Glenn Beck, among many others, has opined that those nasty secularists are trying valiantly to rub out religion. I have tended to pooh pooh is histrionics and mindless drivel, but in this case, he may be on to something!
Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says
By Jason Palmer
A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
The team's mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Their means of analysing the data invokes what is known as nonlinear dynamics - a mathematical approach that has been used to explain a wide range of physical phenomena in which a number of factors play a part...
For a second there I thought you'd gone completely insane, but, ahem, I concur.
ReplyDeleteThis study must be deeply flawed, to include Ireland on that list.
ReplyDeleteSpcfic eligious affiliation (branding?) may be on the wane, but I think there is still a significant number of people who are defining their own spirituality, not simply becoming secular.
ReplyDeleteGood one, Brandon!