More People in the UK Identify as Atheist Than as Believers in God, Report

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The interim findings of a new UK-based study show that the number of people in Britain who identify as atheists is greater than the number of those who say they believe in God, the Christian Post (CP) reports. Titled “Explaining Atheism,” the three-year study was launched in 2022 and is being overseen by Queen’s University Belfast with other academic institutions.

The study has so far found that the number of Britons who identify as atheist rose from 35.2% in 2008 to 42.9% in 2018, CP reports. Meanwhile, the number of those who said they believe in God dropped from 41.8% in 2008 to 37.4% in 2018.

In a statement to the Christian Post, study researcher Professor Jonathan Lanman of Queen’s University said socialization is likely the biggest cause of atheism or belief in God. “Our results show that the extent to which one is socialized to be a theist (mainly by parents, but also by wider society) is the key determining factor,” Lanman said.

“Socialization is known to be important to what we think about the world and the values we hold. While many other factors may in some smaller way be relevant, such as sex, education, and cognitive biases, these are much less relevant than socialization,” Lanman continued.

“Further, many common claims, such as people becoming atheists because they are more intelligent or educated (often made by activist atheists) or people becoming atheists because of broken homes, absent fathers, or a desire to rebel (often made by conservative religious commentators), are all shown to be false based on our results,” Lanman noted.

“There’s a significant literature on the role of existential security and religious belief and participation, arguing that as security increases, religion fades. Our findings suggest that while there’s some truth to this, the effect is small and much less important than socialization,” Lanman said.

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