Please I want a really good reason for my question. Why is Canada so much more irreligious now than back in the 1950s? I asked around and the answer I got was “people are getting educated” and I said seriously? People back then must have had the same amount of information as we do now.
What is the real reason we’ve come from 9% atheism (1991) to 23% now in 20 years when Christianity always loomed around 100% for the past 500 years of colonization?
Actually this is happening everywhere in the world. You may say the media is to blame but even in faraway countries like Hungary and Belarus ( where English media cant possibly be popular) irreligion is rising.
If If this is the case in the west, Why are greeks so successful in maintaining 91% faith?
Growing popularity of and disregard for sin. Media brainwashing (I’m not just talking english media, it’s the same garbage in other countries, go there yourself and watch the television to see). Dumbed down education system. Failure to hand on the faith in the form of good catechesis. Scandal in the church.
Sometimes atheists will say they have intellectual reasons, but I really find that these are mostly covers for something described above.
are you sure your source isn’t assuming that “nones” are atheist? A lot of people don’t buy into any particular church but still believe.
Could it be possible that fewer atheist/agnostic are “in the closet”? Openly being an atheist or agnostic is quite problematic, but is becoming less so.
Immigration-most people who arrived before the 1950’s were of Christian origin including Catholics, Methodists, Anglicans etc. After the 1950’s (this was post World War II) that changed and so more people from other religious backgrounds immigrated to Canada.
In Quebec, the politicians were so focused on the french language that they focused on countries who spoke French which coincidentally are mostly Muslim countries. This is beginning to cause a problem here because many believe their religion sets them aside from the laws of the province.
The 1960’s were a time of major change. If you lived in Quebec, we have the Quiet Revolution which changed things dramatically in terms of how the province governed the educational system, healthcare etc. These were formally governed by the Catholic church and in some respects some Protestants churches. Therefore by the government taking over these systems, things changed.
Vatican II impacted Canada as well since as soon as the documents were released, church hierarchy struggled to make sense of the documents which caused confusion and many churches emptied because the local changes occurred without consultation on the parishioners.
In Quebec, it was really a combination of Vatican II and the Quiet Revolution since they happened around the same time.
The abuse scandals and church corruption. Although less publicized, this also happened in the Protestant churches as well. Victims were hurt and people were appalled so that caused people to leave the churches.
The removal of Christian based education from the school system in general.
A generation that was hurt from points 1 to 7 that they are teaching their children to not care about the Christian faith. This is now filtering towards the next generation since most mainline churches have lost their 20 to 40 age group.
In general with all of the information we have available today, people are becoming saturated with information that they don’t know what to believe. Furthermore, not all of the information that is available is correct. These days it is too easy to create a website and fill it with all sorts of falsities about whatever topic. If they gather enough followers, some people can become convinced that what this website states is true. I have seen some websites whose theology about a topic is theologically off.
I’m sure others can add more to this list. But this is all I can think of at the present moment.
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