It is clear that during the last decades in some countries a level of material well-being has been reached that had never been seen before in any historical period. This change has not taken place in a vacuum; it has gone hand in hand with migration from the countryside to the cities, environmental degradation, the accelerated development of new technologies… And, in addition, a psychological change has taken place: there are more and more atheists .

But… to what extent will the tendency to not believe in the divine or the beyond continue to grow? Is there a “ceiling” from which atheism cannot continue to grow? According to the psychologist Nigel Barber, if there is, that ceiling is still far away and, in fact, atheism will win over religions before the year 2038 .

Belief in Religion Declines

There are two fundamental things that characterize atheism today: it is growing rapidly and is very unevenly distributed by region and age.
If in Spain 40 years ago only 8% of the population was considered atheist , today this percentage has risen to 25%. Similarly, if in people over 65 years old residing in Spain atheists are only 8.3%, among the millennials, born in the last years of the 20th century, the percentage is approximately 50%.

Similarly, countries with a more developed welfare state, such as Sweden or Germany, have a greater representation of atheist populations, while religiosity is hegemonic in countries where there is a lot of poverty. It seems that the expansion of the welfare society makes religiosity recede . For Barber, moreover, this is not a dynamic that will soon be reversed.

What is the reason for the expansion of atheism?

In his book Why Atheism Will Replace Religion? , Nigel Barber explains that religion has for centuries been a cultural creation designed to appease the anguish caused by living in highly unstable and dangerous environments, where danger and scarcity of resources lurk on a daily basis. The idea of death and the feeling of helplessness could be better overcome by believing that life itself has to do with a creation full of ultra-earthly transcendence. In these contexts, it was useful.

But just as certain animal species survive in stable environments such as islands, there are ideas that are unrivalled as long as certain conditions exist throughout the centuries and millennia; but when there is a strong change that affects the entire population and that has no precedent , the situation can change. The example given by the author is that of the dodo: when a new element enters the scene, extinction can occur within a few decades.

In this case, “what is new” is the possibility of living relatively comfortable lives (at least materially) and access to an education in which logical reasoning and scientifically generated knowledge are used. This makes it possible to give life a meaning beyond the fear of extraterrestrial punishment and beyond dogmas.

The New Religions

Another thing that may be influencing the expansion of atheism is, according to Barber, the fact that new forms of non-theistic religiosity are appearing that escape the usual definition of “believer” and “non-believer”. Football, the fan phenomenon and some forms of political activism , for example, can lead us to feel part of both a cohesive collective and a system of dogmas and, of course, a sense of transcendence, of something that will remain when we die.

Thus, many people who declare themselves atheists may be channeling almost religious forms of reasoning without realizing it. For example, by never questioning certain beliefs thanks to circular thinking, or by believing that there are ideas against which one cannot direct “blasphemies” . The difference between these new religions and the old ones is that they do not appeal to the fear of not complying with a series of rules, and one can abandon them at any time without being so afraid of the pressures of the environment.

What will happen in the next decades?

In any case, it seems that if atheism goes hand in hand with the development and generalization of certain standards of well-being, environmental and economic crises can take their toll. What will happen when, due to the lack of energy sources, a collapse occurs that paralyzes factories? And when climate change forces millions of people to move to other countries, and to seek drinking water elsewhere? It is possible that in the coming years the lack of belief in religions will live its historical maximum , to collapse immediately afterwards as poverty and scarcity of resources increase. In the end, no prediction is totally reliable, and religion can continue to perpetuate itself as it has done until now.