Sunday, June 26, 2016

2016: Two signs it is looking like a BAD year for American atheism

In the last couple years, American atheism has been in the doldrums. The dust has settled from Richard Dawkins being routed by feminists and the death of the late Christopher Hitchens. Now a spirit of pessimism, apathy and defeatism weighs down the psyches of many American atheists.

Given the shrinking of global atheism in terms of its percentage of adherents, American atheism is running out of runway in terms of ever achieving cultural dominance. The flood of religious immigrants to Europe is a testimony the power of globalization.

On July 24, 2013, CNS News reported:
Atheism is in decline worldwide, with the number of atheists falling from 4.5% of the world’s population in 1970 to 2.0% in 2010 and projected to drop to 1.8% by 2020, according to a new report by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass.

And it looks like 2016 will be a BAD year for American atheism. 

First sign: Google trends: Searches for the terms "atheism" and "atheist" in the last 12 months  

Please allow time for the Google trends graphs to download below. The graphs will download momentarily.
 
Second sign: The Atheist Delusion video will be released in 2016 and receive millions of views

5 comments:

  1. How about this for encouragement?https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=christianity

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    1. Herbie, given many people leaving mainline churches of liberal protestantism and Catholicism that really isn't surprising, but evangelical churches are growing in Europe and evangelicalism has seen very minimal decline in recent years in the United States.

      At the same time, the graph has leveled off in the last 6 years. I think a lot of the nominal Christians have left and it will be increasingly difficult for secularist to peel off the more resistant hard core evangelicals in the world.

      More importantly, the Google trends graphs shows an increase for searches for the far more popular term Jesus is significantly up as can be seen here https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=christianity%2C%20Jesus&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4

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  2. You realize that the decline of atheism is due to the increased popularity of other religions, not necessarily Christianity, right?

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    1. Brian, pentecostalism is the fastest growing religion and evangelicalism is fast growing too. See: http://www.conservapedia.com/Growth_of_evangelical_Christianity and http://www.conservapedia.com/High_morale_of_Christendom

      At the same time, I do realize that Islam is growing too. And I imagine Hinduism in India is seeing a growth of adherents as well.

      I see the HMS Atheism being battered by the waves of Christianity/Islam in the 21st century. The Islmacists will use the same tactic that atheists often use which is censorship and I don't see a lot of atheist martyrs happening in Islamic countries.

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  3. P.S. When I said, "I don't see a lot of atheist martyrs happening in Islamic countries." I meant that I suspect most atheists in Muslim countries will be closet atheists and they will not be like the many bold Christians in Christian history.

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