Tranparent Eye tipped me off to this article by Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman claiming that religion is not on a global upswing. Like Transparent Eye, I’m skeptical.

Right off the bat, they refer to Muslims as “Mohammedans.” I’m already unimpressed. But on to the substance…

The first time I saw the term “irreligion” was in stray essays I read in college. Irreligion is a catch-all term for atheistm, agnosticism, and all sorts of other flavors of non-religion. It’s for folks voting for none of the above.

Paul and Zuckerman call attention to the growth of irreligion during the past century. The percentage of US agnostics and atheists grew from 2% of Americans just after WW2 to over a fifth today; they outnumber Southern Baptists. Just the atheists alone outnumber Jews, Mormons and Muslims combined.

Half of Americans don’t attend church as often as once a month. That’s right: less than half of America is “churched.” You wouldn’t know that from watching the news. Or from listening to politicians. Most Americans, judging by their Sunday mornings, don’t care about religion.

Globally, we’re at almost one billion irreligious people by their counting, up from three million a century ago. Irreligious folks now outnumber Hindus. That’s phenomenal.

Pentecostalism has soared this past century too. From a standing start, they’ve gone from a several dozen people to half a billion. Paul and Zuckerman gloat some over the half billion person difference between Pentecostals and the irreligious, but considering where Pentecostals started, I’d say the Pentecostals are set to win that race over the long haul.

Paul and Zuckerman, while heralding irreligion’s meteoric rise, refer to irreligion as a “Great Faith.” But is it really a “faith?” Aren’t we dealing with apples and oranges here?

Do Paul and Zuckerman really think that irreligion functions, in real lives, on a level comparable to, well, real religion?

I’m not trying to make a truth claim about what is or isn’t “true religion.” I am saying that, descriptively, irreligious life does not resemble religious life. Religion is an eclectic mix of art, politics and passion, one that shows up as ritual and literature and architecture, as distinctive dress, as proscribed sexual practices, as forbidden foods.

Does irreligion really do that? A growing absence of religion does not make that very absence also a religion.