Greyson Wilson

Mrs. Thomas
Uwriting 1102-017
9/30/15
When writing this, and even as I handed copies to my group I felt like my point of view on the
topic seemed biased but my group members helped put my mind at ease, saying it took the form
of my personal voice. My group members said that my proposal was really good, only saying
that I should probably include the definition of secularism, reorder some parts, and expand on
others. I feel really confident that I will be able to write eight pages on my topic, because I have
really only scratched the surface.
What is the cause of the mass transition to secularism among the younger generations of the
United States?
If you are anything like I was last year before taking a class about European history, you
might be wondering what secularism is. Secularism is the principle of the separation of
government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions
and religious dignitaries. Simply put, it is the separation of church and state. This question is
very interesting to me because for the longest time, the United States seems to have lagged
behind other developed western nations in their transition to secularism. In Western Europe the
change started to become widespread mainly at the end of the Second World War, and has only
progressed from there. In the Gallup Poll taken during 2007 and 2008, it was found that as much
as 84% of residents in Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, and France are
agnostic or atheist, and thats only naming a few. To compare that to the United States, in 1990

only 8% of young Americans answered none when asked about their religious affiliation. By
2008 the number had risen to 15% plus 5% who answered I dont know. That would mean
that around 45 million adults in the U.S. today are not affiliated with a church.
One major reason I decided to do my inquiry project on the decline of religion in the
United States is the recent moves of a considerable number of states to legalize gay marriage. It
would be hard to argue that the opposition to said movement takes root from anywhere but the
religious right. The fact that such laws are being passed through the largest court systems in the
United States seems to point to an unprecedented transition away from religious based thinking
that has been entangled with our government for so long.
While it may seem mostly unrelated, the legalization of marijuana strikes me as a similar
situation. Much like prohibition in the 1920s, the illegality of marijuana seems to have stemmed
from grass roots movements of religious organizations, and has been sustained by the fear
mongering of theistic institutions. Much like with the legalization of gay marriage, the United
States judicial system, and the people of the Unites States seem to be turning away from the
hyperbole-laden opposition of American conservatives, and towards science and reason.
Not only are American youths ceasing to join religious groups, older adults and seniors are
turning away from religion at a surprising rate. Some examples are United Methodists who have
lost 3.1 million followers, Episcopalians who have lost 1.4 million, Presbyterians who have lost
2.1 million, and a stunning 20 million who have left Catholicism, but whose numbers remain
high due to the influx of Catholic Hispanic immigrants. In total that is around 27 million, or one
tenth of Americas adults who have turned away from religion in the past half century.

I believe that a major factor in the growth of atheism and agnosticism is the rapid
advancement of technology in this age of information. Not only do scientists and scholars of
today have an interest in the physical sciences such as astrology, biology, chemistry, medicine
and engineering, they are also beginning to look back using modern technology at some of the
claims made by religious texts and religious leaders and finding a large amount of discrepancies
and inaccuracies. It does not end with the intellectual elite, however. In developed nations where
almost everyone has access to a staggering amount of information with a few clicks of a
keyboard or touch screen, there is a dwindling reliance on people such as ministers, seers,
shaman or what have you to answer our questions about what is unknown to us. Every day
questions are being answered thanks to technology, and that information is being made available
to the general public.
I have already found very much compelling information between only two articles
written about my inquiry topic, which leads me to believe that I will have an easy time finding
much more information, and expanding on the points that have been brought up in the reading I
have done so far. Here are some examples of some questions that I expect to answer during the
inquiry process. What kind of effect can we expect secularism to have on the future of the
United States? That question should be very interesting to explore, and I intend to do so by
examining the changes that Western European countries experienced during their transition to
secularism. And since I have brought up the Western European countries again, I need to do
some more research into why they began to make the transition after the conclusion of World
War Two.
Here is a fact that I find to be interesting; among American youths there is a 60/40 split
between males and females of atheism/agnosticism, with males being the majority. I would like

to explore the factors that contribute to such a large disparity. A final question I could explore,
which would be by far the most controversial, is whether or not there are people or organizations
who have a vested interest in slowing or stopping the decline of religion, and the methods they
are using to go about doing so. Some factions that come to mind are major churches of course,
but also Fox News, and the Republican Party to a decent extent. I am torn about whether or not
there will be a lot of information on that topic, but I expect to find some information about how
effectively they are accomplishing that goal. It seems like many of them could be having an
inverse effect on religiosity by aligning themselves with one of the two political parties, and
hamstringing it with their denial of widely accepted science such as climate change and carbon
dating. I find that many people I know would like the Republican Party more if their political
frontrunners did not take the nearly indefensible stance of denying science. This could in turn
accelerate the desire of many Americans to elect scientifically literate (read democratic) leaders.