Unaffliated Religion

Jiro

Jiro

If You Know What I Mean
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Organized religion 'will be driven toward extinction' in 9 countries, experts predict
Organized religion will all but vanish eventually from nine Western-style democracies, a team of mathematicians predict in a new paper based on census data stretching back 100 years.

It won't die out completely, but "religion will be driven toward extinction" in countries including Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, they say.

It will also wither away in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland and Switzerland, they anticipate.

They can't make a prediction about the United States because the U.S. census doesn't ask about religion, lead author Daniel Abrams told CNN.

But nine other countries provide enough data for detailed mathematical modeling, he said.

"If you look at the data, 'unaffiliated' is the fastest-growing group" in those countries, he said.

"We start with two big assumptions based on sociology," he explained.

The first is that it's more attractive to be part of the majority than the minority, so as religious affiliation declines, it becomes more popular not to be a churchgoer than to be one, he said - what Abrams calls the majority effect.

"People are more likely to switch to groups with more members," he said.

Social networks can have a powerful influence, he said.

"Just a few connections to people who are (religiously) unaffiliated is enough to drive the effect," he said.

The other assumption underlying the prediction is that there are social, economic and political advantages to being unaffiliated with a religion in the countries where it's in decline - what Abrams calls the utility effect.

"The utility of being unaffiliated seems to be higher than affiliated in Western democracies," he said.

Abrams and his co-authors are not passing any judgment on religion, he's quick to say - they're just modeling a prediction based on trends.

"We're not trying to make any commentary about religion or whether people should be religious or not," he said.

"I became interested in this because I saw survey data results for the U.S. and was surprised by how large the unaffiliated group was," he said, referring to a number of studies done by universities and think tanks on trends in religion.

Studies suggest that "unaffiliated" is the fastest-growing religious group in the United States, with about 15% of the population falling into a category experts call the "nones."

They're not necessarily atheists or non-believers, experts say, just people who do not associate themselves with a particular religion or house of worship at the time of the survey.

Abrams had done an earlier study looking into the extinction of languages spoken by small numbers of people.

When he saw the religion data, his co-author "Richard Wiener suggested we try to apply a similar technique to religious affiliation," Abrams said.

The paper, by Abrams, Wiener and Haley A. Yaple, is called "A mathematical model of social group competition with application to the growth of religious non-affiliation." They presented it this week at the Dallas meeting of the American Physical Society.

Only the Czech Republic already has a majority of people who are unaffiliated with religion, but the Netherlands, for example, will go from about 40% unaffiliated today to more than 70% by 2050, they expect.

Even deeply Catholic Ireland will see religion die out, the model predicts.

"They've gone from 0.04% unaffiliated in 1961 to 4.2% in 2006, our most recent data point," Abrams says.

He admits that the increase in Muslim immigration to Europe may throw off the model, but he thinks the trend is robust enough to withstand some challenges.

"Netherlands data goes back to 1860," he pointed out. "Every single data that we were able to find shows that people are moving from the affiliated to unaffiliated. I can't imagine that will change, but that's personal opinion, not what the data shows."

But Barry Kosmin, a demographer of religion at Trinity College in Connecticut, is doubtful.

"Religion relies on human beings. They aren't rational or predictable according to the laws of physics. Religious fervor waxes and wanes in unpredictable ways," he said.

"The Jewish tradition that says prophecy is for fools and children is probably wise," he added.

And Abrams, Wiener and Yaple are not the first to predict the end of religion.

Peter Berger, a former president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, once said that, "People will become so bored with what religious groups have to offer that they will look elsewhere."

He said Protestantism "has reached the strange state of self-liquidation," that Catholicism was in severe crisis, and anticipated that "religions are likely to survive in small enclaves and pockets" in the United States.

He made those predictions in February 1968.
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Well then I forsee the SBC getting heavier on International Missions then. *Digs into pocket for Lottie Moon...* Ah well, looks like I've got two pennies, a couple of quarters, some pocket lint and a piece of bubble gum. =/
 
As one can see in this article, it's not "is the God dead?" anymore, but "is the organized God dead?". Most sociologist now accepts that religion is a natural part of any society.

Peter Berger made some wild guesses as this article mentions, but Berger have later changed his predictions, and admited some flaws. This is unfortunately not mentioned in the article.

Another question is changing trends, like the unexpected rise of pentecostalism in latin/south america.

This article is also unclear about what affiliated religion means. While people stop going to a state church, they still watch the same movies at an organized cinema, about channeling, ghosts, aliens, spirits, and belive in the same things. Not to mention computer games, that are full of supernatural deities.

SBC, with it's flexibility, are obviously in a better position to battle those "challenges" than rigid and stiff state churces in europe, this is also not mentioned. I agree with Barry Kosmin.

Still a good article, showing some of the discussions going on.
 
Good post....but...getting rid of organized religion would be a little like getting rid of cockroaches. Ain't gonna happen!
 
Around here the Hispanics fall into two main categories faith-wise. They are either Catholic or they are Pentecostal. Both have strict interpretations of their Bibles, but both couldn't be more different. This is something very interesting that I have seen over the past decade. When the Hispanics first arrived they established a small Spanish Catholic Church, now they have a full-on Catholic Church facility literally across the street from the chicken processing plant. Slowly the other Hispanics that left the Catholic church after they arrived went to the small Pentecostal church that was literally using a back room in a real estate building as their sanctuary. Now they have bought a building just outside of town and are rapidly expanding. They recently remodeled their sanctuary to accommodate the growing congregation.

As for my church, we actually established a Spanish missionary affiliate church that grew out from our church having to have two services as we could not fit all into our sanctuary and there was also the language issue. So for about 5 years we had a service in English at 11 am and a Spanish service at 1:00 pm. Eventually the Spanish group got large enough that they wanted to establish their own building so through the SBC's approval we established the Iglesia de Bautista Mission in which they had their own building and their own preacher but their budget and finances were managed by our church. About 4 or 5 years ago the mission became established enough and the building was paid off that now they are a stand alone all-Spanish SBC affiliated Baptist church. I've been told they have already let the building go to crap and that there is a lot of squabbling going on there. But because they are now an established church, there is nothing our church can do so we just let them continue on down their path. I would not be surprised if the church is disbanded eventually and the Pentecostal church purchases the building.

I think a lot of people are leaving 'organized religion' because of the hierarchy involved and that there has to be approval from some higher authority for things to be done. Many people are going into independent or non-denominational churches because there is no hierarchy and there is no higher approval needed for things to get done such as building improvements, budgeting, allocating funds to certain ministries, and all members are seen as equally important with less 'submission' of one sex to the other. (and lord that burns my ass when it comes to the SBC's stance on it.)
 
The same linked study says:

Yet another irony is the number of studies suggesting that religion and faith are actually beneficial for health. Recent studies suggest that a "relaxation response" in the brain among people who pray, meditate, or engage in otherwise relaxing activities may alleviate anxiety and stress. Stress is implicated in many illnesses. Other studies suggest an association between church-going and longevity.

"On the whole being religious has been shown by many studies to be associated with better mental health, lower smoking rates, lower mortality rates and better overall health status," said Feinstein. "There are a whole lot of things religious people are doing right, but it's just this specific area where there appears to be room for improvement."
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Dixie said:
Around here the Hispanics fall into two main categories faith-wise. They are either Catholic or they are Pentecostal. Both have strict interpretations of their Bibles, but both couldn't be more different. This is something very interesting that I have seen over the past decade. When the Hispanics first arrived they established a small Spanish Catholic Church, now they have a full-on Catholic Church facility literally across the street from the chicken processing plant. Slowly the other Hispanics that left the Catholic church after they arrived went to the small Pentecostal church that was literally using a back room in a real estate building as their sanctuary. Now they have bought a building just outside of town and are rapidly expanding. They recently remodeled their sanctuary to accommodate the growing congregation.

As for my church, we actually established a Spanish missionary affiliate church that grew out from our church having to have two services as we could not fit all into our sanctuary and there was also the language issue. So for about 5 years we had a service in English at 11 am and a Spanish service at 1:00 pm. Eventually the Spanish group got large enough that they wanted to establish their own building so through the SBC's approval we established the Iglesia de Bautista Mission in which they had their own building and their own preacher but their budget and finances were managed by our church. About 4 or 5 years ago the mission became established enough and the building was paid off that now they are a stand alone all-Spanish SBC affiliated Baptist church. I've been told they have already let the building go to crap and that there is a lot of squabbling going on there. But because they are now an established church, there is nothing our church can do so we just let them continue on down their path. I would not be surprised if the church is disbanded eventually and the Pentecostal church purchases the building.

I think a lot of people are leaving 'organized religion' because of the hierarchy involved and that there has to be approval from some higher authority for things to be done. Many people are going into independent or non-denominational churches because there is no hierarchy and there is no higher approval needed for things to get done such as building improvements, budgeting, allocating funds to certain ministries, and all members are seen as equally important with less 'submission' of one sex to the other. (and lord that burns my ass when it comes to the SBC's stance on it.)
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Yep. I used to live in a mostly Mexican neighborhood in Charlotte just off Central. There's not many Catholic churches in the neighborhood so rather than drive across town for services, many Mexicans became Penecoastals.
 
deafskeptic said:
Yep. I used to live in a mostly Mexican neighborhood in Charlotte just off Central. There's not many Catholic churches in the neighborhood so rather than drive across town for services, many Mexicans became Penecoastals.
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I had a friend of mine that was so excited to go to Mexico. She told me "I cannot wait to leave here and go to Mexico for my vacation."

I looked at her and said "Why? It is the same here, we have Mexican restaurants and shops that sell authentic Mexican goods. Save your money and just stick around here." She just cut me a look like "Ugh, your'e right and I don't like that." :giggle:
 
Reba said:
The same linked study says:
"On the whole being religious has been shown by many studies to be associated with better mental health, lower smoking rates, lower mortality rates and better overall health status," said Feinstein. "There are a whole lot of things religious people are doing right, but it's just this specific area where there appears to be room for improvement."
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Interesting, because this contradicts the fact that wealthy countries are less religious than poor contries, and citizens of wealthy countries have better health.
 
Dixie said:
I had a friend of mine that was so excited to go to Mexico. She told me "I cannot wait to leave here and go to Mexico for my vacation."

I looked at her and said "Why? It is the same here, we have Mexican restaurants and shops that sell authentic Mexican goods. Save your money and just stick around here." She just cut me a look like "Ugh, your'e right and I don't like that." :giggle:
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pshaw. I live in little Mexico City and I still think it's Colorado!
 
Unfortunately, if you notice, the people doing this study are not actual sociologists, but mathematicians, engineers and physicists modelling social dynamics. The model they're using, however, is a very simple form of utilitarianism - how "useful" do members of a society consider their religions to be, and measure that over time.

It's a decent model, but as I'm sure you all know, humans are not simple, and especially with a topic such as religion, you can hardly go up to someone and ask "So, what is your measure of the utility of your religion?"

It's an interesting paper with a conclusion that may (eventually) be correct, though if you notice, they don't say when this "extinction" may end up taking place, other than "eventually".
 
flip said:
Interesting, because this contradicts the fact that wealthy countries are less religious than poor contries, and citizens of wealthy countries have better health.
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The whole report could be bogus for all I know. :lol:
 
StSapphire said:
Unfortunately, if you notice, the people doing this study are not actual sociologists, but mathematicians, engineers and physicists modelling social dynamics. The model they're using, however, is a very simple form of utilitarianism - how "useful" do members of a society consider their religions to be, and measure that over time.

It's a decent model, but as I'm sure you all know, humans are not simple, and especially with a topic such as religion, you can hardly go up to someone and ask "So, what is your measure of the utility of your religion?"

It's an interesting paper with a conclusion that may (eventually) be correct, though if you notice, they don't say when this "extinction" may end up taking place, other than "eventually".
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Good point.

This paper is a bit confusing, because "organized religion" and "religion" is mixed as if it was the same term. First they state that "organized religion" perhaps will die out, then, suddenly, it turns into "religion will die out", without additional explaination how they made the jump to this conclusion.
 
Reba said:
The whole report could be bogus for all I know. :lol:
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Yes, the article about the report raises more questions than it answers, ie of little more use than group picking and selling news. Perhaps the publisher couldn't wait until april fools day? :)
 
TheOracle said:
pshaw. I live in little Mexico City and I still think it's Colorado!
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La Merienda, La Placita, El Meriachi, Mercado del California, Alejandra Guerrero Panderia, El Zapateria, La Tienda de Película, Danville Juegos y Mas, Tienda de Alejandro Gomez Peluquería, Danville Auto (which is actually owned by a Hispanic and repairs mostly Hispanic-owned vehicles.) St. Andrew's Catholic Church - Father Pezzulo is the priest, he was born in Mexico. There's a bunch more Hispanic owned and operated buisnesses in my small hometown and you can purchase an authentic sombrero here for about as much as you could in Mexico. Yet, people want to leave here and go there for much of the same experience really. Doesn't make much sense to me. But to each their own I suppose.
 
It is the country in Mexico which might be different in landscape from USA. But I would rather have them not go as there are corrupt government and police plus gangs in Mexico. USA is much safer than Mexico. Also they have beaches and other kinds of restaurants plus the scenery of Mexico. Yes, it would be much safer if they can go to Mexican restaurants and Crafts store right here in North America like USA. That is my opinion on this question why people are anxious about going to Mexico instead of staying right here at home surrounding Mexican restaurants and crafts, etc. :)
 
I've been told the landscape reminds Mexicans of southern Mexico which is more mountainous and has more greenery than Northern Mexico which is mostly desert.
 
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