Religions Sudden Decline, Ronald F. Inglehart
Religions Sudden Decline, Ronald F. Inglehart
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Religion's Sudden Decline
What's Causing it, and What Comes Next?

Author: Ronald F. Inglehart

Narrator: Christopher Grove

Unabridged: 5 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/27/2021

Synopsis

The world is becoming less religious. Since 2007, there has been a pervasive decline in religious belief and most of the world's people now say that God is less important in their lives than they said He was in the quarter century before 2007.

Many factors contributed to this dramatic shift, but as Inglehart shows, certain ones stand out. For centuries, virtually all major religions sternly discouraged divorce, abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and any other form of sexual behavior not linked with reproduction. These norms were necessary for societies to survive when facing high infant mortality and low life expectancy. Recent technological advances have greatly increased life expectancy and cut infant mortality to a tiny fraction of its historic levels, making these norms no longer necessary for societal survival. These norms require repressing strong natural urges, but, since they present traditional norms as absolute values, most religions strongly resist change. The resulting tension, together with the fact that rising existential security has made people less dependent on religion, opened the way for an exodus from religion. Utilizing a massive global data base, Inglehart analyzes the conditions under which religiosity collapses, and explores its implications for the future.

About Ronald F. Inglehart

Ronald F. Inglehart is the Lowenstein Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He helped found the Euro-Barometer surveys and is founding president of the World Values Survey Association, which since 1981 has repeatedly surveyed representative national samples of the publics of 108 countries containing over ninety percent of the world's population. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and has three honorary doctorates.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mark on March 17, 2024

A very thorough analysis of the reasons for the decline of religion. This is probably not a welcome message for those who value religion but Inglehart makes a strong case that the decline of religion is the predictable end result of a long process of shifting cultural values driven by socioeconomic......more

Goodreads review by Kiel on May 29, 2022

An objective and bleak sociological survey of the global religious landscape, this book suggests religion’s wane, and proposes exclusive naturalistic focuses in humanity’s quest for meaning. The author sees strong correlation between secularism and developed countries, as well as decline in pro-fert......more

Goodreads review by John on June 17, 2024

America was thought to contradict the secularization thesis. Prior to 2007, almost every developed country grew increasingly secular except the United States. Yet after 2007, religion is declining in America at a faster rate than in any other developed country. Inglehart's dry, extremely repetitive t......more

Goodreads review by Martin on March 20, 2021

I have an almost pathological reaction to the taking of means (averages) of ordinal data, although the WVS mostly uses a 10-point scale, so the troublesome issues (e.g. that average "satisfied" can go up when the proportion of those "dissatisfied" also increases) are less likely to arise. Neverthele......more

Goodreads review by Diane on September 09, 2024

This is a very strange book. It was written by the late Ronald Inglehart, the head of the World Values Survey project (data from which I used as a graduate student, so I am somewhat familiar with it), and looks at the decline of religion and rise of other values across the world. However, for most o......more

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