Atheism on the rise - Demographics

[Mister Agenda]

As you've probably noticed the number of atheists has been growing. If we look at northern European States like Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, or even Germany or the UK, we'll notice there has been not only an increase of people who identify themselves as atheists, but some of those countries already have a considerable number of atheist citizens.

Check out the fertility rates of those countries. They're not replacing themselves.

We're not replacing ourselves in the US either. It comes from a high level of industrial and economic development, not from being less religious.

Actually, both lower birth rate AND being less religious likely come from high economic development.

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Atheists frequently note that people tend to adopt the belief systems of their parents. If that is true, and if atheists have fewer children than theists (I've tried unsuccessfully in the past to find direct statistics on this), then it's a losing battle. Theism will prevail. Europe won't go from Christian to atheist. It will go from Christian to Muslim via atheism.

It's generally true, but most growth of atheism has been from people deconverting. People cling to traditional beliefs less when they're not in danger of starvation or ruin.