Some sociology academics have, after a three-year research project called ‘Exploring Atheism’, unveiled a startling discovery: there are a lot of people in Britain who don’t believe in God. I know, it’s quite a gut-punch.
They do not quite claim to have found that most Britons are atheists. But they do claim that there are now more atheists than religious believers. By collating various social attitudes surveys from 2008 to 2018 they found a strong upward trend in those saying that they did not believe in God, from 35 per cent to 43 per cent. During this time, believers in God dropped from 42 per cent to 37 per cent. This has led the academics to claim that Britain has now entered its ‘first atheist age’.
Many of us are complacent, assuming that religion will always be there in our culture as an option
It’s an inflated claim. For one thing, the Census of England and Wales of 2021 found that 37 per cent said that they have no religion, which suggests that the majority have some sort of religious allegiance.
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