New article claims that science is killing religion

April 14, 2016 • 12:45 pm

It’s refreshing to see an anti-accommodationist piece like the one published by Ross Pomeroy in Real Clear Science: “Will science drive religion extinct?” The piece violates Betteridge’s Law of Headlines (“Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no“), for Pomeroy’s answer is clearly “yes.” He first adduces data that religion is on the wane not just in America, but throughout the Western world:

“. . . statistical models going so far as to predict [religion’s] eventual extinction in nine countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.”

And then, looking for a cause, Pomeroy says: “While a variety of factors are likely at play, I’d like to focus on what may be the most significant contributor: science.”  One of the other causes, of course, is because much of the world is becoming more prosperous, and with prosperity comes the waning of religion, whose flourishing depends largely on dissatisfaction with life leading people to accept and supplicate the divine. That’s not really what Pomeroy means, for although science is largely responsible for our improved well-being, what he means is that science is becoming a more satisfactory explanation of the universe than the old religious myths, which science has simply not supported:

We are perhaps the first generation of humans to truly possess a factually accurate understanding of our world and ourselves. In the past, this knowledge was only in the hands and minds of the few, but with the advent of the Internet, evidence and information have never been so widespread and accessible. Beliefs can be challenged with the click of a button. We no longer live in closed, insular environments where a single dogmatic worldview can dominate.

As scientific evidence questions the tenets of religion, so too, does it provide a worldview to follow, one that’s infinitely more coherent.

Sir James George Frazer, often considered one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology,wrote that — when stripped down to the core — religion, science, and magic are similar conceptions, providing a framework for how the world works and guiding our actions. He also noted that humanity moved through an Age of Magic before entering an Age of Religion. Is an Age of Science finally taking hold?

He says, “yes,” and I agree—to a lesser extent. I’m not sure that an Age of Science is taking hold in places like the Middle East or much of sub-Saharan Africa, areas where the hold of religion is sufficiently strong that science, while it can be used, is largely powerless to displace faith. But surely in the West the verities of science, and their ability to bring real, testable understanding of the Universe, has outcompeted religion’s inability to find any truths. More and more, religion is becoming a childish thing that we should put away.

I’d take issue with only one claim in Pomeroy’s piece, and it’s by someone else:

Bemidji State University psychology professor Nigel Barber expounds upon Frazer’s thoughts even further.

“[He] proposed that scientific prediction and control of nature supplants religion as a means of controlling uncertainty in our lives. This hunch is supported by data showing that more educated countries have higher levels of non belief and there are strong correlations between atheism and intelligence.”

Frazer’s hunch is also supported by a recent study published journal Personality and Individual Differences. Querying 1,500 Dutch citizens, a team of researchers led by Dr. Olga Stavrova of the University of Cologne found that belief in scientific-technological progress was positively associated with life satisfaction. This association was significantly larger than the link between religion and life satisfaction.

Well, material well-being is correlated with absence of religious belief as well as with life satisfaction, and also (probably) with belief in scientific-technological progress (one can observe its effects in better-off societies, and of course education is correlated with the “success” of societies). In the absence of a multifactorial analysis of what’s affecting what, it’s just as likely that the improvement of well being (granted, largely through science) is at least as important as “improved scientific acumen” in dispelling faith.

As for the “strong correlations between atheism and intelligence,” I’d like to believe that, of course, but am wary of accepting things that I’d like to believe. Readers who know about that study can weigh in.

62 thoughts on “New article claims that science is killing religion”

    1. Doesn’t surprise me. I’ve met too many (otherwise) intelligent religious people to think religiosity has much to do with general intelligence. And you don’t need to be intelligent to be an atheist; any child can recognize religious stories for the myths they are.

    2. Maybe we should study the relationship between religiosity and the ability to be at peace with a high degree of cognitive dissonance.

        2. I suspect Derren Brown would be the man to cover this. I’ve posted before about his giving an atheist a religious experience pure through the power of suggestion, in Fear and Faith

    3. For more on the connection between intelligence and people who are NOT religious, you’ll want to take a look at these:

      Why Are Educated People More Likely to Be Atheists?
      https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201402/why-are-educated-people-more-likely-be-atheists

      Religious people are less intelligent than atheists, according to analysis of scores of scientific studies stretching back over decades
      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/religious-people-are-less-intelligent-than-atheists-according-to-analysis-of-scores-of-scientific-8758046.html

        1. Yes: They want “the answer” (that they can memorize and put on a bumper-sticker) and then never have to think again or deal with uncertainty again.

          You know, “ … God’s truth, that never changes.” [Well, except when forced to by society …]

          1. today, I asked the RCMP to remove the Jehovah Witnesses from the translink property and they didn’t understand that loitering and not having lawful business to be there was an issue when it’s “adults with religion”.

      1. Hmm. If there really is some exclusivity between critical thinking and empathy, then why do so many religious people (ie, bad critical thinkers) treat others badly? Why are their “expanding circles” so much smaller than atheists’, judging from the online atheist-o-sphere?

        1. That does sound contradictory. It might be that “empathy” areas of the brain, when disengaged from critical thinking, lead indirectly to anti-social behaviors. Just guessing.

          It is interesting to see these associations to brain circuits. I wonder if the circuits are laid down from birth or are simply developed through exposure to religious environment as a child. Which ever is the case, undoing the brain damage looks like no easy matter.

      2. This is only anecdote; But I know many engineers (my work colleagues) who are both fine critical thinkers and very religious.

        I think many engineers want to “think thus far and no further”. They have their skill set, and they apply it very well. And that’s it. (“You’re good at math and science, you should be an engineer.”) most do not think further. Many are not interested in fine art or liberal arts.

        I think this largely accounts for the level of religiosity of engineers. And the fact that they pretty much “look like” a cross section of the society at large. Therefore very religious in the US.

        1. The respectful question has to be, what type of engineer?
          Engineering is a very broad discipline for example from bridge building to ship and aircraft construction and maintenance.
          I have spent the whole of my working life (so far) in the aerospace industry from service in the RAF as both ground and aircrew (during the Cold War) and subsequently in civil aircraft design, manufacturing and maintenance. During all of this time my experience of religiosity amongst engineers and aircrew (particularly when faced with combat) is very low.
          I particularly remember RAF formal parades in the 1960s where the resident commissioned vicar would be rolled out to officiate and the parade commander would announce “Jews and non believers should fall out and stand to the rear”. This obviously was very discriminatory and not just to Jewish serving personnel. Notwithstanding, so many “Jews and non believers fell out and stood to the rear this practice was suspended and ultimately the attendance of “official” representatives of the faithful also.

        2. This has been my observation as well. My source of info comes from two sets engineers I’ve worked with or near. Software engineers various backgrounds with degrees in Computer Science and IBM hardware engineers – double e types. The software people were less religious and had broader interests than the hardware engineers. Someone must have done a study to prove me right. 😉

    5. There’s one way in which there might be a relationship between atheism and intelligence that is context specific.

      Atheism is not the majority viewpoint in the US. Many atheists are ‘converts’ even if only from a weak cultural religious belief system.

      To abandon previously held ideas (especially if they were tempting ideas) requires a certain amount of introspection. Regardless of what you believed before, and believe now, that willingness to admit you were wrong and change your mind would weed out some people on the lower end of the scale.

      If I’m correct, then we’d expect to see a stronger correlation between atheism and intelligence in the US, and a weaker one in Scandanvia.

      I don’t particularly believe you have to be dumb to be a theist, so I suspect in countries where religion is private and not a big deal, and atheism is common and well accepted, I’d expect to see no meaningful correlation.

      That’s the hypothesis, anyway.

  2. Certainly science is a large factor but I’d have to say the biggest factor is access to information, for which of course we have science to thank.

    Religions rely on ignorance and shielding people from enlightening information, so I’d have to peg the internet as being the thing that will eventually be the final nail in religion’s coffin. It’s hard to raise your children to be ignorant if they have full access to the internet.

  3. I’ve seen more than one study showing that the number of religious people in the USA is declining; but such data are never paired with the observation that significant numbers of those who ARE religious are becoming more entrenched and more dangerous to a civil society, as evinced by many political developments here.

    Religion is, first, an attempt to create a roadmap back to a state found oneself in but can’t explain; then it’s used as a source of personal comfort (which includes using it to “explain everything and predict nothing”); then it becomes a source of social cohesion; and finally a tool for power and aggression. Sometimes people stop at one or another of those stages and stay there.

    The part of the human brain that performs the task of thinking up explanations for observations nearly always rapidly gets completely out of control if not rigorously trained, which few are.

    1. Knowledge displaced religion in the large segment of society that was socially religious leaving an angry core lacking doctrinal diversity and no longer mitigated by the moderates.

  4. Whatever the relation between them (and I tend to think there are a lot of feedback loops, so it’s not a simple matter of some of them being causes and some being caused), a host of these factors (education, well-being, tech progress, atheism, etc.) tend to move together. So its reasonable to suspect that as a country acquires many of them, they’ll acquire the ones they weren’t actively seeking too. His list of countries where religiosity is expected to decline seems reasonable. “Extinct” may be hyperbole, but if you bet on decline, you’re probably betting on the favorite.

  7. 15-20 years ago, I thought like Matt and Eric. I thought that the Third World countries would slowly secularize, and I didn’t expect to see problems with religion of immigrants from any culture, once they are established in their new Western home.
    Now, I am pessimistic. I see the Third World go from bad to worse, and I am troubled by the failure of the West to secularize religious immigrants. The problem is most visible with Muslims, but I suppose it exists also with other religions. US authorities are now prosecuting a woman named Purvi Patel for a do-it-yourself abortion. She reportedly got in this situation in a desperate attempt to hide the pregnancy from her parents, who as devout Hindus were against premarital sex.

    1. I do we think we underestimate the impetus for immigrants to escape the conditions in their home countries though. If you want to put it this way, I have faith in the power of secular culture. Our enemies want to destroy us because of our power not because of our weakness. What is distressing are our homegrown compromisers who think the best way to defend ourselves is by undermining our own secularity.

    2. I linked secularization to factors that contribute to first-worldness. So to be clear, I don’t predict third world countries will secularize. What I would predict is that any third world country that was able to become a first world country would likely experience secularization too.

      I’d also expect income disparity has something to do with it too. Brunei and Saudi may have highly educated, technocratic upper classes, but I don’t expect them to secularize because most of their citizens live in a ‘third world’ lifestyle even if the state itself has some first world capability. IOW it’s not just about what the State can achieve at its best, but more about the population average. And my completely non-political-scientist opinion is that income disparity between social classes is also one of the reasons the US is less secular than Europe. We’re no Saudi Arabia, but we’re still a lot less ‘flat’ than, for example, Sweden.

      1. A country like Saudi Arabia is very stable, I suspect, because of the absolute control of the ruling families as well as the intransigence of Wahhabism among the rest of the population. The only way change could come is some violent upheaval occurred like military invasion.

    3. US authorities are now prosecuting a woman named Purvi Patel for a do-it-yourself abortion. She reportedly got in this situation in a desperate attempt to hide the pregnancy from her parents, who as devout Hindus were against premarital sex.

      The phrase “US Authorities” should be reserved for officials of the US Federal (national) government.

      Indiana State Officials prosecuted Patel and she was convicted of inducing an illegal abortion and also (*so the state says, this is very much in dispute) allowing her baby, born alive*, to die. She is currently serving a 20-year term in prison.

      She is appealing her conviction and has a pretty impressive pro-bono defense team. The appeal is currently at the Indiana state court level.

      Although I am fully for abortion rights for women and against all the current new crop of restrictive laws in “red” states, it appears that she did violate Indiana law.

      That said (!), I hope she has her conviction overturned on appeal.

  8. The comments on the Real Clear Science article are interesting. Even tooth-fixer Don McLeroy makes an appearance: claiming as all IDers do, that science ‘is my religious hypothesis’.

    Let’s review, again, Dr. McLeroy:

    Science:
    1. Novel Scientific Claim
    2. Research
    3. Peer Review
    4. Scientific Consensus
    5. Textbook and Classroom

    Religion:
    1. Intelligent Design Theory
    5. Textbook and Classroom

    Alas, the benefit, not necessarily the knowledge, of science to the religious is ultimately the downfall of religion. When science becomes culture, the religious are powerless to stop the transformation of faith into myth.

    1. I’d like to believe this but I think there is a solid core who are irredeemably religious. This is for reasons unrelated to intelligence or learning, and so you will always have smart, educated believers who are unreachable and impervious to reason.

  10. I wonder how the decline in religion will influence the U.S. election. I expect an open Republican convention in Cleveland. That convention will probably nominate the dangerous theocrat Ted Cruz. However, the amount of religious ‘nones’ has risen to 23%. There are less people in favor of a theocracy than 4 years ago. If Cruz is nominated as the Republican candidate, the Democrats will win in november.

    1. I don’t like to make predictions on this subject but still, I do. If you are correct and Lie’en Ted (as Trump calls him) gets the nod, Trump will go ballistic and the republican party will totally unravel. You can see it already happening with Trump attacking the GOP heads. I just hope Bernie and Hilary don’t go into self-destruct against each other.

      1. A few weeks ago, Trump was talking about uniting the party. Since then, he has been doing badly in the polls. I think Trump forgot to remind voters that he’s the anti-establishment candidate.

        I also read on the websites of Politico and the Washington Post that David Petraeus is one of many Republicans being considered as an alternative to Trump, Cruz and Kasich. Petraeus would be the most ironic choice ever, because he has actually been convicted of the crime Hillary has been accused of. 😛

        1. The GOP is NOT known for being logically consistent.

          I heard a woman this morning (usually a Democrat voter) who’s going for Trump. She doesn’t think Hillary is a “strong person” because she stuck by Bill Clinton thorugh his philandering. (This view is quite popular amongst the “less educated” as Drumpf calls them.)

          Well, hello, isn’t sticking by your spouse through thick and thin supposed to be one of them-thar fambly values? Isn’t divorce one of them-thar symptoms of the “collapse of the family”?

          On NPR this morning they were interviewing a bunch of “Trump Democrats” and drawing parallels to the “Reagan Democrats” of 1980.

          And a good thing to draw that parallel. It’s because of the Reagan-initiated policy changes that they are in the economic fix they are in. But they’re just too foolish to understand it. And now they are going for a used car salesman on steroids.

          Hank help us if the Drumpf gets into the White House.

  11. Does anyone know of an example in history in which a society developed a weapon but the weapon was not ultimately used?

    1. Project Acoustic Kitty. In the 1960’s the CIA spent $20 million to train cats to spy on the Soviets. A surgeon implanted a microphone and a radio transmitter in the cat and the cat was dropped off in a park near a Soviet compound to eavesdrop on Soviet agents. The project was eventually abondoned because the cats could not be trained. Cats have got a mind of their own – as every cat owner could have told them.

      I guess you could argue that the U.S. did try to use the weapon, but it didn’t really work out.

    2. I know of a bloodless war.

      1972 Iceland vs Britain. the cod war

      Iceland bought one boat with a single shot cannon and loaded it with fish and potatoes.

      the real problem, other than America the weapon factory is Canada the Candu reactor sales

    3. Oh, there have been far too many to count, if you consider all the weapons development programmes which have been cancelled before the weapons went into service. E.g. the UK’s TSR-2 strike aircraft, the USA’s Valkyrie bomber, etc.

      Oddities include BF Skinner’s pigeon-guided missiles, and the Soviet attempt to train dogs to carry bombs under German tanks which failed because the dogs had been trained to approach Red Army tanks, not German ones!

  12. Don’t be mistaken about sub-Saharan Africa.

    Although this region is soaked in superstition, its inhabitants are far less dogmatic and much more open to secularism than you would have thought.

    Within a generation of internet saturation large swathes of the population would have shrugged off the nonsense of old.

    1. Indeed.

      And there are ways to help. One example is the Kasese Humanist Primary School in Uganda. It is a wonderful example of non-belief growing. The school’s motto is “With science, we can progress.” The school provides education to orphans and children who would otherwise have no access to education and little opportunity to learn.

      I’ve been sponsoring a student for the past few years, paying her tuition. It seems the least I can do given the damage Christian missionaries from the US have done in the past few decades in Uganda.

      It is great to connect with atheists from sub-Saharan Africa.

      2. GBJames:

        “I’ve been sponsoring a student for the past few years, paying her tuition.”

        Good on you! I will investigate this school. Thanks for the link.

  13. Fifty years ago, Time magazine famously asked “Is God Dead?” in its cover article. They argued that science and technological progress would erode belief by providing better health, food security, and economic prosperity. Some limited progress has been made, but generally it’s been tough sledding.

    The world’s religious populations are growing much faster than its non-religious populations.

    http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/pf_15-04-02_projectionsoverview_populationchange_310px-2/

    Getting all the world’s societies to the point where stable governments provide enough education, health benefits, income security, and equality to make religion a hobby is a thousand year project. Even if we do make it through climate change and the Singularity. Hell, we can’t even do it in the US, because we’re still so damn racist.

    We easily have enough evidence and arguments right now to convince perfectly rational people of atheism’s probability. But that’s not who we’re dealing with here, and often it takes a very long time for markets to clear.

  14. I think Canada is less formally religious than 50 years ago, but outside of Quebec more actually religious in terms of the number of serious believers. Immigration is a large reason why.

  15. There are certainly a few rather stupid atheists. (I tend to think of Ayn Rand as one; one of my atheist professors considered Madelyn Murray O’Hare [spelling??] another; many readers here will consider S.E. Cupp a third).

    Smart Christians tend to concentrate in certain specific branches of religion more than others. I’ve met a LOT of smart Quakers & Reform Jews, but have yet to meet a smart Jehovah’s Witness, and Mormons I know tend to be selectively smart, like the kid who scores high in some areas of the Differential Aptitude test but low in others.

  16. Reblogged this on Nina's Soap Bubble Box and commented:
    Given that people in Canada now prefer to say “I’m spiritual” to claim the “benefit of religion” without any of the responsibility or participation

    yes, religion is going away and the more material wealth and the bigger the middle class of nations, the less religion there will be.

  18. Modern democracy also leads to the decline in tolerance of authoritarian, which is a component of most religions.

    The odd country out is the USA, more religious than most modern democracies.

    From abroad the US Christians who are fanatics seem to define religious freedom as the right to compel others to conform to their beliefs by restrictive laws.

    1. That’s pretty much what it looks like from here on the inside, too. 😀

      But despite all the attention the Bible thumpers demand and get, overall we’re still primarily a secular nation with a secular government. That tends to get lost in the shuffle when some of the whiny religious ideologues get a platform, but ultimately our Constitution still protects us from the zealots–even if they’re congressmen/women!

  19. Too many things in evolution are accepted as fact when it is clear that they are not. Many gaps are simply ignored or never explored. This is not science but manipulation on the part of an agenda that is misleading if not dishonest.

      1. Yes, reminds me of one critical review of Dawkins’s The God Delusion. The reviewer (Amazon, online) said that he wrote down “over a hundred” failures on Dawkins’s arguments in the margins of the book.

        Challenged to put up, he demurred.

        Big surprise!

    3. It seems you mistakenly typed “evolution” where you meant to type “religion”.

      Why don’t you check out Jerry’s excellent book, Why Evolution Is True? Link at the top right of this site.

    4. Following on a bit from Ant’s comment, I’ll try to help guide you:

      … many things in evolution are accepted as fact when it is clear that they are not.

      Please provide as complete a list of these as you can; along with the evidence that supports your contention that they are not facts.

      Many gaps are simply ignored or never explored.

      Again, please provide as complete a list of these as you can; along with the evidence that supports your contention that they are ignored.

      This is not science but manipulation on the part of an agenda that is misleading if not dishonest.

      Please provide evidence that this is not science (detailed critiques of specific research would be most helpful here).

      You imply an “agenda”. Please define this agenda and then provide supporting evidence for both its existence and for the motives and goals of this implied conspiracy.

      Thanks, we await your detailed response.

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