This is not to say that religion isn't still growing in 3rd world contries, but I would venture a guess that most of these people are just converting from one superstition to another, which would not be growth.
This doesn't make any sense. If someone converts from one religion to another, that doesn't change the number of people who are religiously unaffiliated. So this kind of conversion has no impact on the numbers above.
I would like to remind everyone that it was Historia that interjected religious 'adherence' into this, after the fact.
I was obviously too hasty in making the claim that religion is decreasing though. Adherence, as Historia interjected after the fact obviously is increasing due to the shear birthing power of 6 billion compared to the non religious. If this thread was about religious adherence, I would not have made the claim that I did. So can I show that the percntage of nones are growing significantly in many countries? Yes. However, adherence of the religious will continue to out pace the nones due to the shear volume of religious babies compare to non religious babies. This I do not dispute.
Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa. Superstions are on the decline in the civiliziled world, but we cannot take for granted the shear power of birthing more followers when talking adherence.
Religious people have more kids than secular people. And those nations today with the highest birthrates are the most religious, while those nations today with the lowest birthrates tend to be among the most secular - so demographically, in terms of who has more babies, the religious have the breeding advantage.
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.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuc ... 89398.html
Phil Zuckerman
Professor of Sociology and Secular Studies, Pitzer College in Claremont, CA.
Question for you Historia.
All this religious growth in sub sahara for example...
Do you think this is atheists converting to religion, or more likely a large population of religious people having babies raised to be religious which obviously would create lost of 'adherents' like you brought into this discussion. I want to compare this thought with things like the US going from 6.7% to 22.8% in non belief in about a decades time. This is significant and not an anomoly in just the US. Therefore I have asked you if you could show a similar percentage increase of nones converting to a religion of some sort.
I'm trying to determine if more and more countries becoming non religious simply cannot cause a decrease in the amount of 'adherents' (again, a term you interjected here) due to the shear amount of babies born to religious people.
Obviously, if 6 billion religious people continue to make religious babies, 'adherence' will grow. Even if the percentage of religious people were to decrease as a whole.
If you look at the Pew graph, we need to acknowledge that the big 3 religions will have a population increase of 2,263,660,000. The unaffiliated only 99,190,000. This will cause religious adherence to grow and I do not dispute that. Note that even if the total population on earth had a 5% increase in not being religious, adherence would still grow.
It seems that religion is decreasing in the civilized world, but the amount of religious adherents are still growing as we would expect.
You can give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, or you can teach a man to pray for fish and he will starve to death.
I blame man for codifying those rules into a book which allowed superstitious people to perpetuate a barbaric practice. Rules that must be followed or face an invisible beings wrath. - KenRU
It is sad that in an age of freedom some people are enslaved by the nomads of old. - Marco
If you are unable to demonstrate that what you believe is true and you absolve yourself of the burden of proof, then what is the purpose of your arguments? - brunumb
