Translator: Leonardo Silva
Reviewer: Peter van de Ven Hello. My name is David Voas, and I'm going to be
talking about religion. Now, I know some of you are really tempted
to dash for the exit at this stage, but I should explain
that I'm a quantitative social scientist, and I'm going to be talking about the
decline of religion in the Western World. Now, whether measured by belonging,
believing, participation in services, or how important it's felt to be in life, religion is losing ground
across the Western world. Society is being transformed,
and the momentum seems to be unstoppable. Well, at this point, you might be
asking yourself a couple of questions. First, is it actually true? And even if religion is losing ground,
could things change in the future? I'm going to argue
that, yes, it really is true, and, no, things won't change. Modernization has predictable
and permanent effects, one of which I call
the secular transition. Well, it's not the case
that the pattern of decline is that people reach
the age of 30 or 40 or 50 and suddenly decide
that they're not religious anymore. What happens is they enter adulthood being
less religious than their parents were. So there's a process
of generational replacement, where older people
who are more religious die out, and they're replaced in the population
by younger people coming up behind. And that's a process that's been happening
for decades now across the Western world - in some cases, for a century or more. Let me take as the example
whether people say they have a religion. And I'll use the example
particularly of New Zealand, which has a question
on the census about this. If you look at this graph, the horizontal axis at the bottom
shows year of birth. So we go from the beginning
of the 20th century, on the left, to late 20th century, on the right. And you can see
that for the oldest generations, those on the left-hand side, virtually everybody says
that they have a religion. And you come down to the right-hand side, and roughly two-thirds say they don't. So that's a remarkable shift to have happened in the course
of less than a century. Well, this sort of story is found
throughout the Western world, even in the United States,
which is often thought to be an exception. Things have started more recently there, the process is still
only just starting to be noticed, but it is happening. I'll come back to the US in a moment. And it's similar whatever measure we take. So it's the same for attendance
at services, for example. Well, you might be thinking, "Okay, the old Christian
denominations are struggling, people don't identify with them so much,
they may not be going to services, but surely, they still believe in God, or at any rates, they're
spiritual in some sense even if they're not religious." Well, here is the United States, and this shows
the proportion of the people who say they know God really exists
and they have no doubts about it, again by year of birth - older people on the left,
younger people on the right. And you can see that in the older
section of the population, something of the order of three-quarters, say they know God really exists, and that falls to not
much better than 2 in 5 for people born later in the 20th century. Or Canada, for example, where we have data
on the importance in life of religious or indeed spiritual beliefs. And here again, we see
a sharp generational gradient, from something like two-thirds
of the oldest generation saying that these beliefs
are very important to them, and that drops down
to something like 1 in 5 for the youngest adult generations. Well, as you look at those,
you may be well wondering whether I'm simply comparing
the effect of being old with the effect of being young. Is it the case that people become
more religious as they get older? Well, we have census and survey data
going back quite a number of years - decades, in fact - across the Western World now, and we can answer that question. And the answer is no. On average, people within
a given generation don't change across the adult-life course. So what we're seeing
is not the effect of age, but permanent generation gaps. Lack of religion isn't just a stage
that young people are going through. So this idea that there's something
about modernization that erodes religious commitments, that reduces the respect
accorded to religion, is known as the secularization thesis. And there are a couple of objections
that are commonly raised nowadays to the secularization thesis. One is the example of the United States, which is modern,
and yet religion seems to thrive. And if it's an exception, then surely
no generalizations are possible. The other objection
that's commonly raised is that we're looking
at change, not decline, and that while those old, conventional
churches may well be struggling, there are new churches,
new religious movements - Mormons and Pentecostals, for example - there's alternative spirituality
and indeed non-Christian faiths, like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, that are gaining ground across the West. Well, as I mentioned a moment ago, even in the United States, in fact, it seems that decline has set in. We only just have the data now to notice, but it seems that it started
a few decades ago. And it's following the same pattern
of generational replacement that we've observed elsewhere in the West. And while it is the case
that there have been developments, particularly immigration, that have brought people
from more religious countries into the Western world, those effects aren't big enough
to reverse the main trend. So - so far so good, or so bad, depending
on your view of religion. Secularization is happening. But there's still a big question. You may be asking, "Isn't it possible that the popularity
of religion could be restored, even in the Western world?" After all, faith promises benefits that are difficult or impossible
to obtain any other way. It offers meaning, purpose, solace, ultimate justice, life after death, the prospect of being
reunited with loved ones, and so on. Isn't it the case, you might be wondering, that nothing is irreversible? There's a reluctance nowadays, I think, to believe that we're converging
towards some determined future. This is a notion that was popular
in the mid 20th century, but that's fallen out of favor. It reminds us now a bit
of the Victorian idea of progress, where the highest form of civilization is represented by people
who are remarkably just like us. And yet, modernization does have effects. We can look at, for example,
the Human Development Index, which is calculated each year
by a United Nations agency. It's based on life expectancy, years of education, national income per capita. And on that score, Norway is currently at the top; Niger, in Africa, is at the bottom. And as you look down this list of all
the different countries in the world, it's very apparent that the most highly developed countries
are the least religious and the least developed countries
are the most religious. Now, there are some exceptions. There are the countries
on the Arabian Peninsula, for example, that produce oil, are off the trend line. They're rich, but religious. But in the mid 20th century, they were underdeveloped
and very traditional. So it's certainly the case that religious decline comes very late
in the process of modernization, but it does come,
at least if societies modernize. If we think about the very question about whether
religion can decline in society, it's often objected
that most of the world is religious. And that's very true, but then, most of the world
isn't very highly developed. So I'm talking specifically
about the 40 or 50 countries that have gone furthest
down the path of modernization, places in Europe, North America,
Australia, New Zealand, a few in East Asia,
a few in Latin America. The 140, 150 countries elsewhere
are very different. It's not easy to specify
the causal mechanisms, and indeed, it would take
another few talks to even try to sketch some of the factors that might connect modernizaton
with problems for religion. But to name just a few: prosperity brings choice and an unwillingness to defer
to traditional authority; secular and scientific worldviews
start to displace religious worldviews; communications and geographical mobility bring people into contact
with different cultures and beliefs; and physical and material security seem to reduce the need
for the solace provided by spirituality. Now, whether any or perhaps
all of these factors operate, it's clear that there's something
about the process of modernization that does cause problems for religion. Moreover, it's very difficult
for religion to bounce back. We do know of some places where religious involvement
has increased in recent decades, but those are typically places where
national elites had suppressed religion or imposed a degree
of secularity that was lower than the development
of the country would find natural. So one thinks, for example,
of Iran, the former Soviet Union, China, even Turkey perhaps - but when those regimes fell
or restrictions were relaxed, religion rebounded to something
that was more like an appropriate level, given the degree of modernization. So the secular transition is underway, but why should it be irreversible? I think the key reason is
that people with no religion have great difficulty in acquiring one. And if you're wondering
why that's the case, it might help in understanding this to think about a religion
that's not your own. Now, I'm going to guess
that most of you watching aren't Hindu. Apologies to those of you who are. You can think of a different religion. But here, as an example,
are some of the Hindu deities. And here are some scenes of Hindu worship. Now, some of you may decide that Hinduism
is the faith that you've been looking for, but I suspect that for most of you,
it seems a bit exotic, strange, maybe even slightly scary. And I suggest that that's the position that a large proportion
of young adults in the West are in with respect to any religion. They weren't brought up going to church,
and they don't feel comfortable attending. They didn't grow up
with Christian doctrine. That's not to say
they won't become Christian. Some of them will. Many will. Some will become Hare Krishna
or Muslim or Buddhist. But most won't, and for most, in fact,
it's nearly impossible. You have to be raised with a religion
to find it natural. Now, I'm not suggesting that religious
belief is inherently implausible or religious practice is inherently odd. On the contrary. What I want to argue is that it's a matter
of custom and culture. So in the past, in the West, most people had a religion,
at least nominally. Most people had some sort
of religious knowledge. Religious involvement was the norm, and it was supported by culture
and popular sentiment. These days, the default
is quite the reverse. Many people grow up with
very little acquaintance with religion or religious identity. Religion has become
almost countercultural, indeed to the extent that people
who have any contact with religion, it's often in news stories about extremism
or abuse or intolerance. And that's simply not conducive
for religious revival. I'm not arguing that Westerners
are all rationalist, with a naturalistic worldview. On the contrary. A large proportion, at least half,
believe in God or something out there, a higher power perhaps. Another large, perhaps
non-overlapping proportion believe in some form of life after death. But for most people, it's not something
they're really interested in, it's not something that's very
important in their lives; they have little interest
in becoming religiously active. So the secular transition is underway. Because it proceeds
by generational replacements, it works very slowly
and will be going on for years to come. When it comes to human beings,
nothing is certain, but I hope that I've shown you
that there's a good argument there's no way back
for religion in the West. Thank you. (Applause)
Does religion ever come back? Do societies ever re-dogmatize after evolving toward atheism? I would be surprised if they did, since the trend over time is away rather than toward. But I’ve never looked into it.
Given the hostility to religion in Sam's "New Atheist" phase it seemed relevant.
Obviously the continuation of a long trend, the death of God and all. I've heard some people suggest that absorption of immigrants from more religious countries combined with less children amongst the irreligious and more children amongst the highly religious will slow or counteract this trend and some of that stuff was more recent (IIRC) than this video so...we'll see.
Maybe the religious will outbreed us all.
*Organized Religion
That title shows a spectacular lack of vision.
Yeah, no, religion never left, it just morphed into something else. Sure, classical Abrahamic religions might go extinct, but in their stead we got Karen on Facebook pushing healing crystals because her Yoga teacher told her these work.
Unfortunately, humans have built in need to believe into something bigger, not just the raw material world they see in front of them. Paired with that is the need for some sort of leader who always has the answers, especially in the times of crisis.
As we remove classical organised religion, a void is left in humans (especially in Karen), and that void is quickly filled with some similar structure.
Religion came back in China and many communist countries after a period of state sanctioned oppression.
Atheist won the war of ideas, but now it's more a battle over utility. There's tons of nonbelievers that put their kids in a watered down church to have them grow up normal and around nice people.
It's not that there's not nice normal people outside of churches, but they don't gather every week and generally try to be civil. It's just difficult to replace the community aspect of the church.
Religion is coming back in its original, pure form very quickly. Soon we will reach critical mass, and it will begin to blend with science considering how similar the methodology of both mysticism and science is. Think the Science & Non-Duality Conference. In modern day religion, you have faith in something, but in science and mysticism, you have faith in nothing. And having faith in absolutely nothing is where all the power comes from - it allows for you to see what is absolutely so in the absence of any attachment to belief or thought. And using that method, we as a global society will finally answer the biggest questions about life - like what consciousness is.
There is no way back for religion in the West?
Amen to that!!!