The proportion of atheists in the UK has grown to such an extent that it is now possible to speak of the country's "first atheist age", a group of researchers has said after publishing the findings of a major study into atheism.
The 'Explaining Atheism' project, led by Queen's University Belfast, surveyed nearly 25,000 people across Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, UK and USA with the aim of uncovering why some individuals are atheists and why some countries have higher percentages of atheists than others.
Figures from this study and a preceding research project, Understanding Unbelief (2017–2021), were converged with data from the British Social Attitudes Survey and World Values Survey to claim that the UK now has a relative majority of atheists. Christian Today requested a breakdown of figures but these were not supplied by the time of going to press.
According to the 2021 British Social Attitudes Survey, whose figures were compiled in the year 2019, over half of respondents (52%) said they did not belong to any religion, while a quarter said they did not believe in God.
Polling by the World Values Survey between 2017 and 2022 found that UK respondents were evenly split between those who believed in God (47.7%) and those who did not (48.5%). Four decades ago, in 1981, three-quarters of Britons said they believed in God, a stark picture of how much faith in the UK has declined.
The 2021 England and Wales Census showed a similar decline, with 37.2% of the population now identifying as having no religion, up from a quarter in 2011, while the number of people identifying as Christian fell to a minority for the first time, at only 46.2% of the population.
The Explaining Atheism research project involved several UK universities, including Brunel University of London and the University of Kent.
Commenting on the study's findings, Dr Lois Lee, from the University of Kent's Department of Religious Studies, said: "The UK is entering its first atheist age. Whilst atheism has been prominent in our culture for some time – be it through Karl Marx, George Eliot, or Ricky Gervais – it is only now that atheists have begun to outnumber theists for the first time in our history."
The study found that the strongest influences on belief are parental upbringing and societal expectations regarding belief in God.
"While anti-religious parents do not substantially impact whether their children believe in God, they do strongly influence whether their children are morally opposed to religion," researchers said.
Curiously, most atheists and agnostics were found to have some kind of belief in the supernatural.
The 'Explaining Atheism' project spanned three years and was funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Lead researcher, Professor Jonathan Lanman from Queen's, said: "Our large cross-cultural surveys reveal that while many factors may influence one's beliefs in small ways, the key factor is the extent to which one is socialised to be a theist.
"Many other popular theories, such as intelligence, emotional stoicism, broken homes, and rebelliousness, do not stand up to empirical scrutiny."
