Consider:
• After 2,000 years, the majority of the world is still non-Christian.
• In many areas of the world, e.g., Asia, traditionalist Christians have preached variations on their doctrines for centuries, yet they’re still a tiny minority.
• In northern Africa, Islam was able to forcibly displace Christianity.
• Less than half the world believes in a “personal” God, according to worldwide Gallup International Millennium Survey (”GIMS”).
• Statistically, the more educated you are, the less likely you are to be religious, according to the GIMS, which says that:
Fifty-two percent of college graduates are religious as against 54 percent of people with a high school education and 70 percent of those who only complete primary school. …
The image of God as a person is more ingrained among the elderly and those with less educational background. More educated people prefer the idea of the ‘’force’’ or flatly reject the notion of a superior being.
• According to a survey first done in 1916 and again in 1997, something like 60% of U.S. scientists don’t believe in God. This is noteworthy because, by training, community ethic, and peer pressure, scientists aspire not to dwell in the land of wishful thinking, but to face the facts squarely. (I also found a 2005 article about a survey reporting that it’s more like 38% of natural scientists who don’t believe in God.)
• For many teenagers, confirmation means no more pencils, no more books, no more church or Sunday school (OK, I’m not a poet).
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