Posted on 10/06/2024 3:51:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The number of people in the United Kingdom who identify as atheist is greater than those who say they believe in God, according to a research project examining why people reject religion.
Explaining Atheism, a three-year program overseen by Queen’s University Belfast in collaboration with other academic institutions launched in 2022, presented interim findings earlier this year on the levels of atheism in multiple countries, including the United Kingdom.
According to the research project, from 2008 to 2018, the number of Brits who don't believe in God rose from 35.2% to 42.9%, leaping ahead of belief in God, which dropped from 41.8% to 37.4% during the same period. Additionally, those who say they don't know if God exists dropped from 21.7% in 2008 to 18.2% in 2018.
This means that the U.K. — England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — countries whose monarch serves as head of the Church of England, has a population in which a “relative majority,” or plurality, do not believe in God.
Professor Jonathan Lanman, assistant director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, is a member of the core team at Explaining Atheism.
In comments to The Christian Post on Friday, Lanman said that “we are limited in what we can claim” as to why this shift occurred, but they believe that “socialization” is a major factor.
“Our results show that the extent to which one is socialized to be a theist (mainly by parents, but also by wider society) is the key determining factor,” said Lanman. “Socialization is known to be important to what we think about the world and the values we hold.”
“While many other factors may in some smaller way be relevant, such as sex, education, and cognitive biases, these are much less relevant than socialization.”
Lanman also told CP that many factors people normally claim play a role in if one believes in God, such as being intelligent or living a secure life, actually do not have considerable influence.
“Further, many common claims, such as people becoming atheists because they are more intelligent or educated (often made by activist atheists) or people becoming atheists because of broken homes, absent fathers, or a desire to rebel (often made by conservative religious commentators), are all shown to be false based on our results,” he continued.
“There’s a significant literature on the role of existential security and religious belief and participation, arguing that as security increases, religion fades. Our findings suggest that while there’s some truth to this, the effect is small and much less important than socialization.”
As to why changes in socialization are leading more people in the U.K.to identify as atheist, Lanman told CP that the project “does not have data” on “why they happened.”
Lanman cited the work of the late American researcher Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan, who argued that shifting to “individual-choice norms” from “pro-fertility norms” plays a part.
“The major world religions had presented pro-fertility norms as absolute moral rules and firmly resisted change. People only slowly give up the familiar beliefs and societal roles they have known since childhood, concerning gender and sexual behavior,” wrote Inglehart in 2020.
“But when a society reaches a sufficiently high level of economic and physical security, younger generations grow up taking that security for granted and the norms around fertility recede.”
Regarding how this growth in the atheist population in the U.K. might impact the nation in the long run, Lanman told CP that “predictions of a massive negative impact due to a loss of moral conviction or sense of meaning and purpose are likely incorrect.”
“Most atheists and agnostics endorse objective moral values, human dignity, and inherent rights, as well as a ‘deep value’ for nature, at similar rates as the general population,” he said.
“Atheists and agnostics are also similar to the general population in seeing ‘family’ and ‘freedom’ as very important for finding meaning in the world and in their own lives.”
Over the past several years, multiple reports have shown that Christianity, in general, and the Church of England in particular are experiencing considerable decline in the U.K.
For example, a 2017 report found that, during October 2016, around one-quarter of Church of England congregations did not have any children present for worship services on average.
Additionally, the National Centre for Social Research found in 2019 that only 38% of Brits identified as Christian, the lowest total in around three decades of polling.
Last December, a bill was introduced in Parliament by Liberal Democrat lawmaker Paul Scriven to sever the government's ties to the Church of England. It is listed as being in first reading in the House of Lords.
And the people probably can’t figure out why their country is falling to islam.
I would say their decline and entry into a new Dark Age is directly a result of their abandoning the Christian faith.
Sad to say that unless they change course, worse things are coming for the UK.
ok, so according to the informstion in the article, 62% of those polled do not hold to the Christian faith or believe in the god of the bible, and are therefore labeled atheist.
Since the premise of not believing has been established, why not question what else they did choose to believe?
For those “thoroughly modern” and “progressive” Brits who believe in nothing except their cellphones and a pint of beer, fear not! Muslims will fill your towns and cities, your churches, (which will by them be mosques) and your population will dwindle, making easier for the Islamiscists to kill you off.
“Most atheists and agnostics endorse objective moral values, human dignity, and inherent rights, as well as a ‘deep value’ for nature, at similar rates as the general population,” he said.“
Objective huh? Where does this “objective “ come from? Who or what outlines or enforces it. This claptrap is the sort of thing many demonrats and their supporters say and believe all day long…now look at what they’re doing. Now look at what they have done to and how they describe Donald Trump or anyone who simply disagrees with them.
How sad for them. Hell is permanent-
England has been churning out proud atheists since Shelley.
I doubt the sampling methodology of this study.
I grew up there. There was little taught about history. There’s also so much of it, for most students, it gets boring quite quickly...how many kings? how many queens? How many thousand years will we cover? You might think that the rich history would be appealing - but the way it is taught is a turn off.
If anything, they have the same types of lefties that dominate the media with the message that you should be ASHAMED of being British. Ask many 1st generation kids of immigrants “are you British”...many will respond “nope, no way”, as though it would be wrong to align.
The working class have no voice. The politicians they vote for are the ones selected for them - uni-party garbage. Voting rates are pathetic - nobody believes voting works, because it doesn’t seem to matter...and it doesn’t. Mass immigration while ‘conservatives’ held office, now the left has it. It’s falling apart, all the public services crumbling under that weight of millions of new migrants.
It’s all due to progressivism. The country largely walked away from Christianity in the ‘70s. The Church is empty. Muslim families are having far more babies. That void will be filled.
Some are waking up to it. Like Tommy Robinson, he’s no saint but seems to have realized the opposite of Islam is Christianity. Just Google “Tommy Robinson October 26th”. He’s planning a massive rally in London for patriots that see the problem - but look at the Google results. It tells you everything.
Yeah...it’s the “I can be a ‘good’ person without God” fallacy. Define ‘good’. Ask a Muslim what is a ‘good’ punishment for adultery? Being gay? Leaving Islam?
The arrogance of being immersed by a culture shaped by Christianity for thousands of years and then assuming, without it, everything would be the same and you’re understanding of ‘good’ would be no different.
It's a shame. England civilized the world. They should not be ashamed of anything.
Except maybe letting Karl Marx live there.
The elites must be trounced.
Farage is your Trump. I hope he can become PM soon.
Watch the Reform Party be demonized the way MAGA is by the lying media.
But more is happening than just the US and UK.
There are also viable, growing, conservative movements in France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Argentina, El Salvador, Venezuela, and who knows where else.
There is also a Fifth Great Awakening happening in the US and growing worldwide.
I would not be pessimistic going forward. Good things are coming.
I think we’re past ‘peak woke’. I think we’re past ‘believing in the news’. Young people are the ones that must deal with the mass migration, along with the rapes and violence that come with it. It’s driven by ‘intellectual atheist elites’ when the problems don’t impact them. There’s a massive disconnect between the two and is now emerging.
That said, I’d argue Tommy is their Trump. He is fearless and should be a dead man at this point. I fear Farage is just another opportunist - he calls Tommy and his followers “tattooed far-right thugs”, without realizing that most of the working class follow Tommy. I’ve been following Tommy for 15+ years, for calling out Islam he’s been smeared like Trump x10.
“The arrogance of being immersed by a culture shaped by Christianity for thousands of years…”
Yep. I often pose the question to certain people, “What year did man land on the moon?” There are many different standards of time that have been operative in the past five or so thousand years…
Instead of boldly proclaiming the Gospel in an uncompromising way, religious leaders are trying to accommodate to the culture vs making the culture adhere to the Bible.
The people are afraid of being arrested for “offensive thoughts.” Offensive to their many muslim local neighbors.
True, the only ones who believe in God in the UK are Muslims.
Thank Henry VIII
EvilC - I would also note that atheism is also rising among the UK’s Mohammedan population, but not as fast as among Christians.
Sins, winni - any information to add on that from your perspective?
I suspect that many “Muslim” atheists will be keeping quiet about it and keep pretending to Muslims, for obvious reasons, and there may be a lot more atheists amongst the “muslim” communitty than is recorded.
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