Ryan Burge

So we think about religion with three components, behavior, belief, and belonging.

So behavior is like we taught church attendance.

That's actually following the fastest of all of them.

The way we think about it is behavior is the first one that goes.

And then usually it follows belonging.

And then belief is sort of behind all those things.

If you look at never attending people, they actually are more likely to say God exists without any doubts than they are to say God doesn't exist at all.

So there's still this core of belief in America.

You don't see that in the rest of the world.

Or you don't see it in Western Europe.

Western Europe's our comparison for a long time.

I think in American religion, it is not a straight line.

Like the idea that we're going to just slide towards secularization.

The pendulum definitely swung towards secularization.

I mean, the new atheist movement, you know, 15, 20 years ago was all the rage.

And now those guys are minor players in this conversation.

I do feel like

I mean, we can't measure vibes.

This is where we get in trouble with social scientists.

But the vibes around religion have shifted from the new atheists are the coolest thing ever to those guys have tired ideas.