{"id":4442,"date":"2024-03-26T20:47:10","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T20:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/?p=4442"},"modified":"2024-03-26T20:48:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T20:48:09","slug":"giving-up-on-god-the-global-decline-of-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/?p=4442","title":{"rendered":"Giving Up on God: The Global Decline of Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Author<\/b>: <\/span>Ronald F. Inglehart<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Affiliation<\/b>: <\/span>University of Michigan<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Organization\/Publisher<\/b>: <\/span>Foreign Affairs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Date\/Place:<\/b> September-October, 2020\/USA<\/span><\/p>\n

Type of Literature:<\/b> Analysis<\/span><\/p>\n

Word Count:<\/b> 2793 <\/span><\/p>\n

Link<\/b>:<\/span>https:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.com\/articles\/world\/2020-08-11\/religion-giving-god<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/b> Religion, Secularism, Ideology <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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Brief:<\/b><\/p>\n

The author is the founder of World Values Survey, an international research program based at the University of Michigan that collects data through surveys about people\u2019s cultural values and beliefs. The author argues that since 2007 religious beliefs have been slowly declining around the world. According to the author, the main reason for this decline is the changing attitudes in human sexuality, gender, and fertility. An unstated premise of the article is that one of modern religion\u2019s major purpose was to provide comfort to people who suffer from uncertainty and fear. As such, it creates social cohesion and norms that help preserve the safety and security in times of stress and instability. Due to this emotional rather than cognitive definition of religion, as new technologies in fertility increase, the need for religion diminishes. The author relies on a long-term study conducted from 1981 to 2020. While for a brief period after the Cold War religion filled the vacuum of declining communist ideology, in the post 2007 world that trend is reversed. The two exceptions to this trend are India and the Muslim world, where according to the author, society is increasingly traditional and conservative. The United States is the leading secularizing country in the world\u2014doubling its pace towards secularization. While the author\u2019s arguments catch headlines, the article fails to articulate how the survey defines \u201ctraditional\u201d vs. \u201csecular,\u201d and what is \u201creligious\u201d in religion exactly? This even applies to seemingly specific questions regarding God: what kind of God exactly? The theoretical weaknesses cloud what appear to be \u201chard\u201d social scientific facts about societies. For example, the \u201cfact\u201d that changing gender norms have a direct impact toward secularization already assumes that religion is primarily a private enterprise interested in \u201cfamily values.\u201d The circular reasoning reinforces the authors\u2019 assumptions by driving data towards foregone conclusions. The article argues that \u201ctraditional\u201d societies are also more corrupt and violent than secular ones. The reader is left to question if traditional is only a synonym for bad while secular means good. This article is a primary example of how theoretically unreflective social science can skew our understanding of reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

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By:<\/b> M. \u00dcveys Han, Senior Research Associate<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: Ronald F. Inglehart Affiliation: University of Michigan Organization\/Publisher: Foreign Affairs Date\/Place: September-October, 2020\/USA Type of Literature: Analysis Word Count: 2793  Link:https:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.com\/articles\/world\/2020-08-11\/religion-giving-god Keywords: Religion, Secularism, Ideology  Brief: The author is the founder of World Values Survey, an international research program based at the University of Michigan that collects data through surveys about people\u2019s cultural values […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":4443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-perspective-and-critical-research"],"blocksy_meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1.jpg",1200,800,false]},"author_info":{"info":["CIGA Staff"]},"category_info":"Global Perspective & Critical Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Global Perspective & Critical Research","comment_count":"0","rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1.jpg",1200,800,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1.jpg",1200,800,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/jg-1.jpg",1200,800,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"CIGA Staff","author_link":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/?author=22"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Global Perspective & Critical Research<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Author: Ronald F. Inglehart Affiliation: University of Michigan Organization\/Publisher: Foreign Affairs Date\/Place: September-October, 2020\/USA Type of Literature: Analysis Word Count: 2793  Link:https:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.com\/articles\/world\/2020-08-11\/religion-giving-god Keywords: Religion, Secularism, Ideology  Brief: The author is the founder of World Values Survey, an international research program based at the University of Michigan that collects data through surveys about people\u2019s cultural values…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticalcompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}