Current Trends Find Religion Declining, Secularism Rising

 

 

Religion around the world is declining, Phil Zuckerman, a sociology and secular studies professor, writes in a column for the Huffington Post.

 

Zuckerman says that recent studies show that the world is becoming more and more secular.

 

“Indeed, as a recent National Geographic report confirms, the world’s newest religion is: No Religion.”

 

In his column, Zuckerman points to the fact that there are more atheist and agnostics than believers in Norway and Britain. 

 

Nearly 70 percent of the Dutch say they are not affiliated with any religion, while in the United States that number is between 23 percent and 28 percent and growing.

 

Only about 20 percent of people in Japan claim to be religious, and in Iceland, zero percent of people believe that God created the earth.

 

Zuckerman says that as people stop being religious, so will their children, but predictions from Pew show that secularity will level off in a few decades because religious people still have more children than secular adults. 

 

Still, Islam is predicted to be the world’s largest religion by 2050.

 

“But for now, churches are closing across the world, faith is fading, and those men and women who live their lives according to secular values and humanist principles are on the rise,” Zuckerman writes.