Study suggests religion will go extinct in at least nine countries
Census data from nine countries suggests that religion will be extinct there, say researchers.
The study, which used the data from Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland, suggested that religion could become extinct there.
According to the study, there was a rise in those saying they had no religious affiliation.
A model created by the researchers claims to be able to mathematical calculate the data using the number of religious people, compared with the main social motives behind being religious.
The mathematic model invoked nonlinear dynamics, which has been used in order to explain various physical phenomena where there are several contributing factors.
The results of the study were reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas.
The main findings suggested that religion would all but die out in those nine countries.
Data used stretched back as far as a century, reports the BBC.
Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona said: “The idea is pretty simple.
“It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.
“For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there’s some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not.”
He continued: “In a large number of modern secular democracies, there’s been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%.”
The researchers plan to update the structure going forward, in order to take on board more of a global network, which operates in the real world.
