The world is destined to become more religious because of demographic factors.

Dear Anthony

Your answer is very interesting. Could elaborate your answer for me? Thank you so much.

Don

Hi Don,

This has been a thoroughly discussed theme in areas such as ritual research. While I am working on language and ritual, which is a slightly different topic, and I do not a lot about this particular question, let me try to give an instinctive answer:

Can we assume that science directly influence the believes of ordinary people? This would mean that members of a society read a lot about the arguments of scientists, and that all scientists are atheists, which is certainly not the case!

In addition, people are wired to ritual behaviour, and certain aspects of religion is part of such forms of behaviour. Certain manifestations of religion are not even institutionalised, and people often do not even notice that they act in a religious fashion in their daily (interactional) practices. That is, as a linguist, I would treat evidence that religion would 'disappear' from ordinary lives with a pinch of salt, as such evidence would be limited to surveys that may not capture certain important aspects of human behaviour.

So, my perception is that it would be extremely ambitious to argue that science causes any decline of religion, and to find evidence for such a relationship.

I hope this answer contributes to this discussion.

Best wishes,

Daniel

"Could elaborate your answer"

" World Will Get More Religious by 2050

By Jeanna Bryner, Live Science Managing Editor | April 3, 2015 02:21pm Islam is expected to grow faster than any other religion in the world over the next 30 to 40 years, according to a Pew study...

The world is becoming more religious, as the number of agnostics and others who don't affiliate with a certain religion shrinks as a percentage of the global population.

By 2050, just 13 percent of people in the world will say they are unaffiliated, compared with 16 percent who said the same in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center survey...

Religious risers

Numbers for all of the world's major religions, except Buddhism, are expected to rise as the population does the same.

Islam will grow faster than any other major religion, and at a higher rate than the world population balloons, the survey found. In fact, Muslims are projected to increase by 73 percent between 2010 and 2050. If current trends hold, Christianity will also grow, albeit at a slower rate, increasing by 35 percent by 2050. That is about the same rate as the world's population overall is expected to grow by 2050.

If those numbers pan out, there will be nearly equal numbers of Muslims (2.8 billion) and Christians (2.9 billion) in the world by 2050, for the first time in history. Increases in a slew of other religions are also forecast: Hindus are projected to rise by 34 percent, from just over 1 billion in 2010 to 1.4 billion in 2050; Jews are expected to grow from just under 14 million in 2010 to 16.1 million by 2050

Also by 2050, some 450 million people in the world will be affiliated with various folk religions, such as African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions and Australian aboriginal religions, the survey projected. That represents an increase of 11 percent relative to 2010 numbers.

Nonbelievers and switchers

People who don't believe in any gods as well as agnostics and those not associated with a particular religion will become a smaller slice of the world's population. Though this unaffiliated group will increase in numbers from 1.1 billion to 1.2 billion, it will account for a lower percentage of the population (16 versus 13 percent) in 2050...

These shifts in the world's religions are the result of several factors, including differences in fertility rates, the size of the youth population and people switching faiths, Pew said. (Younger populations have more people with prime childbearing years ahead.)

For instance, a good chunk of the growth in Christianity and Islam is expected to happen in sub-Saharan Africa, where birth rates are high. Fertility rates varied by religion, according to Pew, with Muslims having the highest fertility rate, of 3.1 children per woman; Christians coming in second, with 2.7 kids per woman; Hindus and Jews with average fertility rates of 2.4 and 2.3, respectively; and Buddhists having one of the lowest fertility rates, at 1.6.

"Today's religiously unaffiliated population, by contrast, is heavily concentrated in places with low fertility and aging populations, such as Europe, North America, China and Japan," according to a statement by Pew.."

Dear Daniel and Anthony,

First of all, I really appreciate your elaborated answers.

I knew many scientists who have religions. But I am talking about social trend. As Anthony indicated in the last sentence, religiously unaffiliated population is heavily concentrated in Europe, North America, China, and Japan. These regions and countries, however, displayed highly developed secular knowledge and science.

At the same time, I do not think that low fertility and aging population explain the decline in religion in these regions and countries as usually older population become more religious than younger one.

Europe has a long history of Christianity. But today people said that many churches in Europe are empty. One church pastor said that he went a well-known German university to study theology. In a new students orientation, a professor of theology asked students, "raise your hands, if you believe Jesus." Nobody raised their hands. After the orientation session, he asked other students, "why do you want to study theology to become a minister, if you do not believe Jesus?" Other students answered "because church ministers in Germany are a highly respected social position with a very good salary and benefits."

When we look at the history of Europe and North America for the last century, I believe that we see the decline of religion (mostly Christianity). There may be several different causes of religious decline in Europe (and also North America). These two regions, however, have displayed rapid expansion of secular knowledge and science in the last century.

In conclusion, I perceive that the decline in religious affiliation in Europe and North American is somewhat consistent with the argument that the development of secular knowledge leads to religious decline. Is there tendency that a highly developed society becomes less religious?

Dear Don,

Thank you for your response.

I feel that there are different layers of “religion“ involved here. One may talk about religion as an institution, and it would certainly be a valid attempt to interlink demographic changes in institutionalised religion with the influence of science on public knowledge. At the same time, religion exists on the level of culture and culturally-bound behavioural schema. For instance, I personally studied moralising language use in interpersonal conflict scenarios, and my research has received that people in such scenarios tend to use heavily religiously-grounded arguments. That is, religion is present in daily lives in many hidden forms.

A more abstract self-reflexive question is: what is religion? In history, theology counted as the highest form of science. Is science, as we understand it today, the ultimate form of human knowledge? That is to say, can one draw a straight line between science and religion?

I hope this contributes to this discussion.

best wishes,

Daniel

Dear Daniel,

Of course, your recent answer contributes to the discussion.

Science usually refers to empirical science and deals with observable objects through human senses. As you indicated, I believe that theology can be a part of empirical science if one studies human religious rituals and acts.

I believe that religions have two major elements. In other words, world major religions teach the life after death and the existence of supernatural being (e.g., God). In that sense, can one prove the existence of the life after death and the existence of God by using empirical science? Some people said that they heard God's voice. They, however, communicate with God through their faith, not based on their scientific knowledge. Will the development of science contribute to the better understanding of the life after death and God? The answer is probably not.

By the principle of the separation of region and the state, religious rituals such as prayers and worships are prohibited in public schools in the United States. And the theory of evolution is generally accepted view in school. Does the teaching based on the theory of evolution in schools contribute to the decline of religion in the United States in anyway?

Dear Don,

I think that you are making great points here. Yet, my main problem is still that it is a really ambitious to argue whether religion as such can decline in human lives, or not. Religion is such a broad concept that ultimately one may argue that answer to this question depends on our definition of religion really.

But this discussion goes well beyond my field, so all what I can say is that from the linguist’s point of view, our interactions are intrinsically rooted in norms of religious roots, that is, that we are instinctively religious. Of course, people often rationalise their own and others’ behaviours in non religious terms.

This argument does not invalidate statistical evidence for the issues you mentioned of course.

best wishes,

Daniel

Dear Daniel,

I absolutely agree that the relationship between religion and science is a pretty complicated matter. Also, it is not easy to predict whether or not world major regions will decline.

Thank you for your inputs.

Sincerely

Don

Hello Don

Mark Chavez has suggested there is a religious soft decline in America, with movements toward spirituality rather than the dominant Christianity in America. Chavez has a newer text, which supports and further discusses the soft religious decline.

Chaves “ American Religion” offers subtitle changes and data in about 100 pages. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11156.html

Susan

Dear Susan

Thank you for introducing the book to me. I have visited the website and the book looks interesting. I believe that Chaves’ estimation is correct and religiosity in America has declined, specifically among liberal Protestants.

Don

Hi Don

Many in America are using the buz word ‘spirituality’ Over religion with less emphasis in attending church and spending money for the upkeep of building structure. The spiritual movement has shades of contemporary political views as well as the current divide in American value and belief. Susan

Hi! Susan,

I knew that many Americans talk about 'spirituality.' I, however, do not think that spirituality and religiosity are the same things. Spirituality is simply the belief that human beings have spirit or soul, and the person with the spirituality does not necessarily mean that he or she is religious and has faith in God.

Also, it is hard to say that religious revival has occurred when more and more people have not attended churches and had not read the Bible.

As Chavez indicated, I agree that the confidence in religious institutions has declined more than the one in secular institutions.

Thank you.

Don

If to be religious entails a belief in the possibility of final causation (in some form) and "secular knowledge" entails the denial of that possibility - i.e., it entails the belief that efficient causation is the only form of "real" causation - then the rise of secular knowledge entails a decline in religion.

Best,

Michael

I think that it's not only to quantitatively analyze the increase or reduction of this or that religion, but also about qualitative changes, and this of course is more difficult, but would make the analysis closer to the conclusions that most interest to predict future of the religions. Religiosity will always be present in the lives of men. Science too, both will be part of a systemic whole that goes beyond one's earthly life.

Dear Carlos,

Thank you for your inputs.

I have noticed that you are in Latin America.

I heard that middle and upper class people are likely to be affiliated with the Catholic church and lower class people are likely to be affiliated with Protestant churches in Latin America. Is that true?

How has Catholic and Protestant population composition changed in Peru and Latin America? Do you see the increase in Protestant populations in Peru?

Thanks.

Don

Secularism is a particular response to the western experience of religion. To me, it is one particular human civilization's response and not a universal process of civilizational development.

With this in mind, the Islamic civilization and religion cannot be separated in my understanding. Islamic religion seems to be in every fiber of life. "We will see" what response this civilization may produce in its encounter with modernity as it is one of the younger religions.

To me one thing is sure, the historical religions or the organized religions developed over the last five thousand years of agricultural society do not seem to fulfil our needs and a new interpretation of the religion is emerging that must incorporate all humanity with each religion's particular flavor.

As one scholar once said in his speech that till the humans overcame death, religion had a good future.

This is a very interesting topic that has been discussed by major theorists in religious studies.

In his book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor took "secularity" to mean the loss of the conditions of belief in God in the West, and he traces the process of change from the “enchanted” past ca. 1500 to the modern age ca. 2000. One of the main problems with Taylor's analysis is that his definition of religion is based on Protestant Christian values. Furthermore, many theorists have recently challenged the notion that the world became "disenchanted" following the European Enlightenment. (See Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern; Jason A. Josephson-Storm, The Myth of Disenchantment.)

In Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Talal Asad challenges the notion of secular as a universal phenomenon. He is more concerned with a critique of the term secular and its deployment as a Western category. For Asad, considerations of power, liberalism, and the modern nation state are critical to analyzing the secular.

Another point is that many cultures do not have words for "religion" or "secular". For example, in Japan the term shūkyō 宗教 was invented in the 19th century as an approximation of the term "religion" that was included in trade treaties between Japan and Western nations. For most people in Japan today, "religion" denotes the New Religions that started to develop after the mid 19th century. Many people in Japan have a very negative view of "religion" because of the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway by the New Religion group Aum Shinrinkyō in 1995. Therefore, when surveys ask Japanese people if they are "religious," most emphatically answer no; yet, these same people pray in temples and shrines, go on pilgrimage, and make offerings to their parents and ancestors.

As others in this thread have pointed out, religion is not going away. My contribution to the discussion is to suggest that binaries such as "secularity and religion" or "science and religion" are not helpful in understanding the continuing appeal of what we call "religion".

Dear Lisa,

Your discussion on Japan is fascinating. I believe that Japanese people in general are very religious as they believe in supernatural beings. Shintoism is a good example. Unlike Christianity, Shintoism is based on the belief of multiple gods. Like you said, most Japanese people say that they are not religious as religions for them refers to primarily Christianity or other world major religions.

Thank you for your inputs.

Don