Are more and more people becoming secular as time passes?

[Clark-Kent]

It seems like as more times passes, each younger generation than the next becomes more secular. Is this a trend just based on continual science/technological know how???

 

[\S/JcDc\S/]

It depends on what part of the world you are in. In America/westernized regions it does seem to become more secular, but in other less developed countries you will still find generation passed down beliefs that are still followed today.

 

[ThePhantasm]

How are you defining "secular" in this instance?

 

[KevanG]

*Wait for Peace Walker and Percy to show up and get this closed*

...

Banned?

Maybe we can have a civil conversation for once.

Anywho, in my experience it's been that people who have less exposure to other influences are more likely to be influenced by the only things in their lives. In this case, should the family be religious and they home school or something, like I've known several religious families to do, then they tend to be more ingrained in their families faith.

Those that are exposed to a much wider variety of influences such as other peoples beliefs and vastly differing opinions like those online, they tend to be more receptive to alternate ideas and opinions than what their family would prefer.

I find due to people tending to be more acceptable of differences in many ways these days and the ability to express yourself much more in public then before, we're seeing a larger amount of people who prefer to find their own ways in life as opposed to following the set guidelines of a religion.

 

[Thundercrack85]

In the Western world that is generally true, though there is a religious revival going on in the former USSR, and its satellite states that is still playing out.

In the Middle East it's actually the opposite, with countries becoming increasingly less secular.

In Asia it's a bit more complicated. For example, we have little idea how many Christians or Muslims there actually are in China, since the state restricts religion.

There may actually be 100 million Christians in China alone, but millions hide their religion. There are 500,000 Protestant baptisms in China every year that we know of. Which sounds like an impossibly high number until you remember that there are nearly 1.4 billion people in China.