Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says

"A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.

The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.

[...]

The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.

[...]

"The idea is pretty simple," said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.

"It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.

[...]

Dr Wiener continued: "In a large number of modern secular democracies, there's been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%."

[...]

And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction."

BBC News, 22 March 2011

Even in Ireland!

Non-believers mushroom in Switzerland

"When it comes to the growth of secularism in Switzerland, the figures speak for themselves.
More than one in ten of the Swiss population – 810,000 people – claims "no religious affiliation", up almost 60 per cent on a decade earlier.

[...]

According to Bovay, religion is no longer being passed down from the parent to child as it was in the past, and children are being allowed to decide for themselves at an earlier age.

With more young people turning away from religion and older believers dying off, Bovay expects the number of non-affiliated to increase for the foreseeable future."

Swissinfo.ch, August 20, 2007

It's not all well, though, because creationists are popping up too:

"Creationism controversy evolves

A heated debate over the inclusion of creationism in a school science book highlights the success Swiss evangelicals are having sowing seeds of doubt about evolution.
The debate over the textbook raises questions about why increasing numbers of Swiss are willing to turn away from science and accept creationist views that God created the earth a few thousand years ago.

[...]

But the Swiss proponents of creationism are working on fertile ground. An international survey last year found that 30 per cent of the Swiss reject evolution, one of the highest rates in Europe."

Swissinfo.ch, November 28, 2007

Studies Show Importance of Fathers In Fostering Faith

""The Demographic Characteristics of the Linguistic and Religious Groups in Switzerland," published in 2000 in a volume covering trends in several European nations. The numbers that trouble traditionalists came from a 1994 survey in which the Swiss government tried to determine how religious practices are carried down from generation to generation.

Apparently, if a father and mother were both faithful churchgoers, 33 percent of their children followed their example, with another 41 percent attending on an irregular basis and only a quarter shunning church altogether.

But what happened if the father had little or no faith? If the father was semi-active and the mother was a faithful worshipper, only 3 percent of their children became active church members and 59 percent were irregular in their worship attendance -- with the rest lost to the church altogether.

If the father never went to church, while the mother was faithful, only 2 percent of the children became regular churchgoers and 37 percent were semi-active. Thus, more than 60 percent were lost.

This trend continued in other survey results, noted Carrier. The bottom line was clear. If a father didn't go to church, only one child in 50 became a faithful churchgoer -- no matter how strong the mother's faith."

The Morning News, June 1, 2007

I found this terribly interesting. Especially combined with a tendency for men to be less religious.

Update:
The Morning News didn't mention what happened if the father attended church while the mother didn't, so I decided to Google a bit on the subject and found the remaining numbers:

"Surprisingly, if the father is a regular church attender the children's religious practice varied in an inverse relationship to their mothers' practice. If the mother was regular 33 per cent of children were regular. If she was an irregular attender then 38 per cent of children were regular. If the mother was non-practising then 44 per cent of children became regular attenders.
Even when the father is an irregular attender and the mother non- practising 25 per cent of the children were regular attenders and 23 per cent irregular attenders."

ad2000.com.au (Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 15 No 8 (September 2002), p. 8)