Read the entire article here.
The figures published by the agency “Analisis Digital”, showed if we compare current figures with those from 1970, the height of the “sexual revolution” in the Western world and of communist atheism in Eastern Europe, we see that in 41, years atheism has lost 28 million followers.
In return, the number of non-religious individuals has gone up by more than one hundred million.
With the fall of communist regimes many of those who, for reasons of political and cultural expediency, particularly in Eastern European countries, declared themselves “atheist”, because state atheism was favoured by the various regimes (Moscow established the Institute and Museum of Scientific Atheism, to mention one example), went for the less bold option and preferred to plead non-religious.
Likewise, in China, after the devastating wave of the “Cultural Revolution” with all its human and cultural disasters, many people today prefer to declare themselves non-religious rather than atheist.
In any case, in the mid Twenty-first century, atheists and non-believers seem to be heading towards a definite decline.
In some cases they convert to a religion, albeit in a very superficial manner, (and this often seems to be the case of millions of people in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia, where there is a particular tendency to subscribe to the Orthodox faith with a return to traditional forms of worship). Many older people die leaving practically no children and therefore do not “transmit” faith in the non-faith.
On the contrary, religions are flourishing in the twenty-first century, with no exception. Even Judaism which accounts for a tiny minority. Which had little more than fifteen million members in 1970; less than 14 million reported in 2000, but now appears to be recovering with numbers returning to what they were forty years ago.
Christianity, in all its possible variants, totals two billion three hundred million followers, and is growing more than any other faith: according to the calculations made by the study, more than 83 thousand faithful come under the sign of the Cross. Following close behind, of course, is Islam. There are almost one billion six hundred thousand followers of the Prophet Muhammad throughout the world, and numbers are increasing at the speed of 79 thousand every 24 hours. Hinduism is in third place. Its believers add up to 952 million, who live primarily in India, but also in neighbouring parts of Asia. And this faith is growing at a rate of 37 thousand followers per day. Still in Asia, although present in statistically small numbers elsewhere, is Buddhism. At the global level, there are about 468 million followers of various “routes”, which are increasing at a rate of 13,800 per day. Taoism is a predominantly Chinese faith, but thanks to the country’s total figures, it holds an important place among religions, coming just below Buddhism. Taoism has 457 million followers who have survived all the political and religious climates of their homeland and are increasing at a rate of 9,300 new followers every day. Lastly, we have the planet’s countless “ethnic” religions, which encompass 269 million people from many different creeds. This category is growing at a rate of 9 thousand per day.
Commentary. No wonder the neo-atheist evangelists are so cranky! Their subspecies is in danger of extinction! Not to worry. The Lord will permit some to linger to serve as a warning to others.