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<\/span><\/div>\n

This was the initial question asked by a team of British researchers in the late 1960s. \u201cYes,\u201d one woman replied. Then to clarify what that meant, the researchers, according to the sociologist Grace Davie, asked a follow-up question: \u201cDo you believe in a god who can change the course of events on earth?\u201d\n

\u201cNo,\u201d the woman answered, \u201cjust the ordinary one.\u201d<\/p>\n

This response, more than any pronouncement by \u201cNew Atheists\u201d like Richard Dawkins, indicates why religion was in trouble then and is in even more trouble today.<\/p>\n

God is not, to borrow Friedrich Nietzsche\u2019s image from 1882, dead. And neither is religion approaching extinction, despite what its staunchest opponents may have wished. The number of people in the world who have rejected religion has been rising rapidly; nonetheless, as of 2012 only 13 percent of the world\u2019s population would describe themselves as convinced atheists, according to a global survey by WIN-Gallup International. Here in the United States, only 5 percent would accept that designation.<\/p>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"