An additional 23 percent of the world’s population identify themselves as “not a religious person,” leaving 59 percent of the world as “religious,” down from close to 100 percent a century before. According to an old idea in social science called the Secularization Thesis, irreligion is a natural consequence of affluence and education.66 Recent studies confirm that wealthier and better-educated countries tend to be less religious.67 The decline is clearest in the developed countries of Western Europe, the Commonwealth, and East Asia. In Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, the
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