The West is becoming increasingly Atheist and Agnostic

[ninerbuff]

As an Atheist for a while now I am glad it's growing and that some are seeing that you don't need a religion to be a good caring person which has usually been a tag that Atheists carried for some reason.
And when I meet people, my first thought isn't "are they religious"? It's "is this a person I can hang out with"? So I'm curious to see how far Atheism is going to go in this country.

 

[Penumbra]

What do we make of this?

I think it's a good thing.

What will come of it?

I don't know.

Your thoughts?

My thought is that it likely has to do with the increasing ease of obtaining information. When instant communication wasn't as widespread, people were much more knowledgeable about their own culture's local religion and not so knowledgeable about religions around the world. People in a given area generally believed the teachings of their local religion.

Today, people run into others of all sorts of religions and non-religions online all the time. Religious texts are easily available to be read online, for free, in a variety of languages. Atheists have been directly addressing religion with books, interviews, debates, etc. It used to be a fairly taboo subject to question it, it seems.

I don't think it's as easy for people to say, "I believe this religion, and not that religion" anymore, since they can't really justify it. So there seems to be a shift towards syncretism and atheism.