Religiosity plummets and atheism is on the rise

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Rocked in recent years by sex-abuse scandals and crises in leadership, the Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland has been struggling to keep its members close.
But this week, a new global survey on faith and atheism has revealed that the crisis of faith in Ireland may be much worse than previously thought. According to the poll released by WIN-Gallup International, the traditionally Catholic country has seen one of the steepest drops worldwide in religiosity.
The poll — which was based on interviews with more than 50,000 people selected from 57 countries — asked participants, “irrespective of whether they attended a place of worship, if they considered themselves to be religious, not religious, or an atheist.” In Ireland, only 47 percent of those polled said they considered themselves religious — a 22-point drop from the 69 percent recorded in a similar poll conducted in 2005. In addition, 10 percent self-identified as atheist.
The only country that registered a steeper decline in religiosity was Vietnam, which saw a 23-point drop from 53 percent to 30 percent.
However, Ireland and Vietnam were not unique in this dip in faith.
According to the global index, there has been a notable decline in religiosity worldwide. Current data shows that the number of people worldwide who call themselves religious is now 59 percent, while 13 percent self-identify as atheist.
However, according to trending data, religiosity has fallen by 9 points globally since 2005 and the number of people who identify as atheist rose from 4 percent to 7 percent. Note that only 40 countries were polled in both 2005 and 2012, so there are two different sets of data available. The U.S., France and Canada joined Ireland on the top-10 list of countries to have experienced a “notable decline in religiosity” since 2005. The number of people in the U.S. who self-identify as religious dropped 13 points to 60 percent. In addition, 5 percent of Americans declared themselves atheists, an increase of 4 points since 2005. Yet, despite this global decline in faith, the focus at the moment seems to be on Ireland, where Catholicism has had a long and rich tradition. Since the poll results were made available to the public, many have lamented the drop in Ireland’s religious feeling, with one Guardian writer calling it “the end of Catholic Ireland.”
However, some Irish Catholic officials and organizations are insisting that the poll may not show the full picture and have cautioned against taking the index as a comprehensive indicator of Irish faith.
For example, a spokesperson for the Catholic Communications Office told the Belfast Telegraph that the language used by the poll may have been misleading. “The word ‘religious’, if left unqualified, is too general to be used as the keyword in a survey questionnaire — especially in the Irish context — where people prefer words such as ‘spiritual’. Being ‘religious’ is a very subjective measurement,” he said. Indeed, the same Guardian writer who hinted at an impending collapse of Catholicism in Ireland also noted that though “the traditional structures of “religion” [may be] weaker, there remains a strong deposit of “faith” among the people.”
Nonetheless, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said that the global index has undoubtedly highlighted the challenges facing the Catholic Church in Ireland. “The Catholic Church, on its part, cannot simply presume that the faith will automatically be passed from one generation to the next or be lived to the full by its own members,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.
Sinead Mooney, deputy managing director of RED C Research — the company that conducted the Irish poll — told Reuters that there were two factors that likely contributed to Ireland’s sharp decline in religiosity. “Obviously, there were all the scandals in the Church over that period — that was massive,” she said. “Also, as countries get richer, they tend to lose some sense of religion. We did become richer — at least at the beginning of that period.”
According to the poll, the most devout region of the world is Africa — and the countries where most people self-identified as religious were Ghana (96 percent), Nigeria (93 percent) and Macedonia (90 percent).

6 COMMENTS

  1. GLOBAL ATHEISM ON THE RISE–REALLY?
    News headlines blare —“Atheism is on the rise on a global level, international study reveals…,” "Worldwide; Atheism on the Rise,” declared the Huffington Post. WIN-Gallup's “Global Index of Religion & Atheism.” In 2012 Gallup asked people in 57 countries,
    Gallup reports that, “59% of respondents think of themselves as religious, 23% as not religious and 13% as convinced atheists.” Moreover, they “found the number of people around the world who claim to be religious dropped 9% since 2005, while atheism rose 3%.” Gallup: 13% of World’s Population “Convinced Atheists”
    Gallup’s global conclusions are striking—they claim that 13% of the world’s 7 billion people are “convinced atheists.” That’s 900 million atheists. Plus, atheists’ share of the world’s population has grown by 3% over the last 7 years—suggesting 200 million people joined the ranks of the world’s atheists. If correct these are dramatic changes. But, how reliable are these figures? How do they stack up against other studies?
    Nigel Tomes,
    Toronto, CANADA.

  2. Gallup’s Global Figures a “House of Cards”
    There are 150+ countries in the world. Gallup surveyed only 57 of these sample figures were then “scaled up” to reflect each country. Gallup’s figures for China’s 1.35 Billion people rely upon an online survey of 500 people! almost half of those surveyed identified as “atheist,” Gallup concludes “China has the largest population of atheists (47%).” China accounts for 20% of the world’s population, this single country accounts for 9% points of the “13% convinced atheists,” , according Gallup. Put differently, based on Gallup’s figures, 70% of the world’s atheists live in China! Yet this dramatic finding is based on an on-line survey of only 500 Chinese people. dramatic claims need a stronger basis. 9% of those 500 Chinese surveyed either didn’t respond or replied “I don’t know.” how can an on-line survey be representative of China’s population where less than 40% have Internet access? What about the 50% in rural areas, without Internet access? Gallup’s claims; they are a “house of cards.”

  3. Is Global Atheism Really on the Rise?
    Gallup claims—“Atheism is on the rise on a global level.” is it really? Gallup’s twin claims are [1] 13% of the world’s population are “convinced atheists,” and [2] since 2005, “the number of people around the world who claim… atheism rose 3%.” This suggests a rise from 10% atheists in 2005 to 13% in 2012. Yet, looking deeper into Gallup’s report, we find that the number of “convinced atheists” rose from 4% in 2005 to 7% in 2012. Yet this last figure (7%) is almost half the previous claim of 13%. So, what’s going on? Do atheists represent 13% of the world’s population or only 7 %, or (perhaps) even less? Again this shows how “shaky” these figures are. In the “small print” we’re told only 40 countries were polled in both 2005 & 2012, so Gallup’s claim that “atheism rose 3%,” is based on 40 countries, not 57. Obviously dropping 17 countries has a marked effect on the results. Again this suggests that Gallup’s dramatic claims are based on tenuous data; they lack a solid basis.

  4. Global Atheism is NOT on the Rise
    The World Christian Database (WCD) has been collecting data for decades for all the world’s countries. WCD figures consistently show that globally the number of atheists has been virtually unchanged since 2000. in 2000 there were 140 million atheists (2.3% of global population). By 2012 this number had declined slightly to 136.6 million. atheists’ share declined to under 2% WCD data refute claims based on Gallup’s results that the “Number of atheists around the world is rising” and that relatively, “Atheism is on the rise on a global level.” Although “no religion” and atheism may be on the rise in the developed world (like Canada), trends in the “third world” of developing nations are more important (given their large populations) in determining the global share of various religions & non-religions. In fact, on the global level, Christianity in general and evangelical Christians in particular, is growing faster than the world’s population and more rapidly than either atheism or agnosticism. Gallup will need much more survey data and better survey methods in order to overturn these well-established observations.
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