poor Islamic countries. All the Eastern religions are low birth rate ( he doesn't mention india much but I suppose it is in there).
5) There are plenty of Islamic countries with low birth rates, seems equal to Christian countries these days.

His main point is that the world fertility rate is at replacement levels now, any growth is just population momentum, and that no religion really correlates with high population rates.

So this does apply to this thread, as my claim that religions out breed secular societies, is - for the most case - not really true. However, were I to hang on the tattered rags of my argument I would say that immigration to some European countries is coming from parts of unreformed Islam, unreformed in terms of female fertility. It is interesting, however, that plenty of Islamic States, including Iran, are very low fertility.

Of course the argument for an atheist victory by 2038 is still ludicrous, but the claim religious populations having more babies, at least worldwide, is not true either. I would need to garner data for religious groups vs secular groups within countries.

Anyway, though it doesn't help my case, that video is very interesting.

jhegarty · 08-06-2012 10:55am

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The Amish population is about 250,000, up from 5,000 in 1910. A similar growth rate would see them at 12.5M by the end of the century.

Duggys Housemate · 08-06-2012 11:06am

jhegarty wrote: »

What an idiotic post. This is the politics forum, feel free to pop back to AH.

I already explained in this thread why the Amish population would probably continue to see their population trend continue. Firstly, unlike that "argument" the trend has been solid for more than 100 years - unlike the one day in your post - and I am therefore extrapolating the same distance into the future from a long term trend line which is perfectly correct, in fact comparing to extrapolation from one day is idiotic. Secondly the only reason the Amish would move off this trend line would be either

1) more defections from being Amish
2) A reduction in their birth rate.

Since nothing like this happened in the 20th century, a proper argument, rather than the internet keyboard warrior "posting of an image" would be to argue for those two points in the 21st.

Not only that but I already mentioned this.

Your "smart" argument could be used against global warming, trend lines in obesity, trends in traffic accidents - up or down Some trends will continue, some won't, that moronic picture is not an argument, its the absence of one.

KyussBishop · 08-06-2012 12:06pm

I think the greatest threat to religion in the long term is increased education (particularly where that is strictly secular), and critical thinking abilities; recent study backing this up:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/27/1234256/analytic-thinking-can-decrease-religious-belief (coupled with Slashdot discussion; usually equal amounts informative/amusing)

In the US, I think one of the bigger drivers of religious belief in recent times is how politically useful it has become; here's a good Adam Curtis blog entry on that:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2012/03/who_would_god_vote_for.html

From my view, the primary decider on proliferation of religious belief, is what people are exposed to in childhood and their social surroundings, so I think with the Internet and education enforcing more secular views (and challenging peoples beliefs), religion is going to (very) slowly taper out and lose influence of the next century.
I haven't explored the general trends in variation of religious belief, and the causes of that etc. in detail though, so can't add much in that regard to the discussion.

Atheism to defeat religion by 2038?

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