Some sociology academics have, after a three-year research project called ‘Exploring Atheism’, unveiled a startling discovery: there are a lot of people in Britain who don’t believe in God. I know, it’s quite a gut-punch.
They do not quite claim to have found that most Britons are atheists. But they do claim that there are now more atheists than religious believers. By collating various social attitudes surveys from 2008 to 2018 they found a strong upward trend in those saying that they did not believe in God, from 35 per cent to 43 per cent. During this time, believers in God dropped from 42 per cent to 37 per cent. This has led the academics to claim that Britain has now entered its ‘first atheist age’.
Many of us are complacent, assuming that religion will always be there in our culture as an option
It’s an inflated claim. For one thing, the Census of England and Wales of 2021 found that 37 per cent said that they have no religion, which suggests that the majority have some sort of religious allegiance. Presenting their findings on 2 October, the authors of the report said this includes allegiance that is more cultural than sincere.
It is doubtless true-ish that believers in God are now a minority. I say ‘true-ish’ because these things are so vague. My hunch is that there is a large sector, maybe even about half of the population, who are hard to pin down. If pressed, they probably say that they don’t believe in God, and are not religious, but they have respect for religion, and sometimes participate, and are wary of the sort of atheism that is hostile to it.
As these academics are doubtless privately aware, it’s pretty meaningless to say that Britain has embarked upon an ‘atheist age’, for the meaning of ‘atheism’ is unclear. The strong atheism of Richard Dawkins and co. is a particular modern ideology, a belief that rational humanism can save us. And, rather paradoxically, its hostility to religion is shaped by Protestant reformist zeal: it is a secular version of it. This creed is obviously a minority thing: it had a sort of comeback twenty years ago, in response to 9/11, but it lacks mass appeal.
As well as totting up the numbers, the Exploring Atheism research project attempts to tackle the question of why some of us believe, and others don’t. With impressive honesty, it admits that it is largely impossible to say. It discounts certain received ideas, for example that believers are less intelligent, less well off, less emotionally stable, more fearful of death. What it does say is that the only sure factor is parental influence. Seeing your parents participating in religion makes it more likely that you will go in that direction. And hearing your parents mock or disparage religion makes it likely that you’ll follow suit. Obvious enough, but still worth reflecting on.
It’s a healthy reminder to those of us who are religious, or semi-religious. If one doesn’t bother exposing one’s children to religion, they are unlikely ever to know of its dark depths and difficult delights. Letting them decide for themselves means trusting them to the shallow drift of the culture. Too many of us are complacent, assuming that religion will always be there in our culture as an option. We should take responsibility for its continued existence, which takes real cultural effort. In the words of Jonathan Safran Foer, in his novel Here I Am: ‘You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of.’
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