Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says

[웃 910]

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.

One of the team, Daniel Abrams of Northwestern University, put forth a similar model in 2003 to put a numerical basis behind the decline of lesser-spoken world languages.

At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the "utility" of speaking one instead of another.

"The idea is pretty simple," said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.

"It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.

"For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there's some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not."

Dr Wiener continued: "In a large number of modern secular democracies, there's been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%."

The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the "non-religious" category.

They found, in a study published online, that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them.

And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.

However, Dr Wiener told the conference that the team was working to update the model with a "network structure" more representative of the one at work in the world.

"Obviously we don't really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society," he said.

However, he told BBC News that he thought it was "a suggestive result".

"It's interesting that a fairly simple model captures the data, and if those simple ideas are correct, it suggests where this might be going.

"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Ireland?

[웃 910]

Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.

5 of these 9 countries make up the top 10 list of highest GDP per capita...coincidence?

[BishopM 114]

"Mathmatics is duh Debil!"

FYI for all the surious ones on this board...I am just kidding

I have heard a lot of people in Europe, through my travels there etc, tell me that religion is basically already dead in much of the EU.

Blessings! MK

5 of these 9 countries make up the top 10 list of highest GDP per capita...coincidence?

Yep, probably coincidence. Like most things in social anthropology/history, availability to natural resources are the main economic driver.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

5 of these 9 countries make up the top 10 list of highest GDP per capita...coincidence?

But as corollary, the other 5 of the top-10 aren't even on the 9.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

3 out of 4 people make up 7% of the population

Countries where religion is extinct and they ignore the existance of it will lead the world.

[웃 910]

3 out of 4 people make up 7% of the population

Can you rephrase that. I don't understand.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

3 out of 4 people make up 7% of the population

Countries where religion is extinct and they ignore the existance of it will lead the world.

Oops. Meant 75%. I hate when I mess up a joke

[Captain Hammer 113]

Oops. Meant 75%. I hate when I mess up a joke

I liked it the first way. Very abstract.

[Peikko 1,575]

Ireland?

That is unexpected, I agree. I'd have put the UK over Ireland in that respect, of course Ireland doesn't have as many immigrants, and it could be the immigrants in the UK that are keeping faith alive, as it were. Still, when the Irish allow abortion, then I'll believe this particular statistic

[Dan and Judy 614]

Oops. Meant 75%. I hate when I mess up a joke

I was still trying to figure out "on the 9" I'm guessing thats a golf term?

I thought maybe everyone was just using higher math

That is unexpected, I agree. I'd have put the UK over Ireland in that respect, of course Ireland doesn't have as many immigrants, and it could be the immigrants in the UK that are keeping faith alive, as it were. Still, when the Irish allow abortion, then I'll believe this particular statistic

It's hard to trust an Irish priest these days

[Dan and Judy 614]

Oh the list of 9 countries

[Dan and Judy 614]

I don't think the list of 9 is supposed to be the countries with the most non believers. It is just the 9 countries that they studied because data was available.

so it would be hard to draw a conclusion without listing the 9 in order of non believers and then compare that to their GDP