The death of religion-there is still hope
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For many years I’ve had the feeling that organised religion was in a decline. Like many people I’ve come to the conclusion that atheism is becoming not only the most rational belief structure, but also the must numerous.
A recent study reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, using historical data (of at least 100 years) from 9 countries which included religious affiliation in their census data, shows a steady increase in people who claim no religious affiliation.
Their conclusion is that religion may well become extinct, in at least the 9 countries included in the report. The countries are: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
There are many reasons conjectured in the report, which merits a close read, but eventually an age of reason and rationality may soon be upon us.
There is still hope.
The cited research abstract can be seen here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.1375v2
and the entire report can be seen here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.1375v2
The news report from BBC News is shown below.
Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News, DallasA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Their means of analysing the data invokes what is known as nonlinear dynamics – a mathematical approach that has been used to explain a wide range of physical phenomena in which a number of factors play a part.
One of the team, Daniel Abrams of Northwestern University, put forth a similar model in 2003 to put a numerical basis behind the decline of lesser-spoken world languages.
At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the “utility” of speaking one instead of another.
“The idea is pretty simple,” said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
“It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.
“For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there’s some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not.”
Dr Wiener continued: “In a large number of modern secular democracies, there’s been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%.”
The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the “non-religious” category.
They found, in a study published online, that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them.
And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
However, Dr Wiener told the conference that the team was working to update the model with a “network structure” more representative of the one at work in the world.
“Obviously we don’t really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society,” he said.
However, he told BBC News that he thought it was “a suggestive result”.
“It’s interesting that a fairly simple model captures the data, and if those simple ideas are correct, it suggests where this might be going.
“Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.”
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Has anyone tried explaining this to the Muslims or the Southern Baptists yet? The next thing you know the Christians will be sending missionaries to those countries to witness to those poor folks. But, alas, I like Holte, live in the South. Religion will always be here.
Despite moving towards post-industrialization, the U.S. remains pretty religious, and will be for a long time to come. The trend here is the liberalization (i.e., inclusivity) and universalization of religion. It’s getting a little less dogmatic, especially with the millennials.
Reminds me of this
HERE
My first thought was that I would like to move to one of those countries, then. However, on second thought, I would not. I can honestly say that I very much enjoy religion.