[extropy-chat] Atheism in Decline

[Steve Davies]

Leaving aside all the discussion this has started, I think it's worth 
returning to the original report. Personally I think it's flawed by the way 
it's set up or rather the terms it uses and so I'd be sceptical about its 
conclusions. If by "Atheism" you mean self conscious secularism of the 
Ingersoll or Bradlaugh kind then that certainly is in decline. However there 
is no evidence for a significant increase in support for either Christianity 
or some other kind of organised religion. All of the indications are that 
the predominant position of most Europeans is one of indifference to 
organised religion and articulated religious beliefs together with a kind of 
vague belief in some kind of undefined deity or divine principle and a fair 
amount of new agey notions. For example in the most recent British census 
about half the respondents put themselves down as "No religion" but most 
surveys indicate that two thirds of Brits would describe themselves as 
"believing in God". My point is that while there is a lot of vague sentiment 
of this kind there's little or no evidence of support for more explicit or 
worked out religious beliefs, much less any sign of a revival in Christian 
belief or observance. Also, although the militant aspect of Islam in Europe 
gets a lot of coverage there's little attention paid to the phenomenon of a 
loss of belief among many of the second and third generation. I notice that 
the report did indicate that a revival of religious belief and sensibility 
would probably take the form of neo-paganism. Personally I'd welcome that - 
if religious belief is hard wired into us then polytheism makes a lot more 
sense than monotheism. Also I'd say that traditional polytheistic religions 
are and were a lot less harmfull than the forms of monotheism that developed 
in the Middle east between the first and seventh centuries. SD