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The future of religious belief

Quite a few of the books about religion that I've reviewed over the years in my book review pages have suggested that religion is set to decline in importance in the 21st century. I've always doubted this myself and a major review, The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050 by the Pew Foundation, finds that the non-religious proportion of the world's population will decrease in relative terms over this period, although it may increase a little in absolute numbers as a result of the increase in world population as a whole. Both Islam and Christianity will increase, although Muslims will come to outnumber Christians.

This is a demographic effect. Religious belief is declining in Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan, and is low in China. But all these countries have ageing populations and low birth rates, whereas both Christianity and Islam, but especially Islam, are prospering in countries with young fertile mothers who have large families. This analysis refers to the numbers of children being born into the various faiths; it can't tell us what proportion of these individuals will reject their birth religion later.

It's well worth having a look at the Pew site if this is a question that interests you. They also had a good review of the question In America, Does More Education Equal Less Religion?. In short, "Overall, U.S. adults with college degrees are less religious than others, but this pattern does not hold among Christians."

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