While skimming the Richard Dawkins Foundation site I came across a link to a new article called WHY THE GODS ARE NOT WINNING by Gregory Paul & Phil Zuckerman.
The basic gist of the article is that from 1900-2000, growth of Christianity and most other religions was fairly static. Among major religions only Islam made significant gains as a percentage of the population, and the authors argue that Islam’s rise has little to do with converting the infidel and much to do with the dramatic population growth in areas where that religion is prevalent.
In fact, they say, the only “belief” system that has seen a large gain primarily through conversions is non-belief. Non-theism has grown by population and not because we atheists are breeding like bunnies (yeah, we like sex, but we’re also allowed to use birth control if the local fundie pharmacist will sell it to us), but because more and more people are, essentially, realizing what nonsense it is to live one’s life in the service of some form invisible sky wizard.
My natural distrust of statistics makes me not want to lay too much importance on this article. On the other hand, the authors have created pie charts, so they must be right.
My current favorite quote from the article:
Even the megachurch phenomenon is illusory. A spiritual cross of sports stadiums with theme parks, hi-tech churches are a desperate effort to pull in and satisfy a mass-media jaded audience for whom the old sit in the pews and listen to the standard sermon and sing some old time hymns does not cut it anymore. Rather than boosting church membership, megachurches are merely consolidating it.
A good number of the people who attend megachurches are actually “transfers” out of other congregations rather than new converts. Thus, megachurch membership is growing while mainstream denominations’ membership is shrinking. You may be interested in reading Shopping for God, by James Twitchell. It’s an interesting study of the relationship between consumerism and church attendance in the USA. He includes quite a lot of information about megachurches.
Thanks, will take a look at that book.