I don’t know if I’ll be around in the year 2038, but if this article is right, it will be a year to celebrate.
The view that religious belief will give way to atheism is known as the secularization thesis. The specific version that I have described is known as the existential security hypothesis. The basic idea is that as people become more affluent, they are less worried about lacking for basic necessities, or dying early from violence or disease. In other words, they are secure in their own existence. They do not feel the need to appeal to supernatural entities to calm their fears and insecurities.
...and later, after explaining two separate measures used to derive his prediction…
Averaging across the two measures of atheism, the entire world population would cross the atheist threshold by about 2038 (average of 2035 and 2041). Although 2038 may seem improbably fast, this requires only a shift of approximately 1 percent per year whether in religiosity (0.9 percent) or belief in God (1.2 percent).
Something to look forward to. What do y’all think? Is the triumph of secularism inevitable? Is it likely to really happen within the lifetimes of some of us here?
Article from Psychology Today: Atheism to Defeat Religion by 2038
