I guess this demonstrates the power and attraction of the secularist religion/non-religion. I believe this is where the United States is headed if all the trends continue as they are now. General prosperity and well being eliminate not only physical but spiritual hunger as well. That’s the lesson of the books of Judges, Kings and Chronicles. But even then there was still a remnant which served The Great King. Here’s the link: Britons’ Belief In God Vanishing Here’s a blurb:
By Anthony King
(Filed: 27/12/2004)
To say that Britain is rapidly becoming a godless country would be too strong, but a YouGov survey provides overwhelming evidence that the British are now a largely irreligious people.
Only a minority believe that God exists and almost everyone acknowledges that Britain is becoming an increasingly secular society…Instead, the national mood appears to be one of benign indifference. Most people give the impression of regarding religion almost as a consumer good, one to be consumed by those who happen to have a taste for it.
A majority of people in 21st century Britain neither hopes nor fears for a life after death. Only about a third believes in Heaven, and even fewer in Hell and the Devil.
Marriage is no longer seen as a sacrament and even church weddings no longer find favour.
Moreover, the existing trend towards secularisation seems almost certain to continue. The incidence of religious belief has declined sharply in recent decades and young people today are significantly less religious than their elders.
More than a third of today’s young people describe themselves as either agnostics or atheists. Among middle-aged people and the elderly, the figure is far smaller…Repeating a question that the Gallup Poll asked nearly four decades ago, YouGov began by asking people, bluntly, whether or not they believed in God.
The findings, set out in the chart on Page 17, are startling. Whereas in 1968 more than three quarters of people, 77 per cent, said they did believe in God, that figure has fallen by nearly half to 44 per cent – a minority of the population.The proportion prepared to admit that it does not believe in God has more than trebled from a mere 11 per cent in the late-1960s to 35 per cent today.
The gap between the number of believers and non-believers, once wide, has thus closed dramatically.As the figures in the chart also show, a majority of men, as well as a majority of young people, now decline to acknowledge the existence of God.
However, today’s religious doubt frequently amounts to just that: doubt. One in four of YouGov’s sample, asked to say whether or not they believed in God, replied "Don’t know" and, even among the 35 per cent who said they did not believe in Him, considerably more described themselves as agnostics rather than outright atheists.
Read the rest.