A surprising explanation for the global decline of religion
Religion has been retreating across the world since the beginning of the 21st century. According to results from the World Value Survey, conducted between 2007 and 2019, the importance of God declined on average in 39 of the 44 countries analyzed. Moreover, the percentage of people identifying as nonreligious has risen by more than 10% in nations like Singapore, Iceland, Chile, and South Korea over the past decade.
The decline of religion is most striking in the United States. Between 1940 and 2000, church membership hovered around 70%, according to Gallup. But as the new millennium got underway, it fell off a cliff. By 2020, church membership had cratered to 47%. Between 2007 and 2020, the proportion of Americans not affiliated with any religion grew from 16% to 30%.
Belief in and worship of supernatural beings, gods, and deities has been a fundamental facet of human existence for thousands of years, yet the decline of religion is playing out in a historical blink of an eye! What could explain this upheaval in global society?
“When people can use technology to predict the weather, diagnose and treat illness, and manufacture resources, they may rely less on religious beliefs and practices,” an international team of researchers recently wrote in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
But if technology is negating the need for religion, then why didn’t we see a massive drop in belief during the Industrial Revolution, the Space Race, or rise the of personal computers? Why has the decline of religion become so widespread and rapid only recently?
The researchers offered a hypothesis: It’s not technology by itself that reduces religiosity, but specifically automation in the form of robotics and artificial intelligence, which only became prominent in the 21st century.
“This claim is based on recent research on lay perceptions of automation,” they wrote. “Such studies show that people ascribe automation technology with abilities that border on supernatural.”
“Historically, people have deferred to supernatural agents and religious professionals to solve instrumental problems beyond the scope of human ability. These problems may seem more solvable for people working and living in highly automated spaces.”
https://bigthink.com/the-present/a-surpr...-religion/
Religion has been retreating across the world since the beginning of the 21st century. According to results from the World Value Survey, conducted between 2007 and 2019, the importance of God declined on average in 39 of the 44 countries analyzed. Moreover, the percentage of people identifying as nonreligious has risen by more than 10% in nations like Singapore, Iceland, Chile, and South Korea over the past decade.
The decline of religion is most striking in the United States. Between 1940 and 2000, church membership hovered around 70%, according to Gallup. But as the new millennium got underway, it fell off a cliff. By 2020, church membership had cratered to 47%. Between 2007 and 2020, the proportion of Americans not affiliated with any religion grew from 16% to 30%.
Belief in and worship of supernatural beings, gods, and deities has been a fundamental facet of human existence for thousands of years, yet the decline of religion is playing out in a historical blink of an eye! What could explain this upheaval in global society?
“When people can use technology to predict the weather, diagnose and treat illness, and manufacture resources, they may rely less on religious beliefs and practices,” an international team of researchers recently wrote in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
But if technology is negating the need for religion, then why didn’t we see a massive drop in belief during the Industrial Revolution, the Space Race, or rise the of personal computers? Why has the decline of religion become so widespread and rapid only recently?
The researchers offered a hypothesis: It’s not technology by itself that reduces religiosity, but specifically automation in the form of robotics and artificial intelligence, which only became prominent in the 21st century.
“This claim is based on recent research on lay perceptions of automation,” they wrote. “Such studies show that people ascribe automation technology with abilities that border on supernatural.”
“Historically, people have deferred to supernatural agents and religious professionals to solve instrumental problems beyond the scope of human ability. These problems may seem more solvable for people working and living in highly automated spaces.”
https://bigthink.com/the-present/a-surpr...-religion/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
