…and this is a 
The trends, IF they continue, are in our favor
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: June 17, 2008 9:12 AM, by PZ Myers
I just got around to reading this very nice article by Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman, which we godless heathen ought to find reassuring and optimistic. They describe how religion is fading, even here in the United States, and that it is a natural consequence of economic trends. In particular, the main reason atheism is growing isn't that we've got lots of wild-eyed proselytizers, it's simply that security and an absence of fear make religion irrelevant and even unattractive.
Rather than religion being an integral part of the American character, the main reason the United States is the only prosperous democracy that retains a high level of religious belief and activity is because we have substandard socio-economic conditions and the highest level of disparity. The other factors widely thought to be driving forces behind mass faith--desire for the social links provided by churches, fear of societal amorality, fear of death, genetic predisposition towards religiosity, etc--are not critical simply because hundreds of millions have freely accepted being nonreligious mortals in a dozen and a half democracies. Such motives and factors can be operative only if socio-economic circumstances are sufficiently poor to sustain mass creationism and religion.
I'd just have to add a qualifier to that. Just as you can't say that atheism doesn't lead to amorality because hundreds of millions of people demonstrate that it isn't so, we have to be careful about oversimplifying the forces driving religious belief. Fear and uncertainty are strong factors in pushing people into seeking affirmation in religion, but lots would resent that characterization. For many, tradition is a bigger influence. When I was growing up, I went to church because my parents and grandparents sent me there, and because Scandinavian-Americans were expected to be members of the Lutheran church … and to like accordion music and eat lutefisk on holidays. And if you told me I was going to church because I wanted reassurances that there were spiritual ways out of my economically fragile situation, I'd have looked like an uncomprehending fish as I tried to puzzle out what the heck you were talking about.
Millions of prosperous people are willingly and enthusiastically religious, too, and for that reason it's also risky to claim socio-economic factors are the major contributing element to religious belief. Another piece of the puzzle, I think, is that we are social animals and there is always going to be a part of our makeup that is concerned about the behavior of the others in our group. I suspect that another motivator of the hyper-religious is that busy-body reflex: religion is a good knout to use in flogging other people and getting them to conform. That's how I see the filthy rich televangelists and far right Republicans, anyway — religion is a tool for controlling the herd (which may, ultimately, be an economic issue, too).
So while very few individuals would say that they are religious because they are poor, and would probably be rather cranky about it if you tried to pin their faith to something so crass and materialistic, if those same individuals had more wealth and leisure, I think it's generally true that religion would be less pressing or interesting … and education in general gives people the intellectual tools to consider the foundations of their beliefs a little more deeply, and at least leads them away from the more knee-jerk forms of religion.
I do like this next bit. We wicked materialists don't even think of religion as spiritual!
To put it starkly, the level of popular religion is not a spiritual matter, it is actually the result of social, political and especially economic conditions (please note we are discussing large scale, long term population trends, not individual cases). Mass rejection of the gods invariably blossoms in the context of the equally distributed prosperity and education found in almost all 1st world democracies. There are no exceptions on a national basis. That is why only disbelief has proven able to grow via democratic conversion in the benign environment of education and egalitarian prosperity. Mass faith prospers solely in the context of the comparatively primitive social, economic and educational disparities and poverty still characteristic of the 2nd and 3rd worlds and the US.
Their conclusion, while positive, is a little worrisome. It's like they're handing over the formula for what not to do to the religious.
In the end what humanity chooses to believe will be more a matter of economics than of debate, deliberately considered choice, or reproduction. The more national societies that provide financial and physical security to the population, the fewer that will be religiously devout. The more that cannot provide their citizens with these high standards the more that will hope that supernatural forces will alleviate their anxieties. It is probable that there is little that can be done by either side to alter this fundamental pattern.
Wait … that last sentence is wrong. How can you not notice what is going on in this country? We've had people working to widen the gap between rich and poor, we're seeing public education under assault, and the people who have been doing most of this have been blatantly religious. It's obvious how the other side is working to shift the pattern in their favor — by making America more of a banana republic than ever before.
The authors make a good point about overall trends leading towards a loss of faith — the mega-churches are a product of consolidation rather than overall growth, and look, the Southern Baptists are losing membership — but what they're missing is that many of the new churches are extremist in thought, and fraught with a sense of being under siege by the culture, something that they encourage and exaggerate in themselves. They could wither away … or they could explode. Remember the lesson of the Library of Alexandria that Carl Sagan gave.
Also note this: secularism thrives in an environment that is economically strong, where good education is the norm. Faith thrives on economic uncertainty, and grows best in ignorance. Guess which one of those conditions is easiest to generate and maintain? Cultivating a healthy society that can grow and sustain itself, with a well-informed democratic populace, is hard work. Producing an economic rathole inhabited by frightened sheep is easy — elect a few incompetent leaders, throw away resources on futile, bloody projects, and unchain rapacious business interests to exploit short-term personal gains at the cost of sustainability, and you've got a recipe for a fast slide back into the dark ages.
But we don't know of any country that would do anything that stupid, do we?
Politics
Comments
...it's simply that security and an absence of fear make religion irrelevant and even unattractive...
Then, as the US economy slides into the crapper, the government proves itself unwilling or incompetent to provide basic disaster relief services, and social instability becomes more and more likely... if you'll forgive the expression, God help us.
Posted by: speedwell | June 17, 2008 9:17 AM
Perhaps another factor that religion is fading is the disaffection with prosperity theology. The megachurch prosperity theologians such as Joyce Meyers and Joel Olsteen have been preaching to their flocks of sheeple that if they believe enough then Yhwh/Jesus will make them wealthy. The economy continues to tank and vocational outsourcing to non-Xtian nations are contributing to this disaffection. The megachurches are slowly shrinking. Plus pretty much all of the prosperity theologians are under IRS investigation. The sheeple are seeing their herders buying leer jets while they are going broke.
Posted by: Prof MTH | June 17, 2008 9:30 AM
Would greater security and less fear lead to less consumption of lutefisk? Maybe not, but it's got to be worth a try.
As a furriner who often regards American healthcare with appalled disbelief, I've wondered whether the introduction of an effective socialised health system would lead to a decline in religious observance. I don't need to fear being unable to pay medical bills, so that's one less thing to pray about.
Posted by: Moggie | June 17, 2008 9:31 AM
"Millions of prosperous people are willingly and enthusiastically religious, too, and for that reason it's also risky to claim socio-economic factors are the major contributing element to religious belief."
The big divide can be stressful for all sections of the population. The rich have to live behind big fences, and feel uncomfotable as they get too close to the plebs. It is of course better being rich, but being a little less rich in an egaliterian society, might make for greater peace of mind. So it may be both the rich and the poor need religion in the big divide.
Posted by: sailor | June 17, 2008 9:35 AM
While I welcome this kind of news, I always have this feeling that the more they perceive themselves to be in decline, the louder and more obnoxious they'll get.
But then, so long as they're still declining... !
Posted by: MS | June 17, 2008 9:36 AM
Economists always see the world as being completely the result of economic forces. I wouldn't be surprised if I met one who claimed trade made the sky blue. They need to just suck it up and admit they're a specialization in the field of history :p.
Posted by: Julian | June 17, 2008 9:38 AM
You miss that many high-income people go to church to network. Generally you want to go to Protestant denomination such as Presbyterian, Anglican or Lutheran. Those tend to be the higher socio-economic-class level churches.
Posted by: Moses | June 17, 2008 9:38 AM
I linked here a few days ago to last week's Bill Moyers Journal, which was about growing inequality in the US:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06132008/watch3.html
I noticed the other day that The Nation this month is a special issue about inequality. For example:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/extreme_inequality
Posted by: SC | June 17, 2008 9:40 AM
Either they already know what to do to fight atheism, or they are following the effective strategy by chance.
Posted by: llewelly | June 17, 2008 9:43 AM
So George W. Bush really is doing God's work by destroying our nation's economic security and personal liberty. As people get more desperate, they'll turn to religion and God will be served. Clever, clever George!
(We still have over 200 days to endure this man in office.)
Posted by: Zeno | June 17, 2008 9:44 AM
No, that "last sentence" is correct, and your last comment supports it instead of contradicting it. They are saying that the pattern is, "more economic disparity leads to more religion", and that there is little that can be done to break that pattern. That is, other factors such as debates, court cases, films, TV programs, etc. would have little effect if the economic conditions are not changed.
Posted by: SteveM | June 17, 2008 9:51 AM
Jumpin' Jeezus, Moses, I'd've thought the synagogues 'd be a better type of place for that kind of thing.
Posted by: Richard Harris | June 17, 2008 9:52 AM
The argument in not new. Marx is only the most well-known commentator to state a version of this. At the same time, I want to urge some caution. We should not confuse or conflate levels of analysis. The relationship cited above holds at the aggregate (i.e.) international/national level. It does not necessarily hold at the level of the individual. In statistical terms this kinda leads to the ecological inference problem.
Posted by: protocol | June 17, 2008 9:54 AM
As a foreigner I see little difference here with the democrats. Isn't America more likely to elect a muslim president than an atheist one? Democrats may not be the god-botherers the republicans are but their constant mumblings about god are a way to make themselves acceptable to the sheeple too, and ultimately that way they keep faith alive, even though it has no place in a modern civilization.
Posted by: Harold | June 17, 2008 9:59 AM
PZ said:
//Cultivating a healthy society that can grow and sustain itself, with a well-informed democratic populace, is hard work.//
That applies to the US and other 2nd or 3rd world countries,but not to Europe,where it just comes naturally,with the socioeconomic stability enjoyed there over decades,and the humanistic tradition backing up political and social life.
Posted by: clinteas | June 17, 2008 10:00 AM
Seems that way, at times. Even worse are the True Believer Libertarians.
Posted by: Moses | June 17, 2008 10:01 AM
For another version of this argument, based on results of the World Values Survey, see Sacred and Secular by Norris and Inglehart.
http://books.google.com/books?id=dto-P2YfWJIC&dq=%22sacred+and+secular%22+norris&pg=PP1&ots=TjJrjsIM5d&sig=1EtFjQXXmpw0rSXNLLKjWEAiaFc&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fq%3D%2522Sacred%2Band%2BSecular%2522%2BNorris%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26client%3Dfirefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPP1,M1
One worrisome fact is that while religiosity has been systematically declining in the first world ("postindustrial societies"), it has not in third world ("agrarian") societies, and those societies are far more fertile.
The net effect is that religion is growing in absolute terms along with population, and in relative terms. Even as religion declines in the mostly-egalitarianish prosperous West, it is growing overall.
Current population trends in the third world aren't sustainable, but that makes the big picture even less rosy. If the theory is correct, it suggests that those places will get even more pathologically religious as things get more messed up.
Norris and Inglehart compare and contrast several popular theories of secularization, including the theory that the U.S. is exceptional because of its freedom of religion. The common explanation is that our large number of sects and lack of an established church make religion more competitive, with more people able to find a version of religion well-suited to them. They didn't find any evidence of that worldwide---other first-world countries with similar freedom and diversity of religion don't show the same effect. Overall wealth and wealth distribution seem to be much more predictive. (It's hard to come up with good measures of religious diversity, though.)
It seems to me that the U.S. is still theoretically problematic, though. In most of the first world, religion has been fairly steadily declining for 50 years. In the U.S., it doesn't seem to have been declining much until the last 20---when the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer. (I should probably check my stats on that, though.)
Your caveats about causal interpretations are well-taken. This stuff is too simple, and I'm not sure what fraction of the decline in religion is actually more-or-less simply caused by economic conditions. One thing I'm curious about is effects of religion on economics, including effects of violence caused or exacerbated by religion. I suspect that in many fucked-up places, religion plays a part in the instability and/or social divisions that lead to poverty and social injustice. (Not just in places prone to ethnic violence---maybe including the U.S., where we tend to spend less than our peers on economic equity, and more on the military.)
From reading Hector Avalos's Fighting Words, it sound s like the relevant data are a mess. Most studies don't address those issues, or contain implicit biases to the effect that religion must be neutral, or must create positive "social capital" that would make things better.
(Norris and Inglehart seem to fall prey to that, IIRC; the idea that religion might be a cause of bad stuff and not just an effect doesn't seem to be on their radar.)
Posted by: Paul W. | June 17, 2008 10:02 AM
When we justly assign blame to Bush for his role in wrecking our economy, we must also justly assign blame to Reagan, Bush I & Clinton. Much of our economic dysfunction has to do with the "free trade is good" policies all these pushed and/or implemented.
In many respects, Bush is reaping what Clinton, with his pushing the last round of GATT, sowed. I know that's not a popular thing to hear. Bush should be responsible for everything... But wishing it so, doesn't make it so.
Bush did inherit an economy that was going to contract through labor arbitrage. Bush did inherit the Chief of the Fed Clinton nominated to serve another term - Greenspan.
So, yes, while Bush sucks, Clinton did just as much long-term damage to our economy. His was just harder to see because he was buoyed by a recovery early in his Presidency, before GATT's effects could be felt and couple of economic bubbles that stimulated the economy at the end of his presidency.
I will say one thing, while Clinton is over-rated in this area, and people tend to not want to blame him for sewing the long-term seeds of destruction, Bush is worse. Bush is as bad a LBJ (guns & butter) and Nixon (wrong moves at the wrong time) combined.
Posted by: Moses | June 17, 2008 10:12 AM
LOL!
ROTFL!
They aren't being sustained, either*, though they may well be sustained for too long...
* The world population will have started declining before the end of the century, and this is not taking any catastrophe scenarios like Peak Oil into account. Birth rates are dropping almost everywhere, even in countries where this means 4 instead of 8 children per woman.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 17, 2008 10:13 AM
Since when have Jews been allowed into the halls of power and prosperity in America? Seriously, there are a few that have boot-strapped themselves up. But they were, and still are, by-and-large excluded from the White Man's Club. Literally and figuratively.
Posted by: Moses | June 17, 2008 10:17 AM
The general pattern they identify seems plausible, but it may be that once a certain level of decline in religiosity has been reached, even a decrease in security will not reverse it. That certainly seems to have been the case in the UK, where inequality and socio-economic insecurity have grown over the past 30 years, but the decline in religious observance has continued. Any of the New Zealanders know if NZ has shown the same pattern?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 17, 2008 10:23 AM
If the issue is whether synagogues are a better place to network than churches, it's worth noting that Jews do have a higher average income, and are overrepresented in the top two income quintiles. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
Jews have been and still are discriminated against---it's easier to get elected to public office if you're Christian, for example---but they have managed to do rather well for such a small minority. Prosperity-wise, they're ahead of the majority as well as most minorities. (In the U.S.)
Power-wise, it seems to me they've done a pretty good job of organizing and demanding a modicum of respect and clout. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, either; I'd like to see some comparably-sized minorities I'm a member of get their shit together---notably atheists.)
Posted by: Paul W. | June 17, 2008 10:38 AM
Because the article is insufficiently attentive to the social movements that have brought about, and continue to maintain, greater economic equality and secularism in some parts of the world (we shouldn't forget the champions of rationalism, anticlericalism, and free thought who have suffered and died for these causes), it fails to make a key point strongly enough. We should not expect economic trends to lead to the decline of religion. Rather, the message to secular humanists should be: If you want to uproot religion and advance human freedom, the fight on the economic front is essential. (See, and I didn't even use the word "superstructural" once :).)
Posted by: SC | June 17, 2008 10:44 AM
It's not a matter of cleverness on the part of the religious, I think, but that they are following the environmental imperative of religion to impoverish the society in which it thrives. The organisms created by religious memes (these varieties of belief we call 'religions') are like any organism (cf. bacteria, virii, or even insects of certain species) that create a microclimate (in this case beggary and ignorance) in which the organism can best thrive and prosper.
It's a material mechanism (memetic rather than genetic in this case) rather than any product of political intention or 'design'.....
Posted by: Geoffrey Alexander | June 17, 2008 10:48 AM
Mass rejection of the gods invariably blossoms in the context of the equally distributed prosperity and education found in almost all 1st world democracies. There are no exceptions on a national basis.
In this, they've "rediscovered" a tenant of Marxism (not that it was ever practiced accurately to Marx's original writings).
Marx's view was the same: when economic equality is established, social equality increases as well and the need for religion as a compensating factor for controlling (appeasing) those lesser than others goes away.
Lenin and Stalin reversed that: to establish Marxism, religion needs to go away. Logically, of course, A causes !B does not mean !B causes A. In the end, just as with Nazi Fascism, they replaced one superstitious belief in God with another superstitious practice, the worship of the State and Party. If people don't realize rationalism on their own, they can't embrace it.
To Marx, rationalism should have been the result of the new atheism. To reality in that part of the world, superstition has continued with Russia's heavily growing beliefs in cults, in horoscopes, in woo medicine and science, and in the "goodness" of Putin as a leader.
Posted by: Joe Shelby | June 17, 2008 10:49 AM
clinteas@15. Do you live in Europe? What you say seems to me much too sanguine about European socio-economic - let alone environmental - sustainability. In the UK, and I think in most other European states, inequality has increased considerably over the past 20-30 years. In the UK and at least some other states, that also applies to insecurity, although in others (Ireland, Spain, Portugal for example) the overall rise in wealth brought by EU membership has probably been great enough to mean security has increased.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 17, 2008 10:50 AM
To offer another quote from Voltairine de Cleyre (this one from "The Economic Tendency of Free Thought"):
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/cleyre/etf.html
Posted by: SC | June 17, 2008 10:52 AM
It amazes me that people can attribute the economy and welfare of a country like the US to one person or administration. Why, I heard there has been a Congress in session this whole time!
Posted by: sjburnt | June 17, 2008 10:56 AM
Gregory Paul?
<click>
Oh, yeah, that Gregory Paul.
:-)
Great article.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 17, 2008 10:57 AM
I don't attribute it to one man. One party actually. Well done GOP. Buncha hypocrits.
Posted by: Steve_C | June 17, 2008 10:59 AM
religion is a good knout to use in flogging other people and getting them to conform. That's how I see the filthy rich televangelists and far right Republicans, anyway -- religion is a tool for controlling the herd (which may, ultimately, be an economic issue, too).
perhaps old news to some, but Paul Bingham has great theory that such coercive methods became the main evolutionary mechanism driving human evolution. Explains biological and cultural history quite well:http://mc1litvip.jstor.org/stable/2664816
Posted by: chigurh | June 17, 2008 11:06 AM
Seems to me that education is more important than wealth & security -- though these latter two of course go a long way towards making access to education much easier.
And that was a mistake. If everyone is equal but poor, I bet religion thrives. The existence of Bill Gates doesn't hurt anyone; what is necessary is a reasonably high minimum income below which nobody can fall. The proletariat must be abolished -- and basically has been abolished in the richest countries other than the US --, not the bourgeoisie.
Yeah, but not to American levels.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 17, 2008 11:12 AM
I would say that increased sophistication would be a better phrase than education. Even watching tv exposes you to more thoughts and ideas than you would otherwise have. Consider how narrow your world view as a kid in Kansas was 75 years ago compared to today.
Posted by: Graham | June 17, 2008 11:28 AM
As a foreigner I see little difference here with the democrats. Isn't America more likely to elect a muslim president than an atheist one? Democrats may not be the god-botherers the republicans are but their constant mumblings about god are a way to make themselves acceptable to the sheeple too, and ultimately that way they keep faith alive, even though it has no place in a modern civilization.
No, I think the American public that really cares about religion generally sees anything non-Christian as being equivalent to atheism in terms of their "ability" to lead the country.
Posted by: Dr. J | June 17, 2008 11:28 AM
Democrats don't use religion as a wedge.
There's a huge difference.
Posted by: Steve_C | June 17, 2008 11:30 AM
Not sure if economics is as important as they say.
The new noveau riche of the world are the oil Arab moslems. The Saudis, Kuwaitis, gulf Arabs etc.. With oil at $140/barrel, they are swimming in money.
I haven't noticed any dropoff in their version of Islam.
The most secular moslems are in Indonesia, and central Asia, areas that are either poor and sort of developing or just flat out poor.
Posted by: raven | June 17, 2008 11:34 AM
Sorry, haven't had time to look thru all the comments, but seems a outcome of that hypothesis (that security makes religion irrelevant) is what _has_ happened in much of Western Europe.
Posted by: Don Kane | June 17, 2008 11:35 AM
Post #34, the first paragraph should have been a quote from Harold at #14.
(what is the method for getting in-post quotes to work?)
Posted by: Dr. J | June 17, 2008 11:36 AM
I feel a little more confidence now. Maybe its cause
my inexperience, but actually more of my world, its just
through the window of science (Mostly Biology), im never
aware of the lastest news.
But since they seem to know their stuff... anyway
seems almost too sweet to be true.
But the premise: "When people arent needy, they
dont require religion at all" make enough sense.
Pray god, the usa economy rises and cleanses religion
once for all.
Posted by: Lord Zero | June 17, 2008 11:53 AM
I think filling social needs has historically been the major role of religion, and the decline can be attributed to the increasing ways people have to connect with other people. For centuries, religion had a near exclusive claim to being the social center in a community, but it now competes with magazines, radio, television, and more recently the Internet, which allow people to form new groups far beyond their immediate neighborhoods. This global community disseminates ideas and information, which helps people who otherwise would have remained isolated to break free of the tyranny of religion and the ignorance of superstition.
Posted by: Fergy | June 17, 2008 11:56 AM
Isn't going to happen within a single year or two. Patience, patience.
(And I just love the wording "oil Arab moslems". :o) )
No, Bosnia and Albania... though I suspect mostly historical reasons there...
<blockquote>quoted text here</blockquote>
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 17, 2008 11:58 AM
I can't say that increasing secularization in America appears to result from increasing equality and security. Not the former, certainly, and the latter only marginally (crime has decreased from its highs). So the evidence isn't especially conclusive from the American experience, at least.
I don't really doubt that economic equality and security tend to reduce religion, nonetheless.
There's so much more going on in America, though. Early elite founders of America tended to think that religion was good for democracy, and we've since lived with a considerable civic religion.
America hasn't had the religious-governmental clerical abuses that Europe had, either. Resentments of religious representatives directly dictating policy in Europe led to greater resentments of religion, while Americans shopped around for the religion they felt answered their needs. There's rarely been the kind of anti-religious sentiment in the US that has existed in many European sectors.
Furthermore, whatever "socialism" existed and exists in Europe, equality hasn't generally been achieved, not even close. France is still quite stratified socio-economically, for instance. Needs have been met by social programs, enhancing security (thus likely reducing the fears that keep religion stronger), but I don't see much real economic equality in Western secular societies.
And the grass-roots nature of both American protestantism and Islam seems to keep religion stronger. It's relatively easy to rebel against a hierarchical religion like Catholicism and state Protestantism, not so much if you feel more responsible for choosing and supporting your own religion. Additionally, hierarchical religions in Europe tend to stay current with science and philosophy (they have an intellectual tradition lacking in much American protestantism), and to weaken religion internally in response to these, while Americans have no such guiding hand in moving halfway toward secularism.
Clearly America isn't becoming more secular because government is making us economically equal, or particularly secure. It's probably more due to technology and education, and the fact that religion in America is rather tired and anachronistic. Plus, the more recent revival of religious power in America (presumably from around 1980) is wearing thin, and receiving actual backlash today (but being co-opted by the Democrats in this election cycle--something that needs watching).
But our consumerist religious "economies" will make "buying a religion" more attractive in America than in many nations. Indeed, in Europe most people really don't do so, for while it's legally acceptable, it's not socially acceptable. Religion is a market here, and if prosperity preaching loses its appeal, something else will come along to keep religion from declining too much.
No, the "analysis" given is simplistic, not really dealing with important factors that have always made religion in America more resilient than that in Europe.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 17, 2008 12:03 PM
"Sorry, haven't had time to look thru all the comments, but seems a outcome of that hypothesis (that security makes religion irrelevant) is what _has_ happened in much of Western Europe."
I think there is probably a fair of truth in this. I also wonder if the fact that in the last 100 years Europe has suffered two world wars which left much of the continent in ruins, and by a fair number of smaller wars does not also have something to do with it. I do not wish to underestimate the losses the US suffered in either world war, but it is fair to say in neither was the civilian population of the US seriously endangered.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | June 17, 2008 12:08 PM
The trends in NZ are very similar to Western Europe, though lagging a bit for various reasons. I suspect that while there is truth in the economic instability argument it may well be that there are tipping points. So even if you take into account that the rest of the 1st world has socialised medicine to various degrees and generous by US standards social welfare you do have to ask why the decline in religiosity has continued despite the expansion in social inequality and the effects of Free trade on people's job securities. I suspect it is because of what PZ points out, social influences. Those who attended church regularly fell well below 50% decades ago, so most people now grow up in non religious or minimally religious households. For one thing this gives social license to those growing up in religious environments that it is socially acceptable to not a give a shit about religion.
I remember reading about Daniel Dennett telling how he was talking to high school seniors on the West Coast somewhere and several came up to him afterwards in tears thanking him as they had not previously realised it was OK not to believe. He had given them license not to believe. Such a thing is almost unthinkable here in Yurp. You have to keep your kids completely isolated from ALL media for them not to realise this and in the information age this is almost impossible.
That is what the godless can best do in the US, not rage against the economic machine, make it socially acceptable to be an atheist. Be loud, be vocal, be visible and yes, be prepared to be litigious to stand up for your rights. Take a few leaves out of the gay rights lobby's history. Lots of people decry the Brights, I think they are doing the right thing for the above reasons.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | June 17, 2008 12:12 PM
Does anyone else think it's odd that this idea of being American is tightly linked to independence, yet we're strongly religious as a whole? We're very concerned with being in charge of the world, and in charge of our own destinies, but a huge chunk believe their is a supremely powerful man who has planned out their lives. How can that be reconciled? Seems like compartmentalization to me.
Posted by: Dennis N | June 17, 2008 12:16 PM
This analysis puts atheist libertarians in a fierce double bind {snicker}.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 17, 2008 12:20 PM
I find it fascinating the correlation between universal healthcare and decline in religious belief.
No wonder the evangelicals are willing to cut off their collective nose to spite their face.
To all of those pontificating on the similarities to Marx' observations, just because Marx and others may have arrived at comparable conclusions, it does not mean that the authors of the article must therefor be Marxists. I only bring this up because any invocation of the word "Marx" carries with it way too much emotional and partisan baggage for most people to get beyond. I for one am convinced that Marx was correct about many of his economic theories but the Stalinists, Maoists, western idealogues of the far left, etc. subverted his observations to form what really became more quasi-religious dogmas centered around cults of personality for control and power.
To those who want to minimize economics as a driving force in history, like it or not trade has driven much of the history and development of civilization and trade is above all about economics. If you don't think reactions to globalization and materialism, along with emotional opposition to rational based science, are driving much of the current crisis in the world including terrorism and extreme religious backlash, better think again. They are the main drivers of both the internal and external culture clashes that provoke violent and regressive responsives.
Fortunately, I believe we are near the end of a reactionary pendulum swing against reason fueled by the 20th Century's rapid acceleration of scientific and mathematical discovery. It was a monumental shock to a system that relied for thousands of years on mythologies to explain reasons for being and for the extortion and consolidations of wealth and power. Fundamentlist captalism is just another dogmatic expression of the same problem and it too will collapse under the weight its own mythologies.
Reason and knowledge are neither pro nor con when it comes to the concepts presented by socialism and capitalism. Socialism and capitalism should be used as toolsets to be accessed for effective problem solving, and not worshiped as closed ideological systems unto themselves. History shows us that one-size-fits-all dogma is best suited for producing one-size-fits-all body bags.
Posted by: mayhempix | June 17, 2008 12:24 PM
All of this important stuff, and what's stuck in my mind is:
What does a comprehending fish look like?
Posted by: Darby | June 17, 2008 12:30 PM
I remember reading about Daniel Dennett telling how he was talking to high school seniors on the West Coast somewhere and several came up to him afterwards in tears thanking him as they had not previously realised it was OK not to believe.
OT, but that's exactly the reaction -- relieved tears -- that my husband got from several students at a math and science high school program when he told them it was okay to not go to medical school. (His words: "If you want to go to medical school, by all means you should go. If someone else is trying to push you to go to med school, tell THEM to go.")
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | June 17, 2008 12:33 PM
regardless of the validity of this statement, i question the relevance.
Posted by: sdg | June 17, 2008 12:38 PM
PZ, why do you think that there's such a HEAVY emphasis on destroying secular public education in the US? The alliance between the corporate elite (who will make sure their own high-quality private schools are too expensive for 99.9% of us to attend) and the professional Christians is all about keeping us stupid and impoverished -- or worse, brainwashed and impoverished.
Meanwhile, for you students of inequality, check this out:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/cavanagh_collins
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | June 17, 2008 1:04 PM
The end of religion has been predicted many times. Mass murder and Gulags were even implemented by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and their followers.
Voltaire predicted it before the French Revolution, whose leaders tried to carry it out.
All failed, because the kind of hate you promote self destructs.
Voltaire, Paine, Ingersoll, Russell, Freud, Lenin, Trotsy, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Sartre all failed.
Even PZ Myers will fail.
Posted by: True Freethinker | June 17, 2008 1:07 PM
Tell that to largely atheistic Western Europe. Mass murder and Gulags were not in the equation, just as they aren't now. I don't think you truly freely thought about that.
Posted by: Dennis N | June 17, 2008 1:28 PM
True Freethinker #52 is completely oblivious to the irony of his/her name.
Hey PZ! According to TF that's some serious company you keep! You sure can stir up some serious hate... at least from the likes of FT.
Of course gullibility and fear is not in short demand for the forseeable future so religion will continue to be with us for centuries to come. However its grip on power and influence will continue to steadily wane as civilizations progress and slowly continue to embrace reason over programmed fairy tales and mindless superstition.
Posted by: mayhempix | June 17, 2008 1:40 PM
Re #25: Joe, Marx had *tenets* (principles), not tenants (renters). Doubtless Engels greedily kept all of the latter for himself. :)
(This isn't picking on you, BTW; I see this conflation a lot around the tubes and wanted to take the chance to correct it where it would be seen by many.)
Posted by: Steve Bloom | June 17, 2008 1:41 PM
#52 has clearly been freed from critical thought. smells like troll but what the hell...
a) the point is that religiosity does not decrease as a result of direct efforts to decrease religiosity. it is the result of other changes in society.
b) they did not exactly predict the end of religion. they simply stated that IF current trends continue, the role of religion in America will decrease.
Posted by: sdg | June 17, 2008 1:51 PM
Seems to me that education is more important than wealth & security
I don't know about security, but education is wealth. If there's anything I dislike most about modern right-wing economists, it's that they've narrowed the definition of "wealth" such that it includes only things like money and assets. (See also "natural capital" for a similar idea.)
Posted by: Interrobang | June 17, 2008 1:57 PM
PZ Myers:We've had people working to widen the gap between rich and poor
Posted by: Nova | June 17, 2008 2:12 PM
Oops did the quote all backwards in my post immediately before this one!
Posted by: Nova | June 17, 2008 2:13 PM
I don't think that's the right interpretation.
Socioeconomic conditions may tilt the playing field a bit more or less toward secularism or religion, and that may have a big effect in the long run.
Still, somebody has to fight the fight on that playing field. Ideas and arguments matter---you can't just sit back and expect things to happen automatically.
Sociologists have been wondering about this stuff for a long time. For a while, many thought that European secularization was mostly temporary, and that the trend would reverse as the less-religious generation or two got older and more religious. That does not appear to have happened. Apparently the less religious young folks are not getting much more religious as they get older, and each new generation has more people losing religion than gaining it.
Whether that applies to the U.S. is unclear. I'm optimistic that we've just been slow to get seriously started with secularization, and it's started now and we'll continue to ratchet religion down slowly but steadily as the Europeans have been doing for 50 years. I'm not counting on it, though.
It's hard to make definite generalizations about this sort of thing, because it's unprecedented, but it seems likely that most of the first world has substantially "broken the spell" of religion, and there's no going back. Irreligious folks are out of the closet, and are not going to go back in, and religious folks have lost their traditional advantage of being the overwhelming majority, able to suppress dissent.
The U.S. may be on the way there, but we'll have to wait and see---or rather, we'll have to make it happen here, too.
Posted by: Paul W. | June 17, 2008 2:33 PM
i wasn't necessarily saying that i agree 100% but i am quite certain that it was the point of the article. IMO, there is not really much to interpret.
that being said, i agree with you that talking about it matters and i am grateful that so many people are "out".
Posted by: sdg | June 17, 2008 2:56 PM
I want to echo Moses' contention that Clinton is almost as culpable as Bush in many ways. While he was not guilty of Bush's disdain for the Constitution, authoritarianism, and sheer incompetence, he was firmly on the free-trade bandwagon and did retain that fool Greenspan as fed chief. Suffice it to say, Clinton has been the best Republican president since Ike.
Funny how that gives Freepers apoplexy.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | June 17, 2008 2:57 PM
I wouldn't emphasize that too much. Sweden's population didn't suffer from the wars apart from the shortages and fear they caused, and they are among the most nonreligious today.
Posted by: windy | June 17, 2008 3:15 PM
That is indeed a great article. I think the best service it does is to reveal that new statistics are cherry picked and misrepresented by apologists. I was also pointed to another possible cherry picking by a commenter on Sandwalk:
What would be interesting is to test the proposed model, especially for causative relationship suggested by the time ordering instead of the mere correlation found.
I think PZ does the article a disservice here, as he seems to momentarily confuse a current economic situation with economics and insecurity when discussing social expressions such as traditions. Traditions are more often transformed or abandoned in safe environments AFAIK.
Another misstatement on the suspected correlation is that "the other side is working to shift the pattern"; that it can be used isn't the same as that it can be disused; which SteveM already noted.
The point about oversimplification is well taken though, this proposed correlation must be teased out as to the underlying factor(s). But it seems valid at first glance.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | June 17, 2008 3:55 PM
Sweden also has enjoyed very generous social welfare benefits, good employment and a fairly egalitarian society, what the study indicates was important in shucking off religion. They also have a state church like we do in the UK. You Americans made a mistake when you opted for religious freedom...
Posted by: Peter Ashby | June 17, 2008 3:59 PM
Torbjorn, that anonymous commenter was actually me, forgetting to sign my name.
Since you liked it, I'm happy to take credit for it. :-)
Posted by: Paul W. | June 17, 2008 4:11 PM
Amazing.
Posted by: Dave Wisker | June 17, 2008 4:21 PM