Atheism: The Godless Revolution That Never Happened
The above title is taken from a chapter in the eminent sociologist Rodney Stark’s recent book What Americans Really Believe (Baylor University Press, 2008). Anti-Christian prophets such Thomas Woolston (1670-1731) and Voltaire (1694-1778) foretold the disappearance of religion. In the 1960s, anthropologist Anthony Wallace claimed, “The evolutionary future of religion is extinction.” Belief in supernatural forces affecting nature without obeying its “laws” will “erode and become only an interesting memory.” Around that time sociologist Peter Berger was quoted in the New York Times as saying that religious believers “are likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture.” However, in 1997 Berger took it all back, as the world had gotten more religious since that assertion. Atheists are ever the minority in our global village.
The rise of the New Atheism, led by what Stark calls “angry and remarkably nasty atheists,” is attested to by several bestsellers, which have presumably signaled a breakthrough for atheism—“that large numbers of Americans were now ready to stand up and admit they didn’t believe in God.” Despite recent claims that the number of atheists has risen sharply in recent years, the evidence reveals something else: “what most people who say they have no religion mean is not that they are irreligious, but that they have no church.”
The percentage of atheists in America revealed by, say, Gallup polls and the Baylor Survey, shows a tenacious consistency over the years: 1944: 4%; 1947: 6%; 1964: 3%; 1994: 3%; 2005: 4%; 2007: 4%. I found it interesting that “the majority of children born into an irreligious home end up joining a religious group—most often a conservative denomination.”
[...] and while the title of the post is Culture Wars, it is really about the false claims of atheism. Here it is, please click the link and read it. I believe atheism is a growing trend, but this article sites [...]
Thank you for the comment! I put it under the category of Culture Wars but the title is on the “atheist revolution”, not so much for the content of the article itself, but because as atheists are becoming more vocal, particularly with their “Why believe in God?” campaign, it feels as if we Christians are in a shrinking minority, that atheism may still win out. I believe it is a battle in the culture war. One that Christians, if we are not careful will surender only because we are outgunned and out-numbered.