In 2038 there will be more atheists than believers, according to this psychologist

It is clear that during the last decades in some countries a level of material well-being has been reached that had never been achieved before in any historical period. This change has not occurred in a vacuum; it has gone hand in hand with migration from the countryside to the cities, environmental wear and tear, the accelerated development of new technologies... And, in addition, there has been a psychological change: there are more and more atheists.

But... to what extent will the tendency to not believe in the divine or the afterlife continue to grow? Is there a "ceiling" beyond which atheism cannot continue to grow? According to psychologist Nigel Barber, if it exists, that ceiling is still a long way off and, in fact, atheism will beat religions before the year 2038.

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Belief in religions declines

There are two fundamental things that characterize atheism today: it is growing rapidly and it is distributed very unevenly by region and by age. Yes in Spain

40 years ago only 8% of the population considered themselves atheist, today this percentage has risen to 25%. Similarly, if atheists are only 8.3% of people over 65 residing in Spain, among millennials, born in the last years of the 20th century, the percentage is about 50%.

In the same way, countries that enjoy a more developed welfare state, such as Sweden or Germany, present a greater representation of the atheist population, while religiosity is hegemonic in countries where there is a lot of poverty. It seems that the expansion of the welfare society causes religiosity to recede. For Barber, moreover, this is not a dynamic that is going to be reversed soon.

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What is the spread of atheism?

in his book Why Atheism Will Replace Religion?, Nigel Barber explains that religion has been for centuries a cultural creation elaborated to appease with the anguish that generates living in highly unstable and dangerous environments, in which danger and scarcity of resources lurks on a daily basis. The idea of ​​death and the feeling of helplessness could be better borne by believing that life itself has to do with a creation full of otherworldly transcendence. In these contexts, it was useful.

But just as certain animal species survive in stable environments such as islands, there are ideas that are unrivaled as long as certain conditions exist throughout the centuries and millennia; but when there a strong change that affects the entire population and that has no precedents, the situation may change. The example given by the author is that of the dodo: when a new element enters the scene, extinction can occur over a few decades.

In this case, "new" is the ability to live relatively comfortable lives (at least materially) and access to an education in which logical reasoning and knowledge generated scientifically. This makes it possible to give meaning to life beyond the fear of extraterrestrial punishments and beyond dogmas.

new religions

Another thing that may be influencing the spread of atheism is, according to Barber, the fact that new forms of non-theistic religiosity appear that escape the usual definition of "believer" and "non-believers". believer". Soccer, the fan phenomenon and some forms of political activismFor example, they can lead us to feel part of both a cohesive group and a group. system of dogmas and, of course, a sense of transcendence, of something that will remain when let's die

Thus, many people who call themselves atheists may be channeling quasi-religious forms of reasoning without realizing it. For example, by never coming to question certain beliefs thanks to circular thinking, or to believing that there are ideas against which "blasphemies" cannot be directed. The difference between these new religions and the old ones is that they do not appeal to fear of non-compliance with a series of norms, and they can be abandoned at any time without being so afraid of the pressures of the around.

What will happen in the next decades?

In any case, it seems that if atheism goes hand in hand with the development and generalization of certain welfare standards, the environmental and economic crises could affect it. What will happen when, due to the lack of energy sources, there is a collapse that paralyzes the factories? And when climate change forces millions of people to move to other countries, and to look for drinking water in other places? It may be that in the coming years the lack of belief in religions will experience its all-time high, to collapse immediately afterwards as poverty and resource scarcity spread. After all, no prediction is totally reliable, and religion can continue to perpetuate itself as it has done until now.