Religion has always been a big part of the history of mankind—an ongoing struggle between man and faith. The majority of people over the world follow a religion, whether it is Catholicism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or another religion; but recently, atheistic views have been on the rise.

           
According to a team of mathematicians, organized religion in nine major Western-style democratic countries will all but vanish by 2050. The conclusion was gathered from a prediction on census data that stretches 100 years back.

           
While it won’t completely die out, religion is predicted to be on a deep decline in countries including Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands, according to the mathematicians. There is no way to be sure about the United State because the U.S. census doesn’t question religion.

           
But, these nine other countries provide enough data for detailed mathematical modeling, where “’unaffiliated’ is the fastest-growing group in those countries,” said Daniel Abrams, lead author of the study.

           
“The role of religion is constantly evolving. It no longer serves the same purpose as it did thousands of years ago. Look at the initial role religion has played in history going back to ancient civilizations. For thousands of years, religion was used to explain the unexplainable, i.e. earthquakes, floods, abundant harvests. In the last few hundred years, though, we've been able to explain those occurrences without religion,” said Mrs. Evans, AP World History teacher at MLEC.

           
Abrams says there are two assumptions as to why this is happening, and he makes those assumptions based on sociology, the study of society. Firstly, there is the majority effect: that it is more attractive to be part of the majority than the minority, so as “religious affiliation declines, it becomes more popular to not be a churchgoer than to be one.” It’s simply that people are more likely to join a group with more members.

Additionally, social networks have a great influence. “Just a few connections to people who are [religiously] unaffiliated is enough to drive the effect,” Adams explains. This sort of behavior is common, much like peer pressure, even outside of matters such as religious affiliation.

           
Secondly, there is the utility effect: the assumption that there are social, political and economic advantages to being unaffiliated with a religion in the countries where it’s in decline. In the Netherlands, religion will go from 40% unaffiliated today to an expected 70% by 2050. Even Catholic Ireland will see a decrease in religion—from 0.04% unaffiliated in 1961 to 4.2% in 2006, which was the most recent data point.

           
Another point to be brought up is that humans learn to explain the phenomena of the world, and have a better understanding of the world around them, the more they begin to lose faith.

           
“I think today people are slightly fed up with some hypocritical actions they see in the different religions, for example, killing in the name of some entity (and all the major religions do it). In the past it was easier to hide or explain these actions but with today's rapid lines of communication it's more difficult,” said Mrs. Evans.

           
While the people of the countries may call themselves unaffiliated, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are atheists or non-believers; they just don’t associate themselves with a particular religion.