To the believers: to what to you attribute the growth in Atheism?

[longship]

3. Well, the "growth" may be, in part, only a perception.

First, I am a lifelong atheist. But I went to church for the first 13 years of my life because my family went. I received a fairly good religious education, but I never really believed it.

I think that part of the growth of non-believers is an artifact of people becoming more comfortable professing their non-belief. They always were non-believers, but it was culturally unpopular to say so, until recently.

I am with Dawkins on this. It was 9/11 which was a trigger point. It certainly was why Dawkins' book went to press. The success of the four horsemen (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett) opened things up for other non-believers. Others books followed, most notably Victor Stenger.

It gave comfort to many people who previously kept their non-belief in gods to themselves.

However, what is telling in the latest statistics is that the younger people are far more likely to profess non-belief. So there is some change in culture which is giving rise to the increase.

I suggest that it is the perceived intolerance of fundementalists of all stripe, and the disgusting way politics has been co-opted by the religious right. The latter is very scary to me, as it undoubtedly is to many. We don't want those people to gain power.