Religiosity DECLINING in the Arab World

So here we are again. Having looked at the decline in religiosity in the UK, Europe and the USA it now appears that religiosity may also be declining in North Africa and the Middle East.

BBC Link:
The studies:
and

My other videos on the decline of religiosity:
The Continued Decline of Religion in the United Kingdom
American Belief in God: Analysing The Data
Europe is Losing its Religion - The Data

If you love my work and would like to support what I do here:

many thanks!

[Alex_Plante]

I am from Quebec, where we experienced the so-called "Quiet Revolution" in the 1960s. The Quiet Revolution was essentially the collapse of traditional Catholic church and institutions in the province. Until the 1960s, the church ran most of the schools, hospitals, social services, etc and had tremendous political and even economic influence. I was too young to experience it, but in the 1980s I quizzed my father about it. He grew up in a very religious family (many of my great aunts and uncles were nuns and priests), and experienced the collapse when he was in his 20s. From what I gathered, the collapse of the catholic church in Quebec came about because the church abused their power, especially in terms of being psychologically cruel toward children. There was little sexual abuse, the abuse of children by the Church was mainly psychological, involving cultivating a sense of guilt and shame as well as corporal punishment. It is because of this cruelty that my father's generation (born in the 1930s) grew up feeling revulsion for anything Catholic, and when they became adults and formed a critical mass of the population, the church simply collapsed. By the time I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, the Catholic Church was an object of ridicule. People openly laughed at priests. I wonder if something similar is happening in the Arab Muslim world.

[necko]

My Muslim brothers and sisters, finally waking up.... Thanks Noel!!

[craigcorson]

I view ANY decline in religiosity very positively. Religion should be extinguished from the minds of humanity.

[not]

I think this is the most hopeful news I've seen about Muslim-majority societies. Thank you for the detailed overview.

[rogerkearns]

Oddly, that was the first spider I've ever met on the web.

[careneh]

I don't find that too surprising. It is really hard to fully isolate a large population of young people from communicating with the rest of the world at this day and age.

[Reno_Slim]

Best glimmer of hope I've heard in the last thirty years.

[ericvulgate]

yemen isn't known for its internet connection.

[bdf]

I suspect it's not so much political involvement that drives the relative decline in religiosity in cities versus rural areas but direct dependence upon agriculture. The same thing that gave rise to the Luddites here.


If you're a farmer there are many things that could cause you major problems: flood, drought, unseasonable cold, unseasonable heat, locusts, etc., etc. You can't control whether or not they happen. You can't do much to counter them (except, with modern chemicals, maybe kill locusts). *All* you can do is pray to god and be more devoutly religious. After all, god probably sent the drought because you, or your neigbours, weren't being religious enough. So stone those witches and pray harder.


If you're in a city, you're much more insulated from this sort of thing. There's a drought in one region so shops get their food supplies from a different region (worst case from a different country). The prices may go up somewhat, and that may cause you some difficulties, but it's nowhere near as bad for you as it is for a farmer losing his entire year's crop. You continue relatively unaffected making cars (or whatever) whereas the farmer is screwed.


The Luddites realized this. They could see that industrialization would lead to a general decline in religiosity. They were right. And once that happened, the accompanying rise of science led to even farmers understanding that the problems they faced were not the act of a vengeful god and they, too, became less religious.


You can still see this effect in the US: compare the "bible belt" with the areas heavily dependent upon agriculture (cotton belt, corn belt, etc.). Pretty good correlation. If you are faced with problems you are powerless to deal with, you may feel your only recourse is to resort to attempting to invoke a higher power.

[naturealbums]

This is good news and positive information, the internet knowledge and education helps a lot. The younger people are also more in touch with science.

[philipmalaby]

What about Muslims in the west? I think I saw religiosity was increasing in younger folks.

[thepostcollapse]

This is very interesting! Great video! Thanks again

[edmis]

YAY, a Noel Plum video and of a topic that I'm interested in!
This day is a good day. <3

[pipertripp]

This is encouraging. Looking fwd to the next installment.

[SierraSierraFoxtrot]

Everything is arachnophobic and you have to point it all out!

[Uhlbelk]

Too cynical to think this actually makes a difference. If we went back through the last century, most places in the middle east were much less religious. Then we had a massive fundamentalist revival.

[neilmcginn]

It is interesting to see that Islam as arguably the most dogmatic of religions is not immune to the impact of the spread of knowledge and accessible education. I think this decline is particularly important as a message for those worried (whether rightly or wrongly) about integration after migration, demonstrating that what may be the biggest difference between cultures is more susceptible to change than what might have been thought, and therefore speaking positively to the commonality of their world views. Thanks for the video Noel, very informative.

[dustystarr]

This is good news, wish it was even more dramatic, but good nonetheless!

[luminyam]

Social media is having a good effect. Ppl have a hard time lying and getting away with it now with social media.

[autohmae]

From what I've seen some reports (only seen very few and know nothing about Islam or the cultures in those countries) the taboo of leaving Islam which used to exist (because it's punishable by death by opinion by some) has been lifted in many cases.