Handbook 10-11 - Human Development Graduate Group: Fill & Download for Free

What has contributed to the ‘rise’ of atheism?I ask along with Rabbi Jonathon Sacks “Should we not simply accept that just as there are some people who are tone deaf, and others who have no sense of humor, so there are some who simply do not understand what is going on in the Book of Psalms, who lack a sense of transcendence or the miracle of being, who fail to understand what it might be to see human life as a drama of love and forgiveness, or be moved to pray in penitence or thanksgiving? Some people get religion; others don’t. Why not leave it at that?” [1]The fact that some of simply aren’t inclined to ‘leave it at that’ contains a partial answer to the question: personality and natural inclinations contribute to atheism more than any other single thing.There are studies that claim intelligence and analytical ability contribute to atheism, but these studies have now been undermined by studies of those studies—if you are analytical enough to follow what that means… Differences in intelligence have not been found. [2] And methodology appears to have impacted the results of the study on analytical thinking making it undependable as well.[3] [4] [5]Probability indicates these are not real factors.Most causes of atheism are personal: a person who wants moral independence is likely to become atheist; about half of atheists become so in response to difficult and absent fathers; many have bad personal experiences with religious fundamentalism—or extreme liberalism—and become atheist; some had bad personal experiences, like loss, and lose faith; others are motivated intellectually; some atheists are even idealists who believe mankind can still create the social utopia dreamt of during the Enlightenment.But there are also larger influences, such as culture, that impact the development of atheism.Speaking culturally, let me first say there is no such thing as a ‘rise of atheism in the modern world’. There is a rise of atheism in the West, especially in the U.S., but globally, the number of people unaffiliated with any religion (including those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” as well as self-identifying agnostics and atheists) is projected to increase in the next 30 years by only 0.1 billion, (from 1.13 billion in 2010 to 1.23 billion by 2050). This is a drop in percentage of the world’s population from 16% to 13%.[6]In terms of population shares, this is significantly lower than the peak in the 1970s under communism when nearly one in five people worldwide were religiously unaffiliated, according to the World Religion Database.Reports of the death of organized religion have been exaggerated. According to recent research, the growth of religious populations worldwide is projected to be 23 times larger than the growth of the unreligious between 2010 and 2050.[7]So, there is no ‘rise of atheism in the modern world’ however, there is a rise of atheism in the U.S. that is expected to be substantially higher than growth in other regions of the world. That probably indicates it is specifically our culture that is making that difference.The history of Europe since the 18th century has been the story of successive attempts to find alternatives to God as an object of worship, among them the nation state, race, and the Communist Manifesto.After this cost humanity two world wars, a Cold War, and a hundred million lives, we have turned to more pacific forms of idolatry, among them the market, the liberal democratic state and the consumer society…Even so, the costs are beginning to mount up. Levels of trust have plummeted throughout the West as one group after another — bankers, CEOs, media personalities, parliamentarians, the press — has been hit by scandal. Marriage has all but collapsed as an institution, with 40 per cent of children born outside it and 50 per cent of marriages ending in divorce. Rates of depressive illness and stress-related syndromes have rocketed especially among the young. A recent survey showed that the average 18- to 35-year-old has 237 Facebook friends. When asked how many they could rely on in a crisis, the average answer was two. A quarter said one. An eighth said none.None of this should surprise us. This is what a society built on materialism, individualism and moral relativism looks like. [8]Personality, personal experiences, and a person’s culture can all contribute to atheism.The ‘simple answer’ blaming the rise of atheism on the “mindless rampant irrationality” of religion (at anything but a personal level) is both uninformed and simpleminded. As David Bentley Hart says: “Many of today’s most obstreperous critics of Christianity know nothing more of Christendom’s two millennia than a few childish images of bloodthirsty crusaders and sadistic inquisitors ala Monty Python…”Moral outrage over religion’s flaws and failures could be seen as a cause of atheism if they were based on an accurate—and fair—understanding of what those actually are. Outrage that doesn’t bother to find out what it should honestly be outraged about isn’t worth much.Whatever happened to the intellectual depth of the serious atheists, the forcefulness of Hobbes, the passion of Spinoza, the wit of Voltaire, the world-shattering profundity of Nietzsche? Where is there the remotest sense that they have grappled with the real issues… (Sacks)Whether or not religion deserves its place in society is a question that should matter to all of us—even the atheist—because “religion has social, cultural, and political consequences.”Religion helps hold societies together.[9] Religion helps broker peace. [10] Religion aids and promotes morality and reduces conflict. [11] [12] No major religion is exempt from complicity in violent conflict, yet we need to beware of the almost universal propensity to oversimplify that. Throughout history and into our modern day religion has been, and is, almost never the sole or even the primary cause of such conflict. But religion can and does help stop them and promote reconciliation.Religion is not ‘rampantly irrational’ any more than politics or football or patriotism or anything else we feel deeply about. Democracies have conducted wars that have killed the innocent yet we don’t abandon democracy because of its few failures.Advocating against religion is potentially destructive because: “You cannot expect the foundations of western civilization to crumble and leave the rest of the building intact.That is what the greatest of all atheists, Nietzsche, understood with terrifying clarity and what his latter-day successors fail to grasp at all.” (Sacks).For moral outrage to have any real power it must accurately understand what it’s legitimate to be outraged about. Rumor and popular opinion only cut it on Facebook.Please don’t write me that ‘atheist’ countries are proof that atheism creates more peaceful societies than religion does. That’s bogus.In the first place, there are no countries that are simply atheist. All countries have a mixture of atheism and religion. Peaceful countries are peaceful partly because of the tolerance that exists between these diverse groups. The resilience of a nation to withstand shock—natural disasters, war, economic setbacks, and so on—is dependent on several intertwining factors and one of those factors includes religious tolerance.[13]Next, secularism is relatively modern. In its short history it has contributed to peace in some places, and it has also contributed to some of the worst violence the world has ever seen in others. Religion has a longer record—it’s had lots more opportunities to screw up.Much modern secularism is building on a religious cultural foundation that goes back for centuries. It will take some time to see whether Rabbi Sacks is right when he says, “A century after a civilization loses its soul, it loses its freedom also.”Humanity has been here before. The precursors of today’s ‘New’ atheists were Epicurus in third-century BC Greece and Lucretius in first-century Rome. These were two great civilisations on the brink of decline. Having lost their faith, they were no match for what Bertrand Russell calls ‘nations less civilized than themselves but not so destitute of social cohesion’.The barbarians win. They always do. That’s what the Rabbi and Nietzsche and other historians understand: if you’re an atheist, you still need religious people in your country for it to be strong enough to stave off the barbarians. [14][15]Set aside ill-informed misconceptions of religion and recognize its value in culture and society even if you don’t agree with it personally.Practice rationalism with efficacy.Personality, personal experiences, and a person’s culture contribute to atheism. Religion itself can be a contributor on a personal level. I don’t think false perceptions of religion lead people to become atheist—I think they are formed after atheism is determined—at least I hope that’s true. I hope that because ignorance can be cured.It’s much harder to cure unreasoned prejudice.EDIT. EDIT. EDIT!!!!So many other answers and comments have claimed education causes atheism I felt compelled to respond. It’s an extremely popular idea among atheists but recent studies indicate that education does not increase the likelihood of atheism—although the reverse may be true.There are different studies that show contrasting conclusions, I know. Some of that is from methodology, and what exactly is being measured, so all of it has to be looked at—not just what confirms our expectations—in order to obtain anything approaching actual truth. This is a survey of recent material: The Effects of Education on Americans’ Religious Practices, Beliefs, and Affiliations.This is also good: Religion and Education Around the WorldThat people tend to become less religious as they become more educated has long been the secular hypothesis of what happened to countries in the European West, and it was predicted to happen in America.However, University of Nebraska sociologist Philip Schwadel has published a study that indicates this is not validated by evidence. Study: More educated tend to be more religious, by some measures His study has been validated by others.Schwadel found that people actually tend to become more religious as they further their education. They tend to become less fundamentalist—that is they have less belief in certain views such as inerrancy for example—but they do not become less religious in practice. With each additional year of education the likelihood of attending religious services increased 15%. The likelihood of reading the Bible at least occasionally increased by 9%. The likelihood of switching to a mainline Protestant denomination - Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian USA or United Methodist - increased by 13%.There’s at least one international study from Harvard’s National Bureau of Economic Research that also found similar results. It shows the type and intensity of belief decreases with education but attendance and religious practices increase. http://scholar.harvard.edu/files...The people most likely to attend church are middle class people with a college education. https://www.jstor.org/stable/277....Research done by Barry Kosmin also indicates that Americans with post-graduate education have a similar religious distribution and affiliation to the general population, with a higher "public religiosity" (i.e., membership in congregations and worship attendance), but slightly less fundamentalist type "belief." Advanced education in U.S. does not seem to produce much religious skepticism since so many post-graduates are religious believers.Religion and the Intelligentsia: Post-graduate Educated Americans 1990-2008This has had enough of an impact in sociology that they are revising the theory of secularization. (Secularization - Sociology - Oxford Bibliographies - obo). (https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/fs...).If you’re an atheist, you are slightly more likely than the average person to have a college education—and to be male and white and somewhere around 30—but atheism does correlate with a college education.However, Sociologist Bradley Wright reviewed results from the 2008 Pew US Religious Landscape Survey and noted that some religious groups have significantly higher levels of education compared to those who are non-religious.That means that if you are just one of the many people out there with a college education—you are not more likely to be atheist—you are instead much more likely to be a Jew or a Christian, or possibly even a Buddhist or a Hindu—at least a Hindu in America. Apparently most of the Hindus who come to America are the educated ones.All of that together means a college education does not correlate with atheism.That’s why I didn’t include it. It’s a popular notion that’s contradicted by actual data.Footnotes[1] Atheism has failed; only religion can defeat the new barbarians - Rabbi Sacks[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283062772_The_relationship_between_intelligence_and_religiosity_A_critical_review_of_the_literature[3] Direct replication of Gervais & Norenzayan (2012): No evidence that analytic thinking decreases religious belief[4] Religious Belief and Analytical Thinking Don’t Necessarily Cancel Each Other Out[5] Revisiting the Relationship between Individual Differences in Analytic Thinking and Religious Belief: Evidence That Measurement Order Moderates Their Inverse Correlation[6] Religious 'nones' projected to decline as share of world population[7] How religious will the world be in 2050?[8] Atheism has failed; only religion can defeat the new barbarians - Rabbi Sacks[9] The Functionalist Perspective on Religion[10] Religion in World Affairs: Its Role in Conflict and Peace[11] Religion, Crime, and Criminal Justice - Oxford Handbooks[12] Religion and Crime: A Systematic Review and Assessment of Next Steps[13] https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/169569/Pillars%20of%20Peace%20Report%20IEP.pdf[14] http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/11/Positive-Peace-Report-2018.pdf[15] http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2017/04/Peace-and-Religion-Report.pdf

President Xi is just one man. You read to much western mainstreammedia. The Chinese government makes plans for China’s future not Xi. Do you think Xi did and plan this 219 pages report? Crazy brainwashed boy. They publish five year plans. Here you can read what they have in mind for China’s future: 219 pages long. Good luck. For example in 13th five year plan you can find that they will increase R&D (research & development) funding to 2,5% of GDP in 2020. That’s massive money with China’s GDP. You can also find that the value added to services has to increase to 56% in 2020. You can also find that internet penetration has to increase to 70% of population in 2020.What do they want to achieve with agriculture in 2020. Viola. And they are serious about it. No bullshit talk but deadlines.1. Agricultural mechanization (2016 - 2020)§ Make breakthroughs in mechanizing the transplanting of rice seedlings, the sowing and harvesting of canola seeds, and the harvesting of cotton and sugarcane;§ Promote the use of high-horsepower and high-performance agricultural machinery and light, durable, and lower-power small and medium plowing, planting, and harvesting machines and crop protection machines;§ Develop 500 counties able to demonstrate mechanization of the entire agricultural process;§ See that mechanization of the plowing, planting, and harvesting of major farm crops reaches approximately 70%.What do they want to achieve in the field of aerospace in 2020. Voila.2. Aerospace equipment (2016 - 2020)§ Make breakthroughs in core aircraft engine and gas turbine technologies;§ Accelerate the development of large aircraft;§ Promote the industrialized development of trunk and feeder route aircraft, helicopters, general-purpose aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles;§ Develop advanced airborne equipment and systems;§ Strengthen supporting systems for civil aircraft;§ Develop next generation and heavy-lift launch vehicles, new types of satellites, and other space platforms and payloads;§ Make breakthroughs in core technologies for key aerospace components and put them into useWhat with infrastructure? Oh wait. You mean railway?3. High-speed rail (2016 - 2020)§ Speed up the improvement of high-speed rail networks:§ Complete the Harbin-Beijing-Hong Kong (Macao), Lianyungang- Ürümqi, Shanghai-Kunming, and Guangzhou-Kunming lines;§ Build the Beijing-Hong Kong (Taipei), Hohhot-Nanning, Beijing-Kunming, Baotou-Yinchuan-Haikou, Qingdao-Yinchuan, Lanzhou (Xining)- Guangzhou, Beijing-Lanzhou, and Chongqing-Xiamen lines;§ Extend regional lines connecting high-speed railways.§ The length of high-speed rail lines open to traffic will reach 30,000 kilometers, connecting more than 80% of all large cities.4. Renewable energy (2016 - 2020)§ Begin construction on 60 gigawatts of regular hydropower capacity,§ Build the national new energy integrated demonstration zone in Ningxia, and actively move forward with the development of demonstration zones for renewable energy such as those in Qinghai and Zhangjiakou.5. Nuclear energy (2016 - 2020)§ Complete the Sanmen and Haiyang AP1000 projects;§ Develop demonstration projects for Hualong-1 nuclear technology in Fuqing, Fujian and in Fangchenggang, Guangxi;§ Begin construction on the CAP1400 demonstration project in Rongcheng, Shandong;§ Begin construction on a number of coastal nuclear power plants and accelerate construction on the third phase of the Tianwan nuclear power plant;§ Installed capacity of nuclear power plants in operation will reach 58 gigawatts, with over 30 gigawatts of nuclear-generation capacity under construction;Of course you can’t find everything. There are many things they keep secret but a lot of information is open.6. Ethnic minorities (2016 - 2020)§ Achieve moderate prosperity in areas with concentrations of ethnic minorities§ Promote targeted poverty alleviation by ethnic group and by village for ethnic groups with smaller populations;§ Adopt local or near-local poverty alleviation measures for towns and townships on the border where residents guard land borders and it is inappropriate to relocate them through development programs;§ Implement projects to protect and develop the distinctive villages and towns of ethnic minorities and focus on developing distinctive and traditional ethnic minority villages and towns;§ Support the protection and development of the traditional handicrafts of ethnic minorities.7. Prevention and control of hazardous waste pollution (2016 - 2020)§ Conduct a nationwide survey of hazardous waste;§ Strengthen comprehensive control and treatment of waste containing chromium, lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, or other heavy metals, as well as the control and treatment of fly ash produced from the incineration of household waste, antibiotic residues, and persistent toxic waste;§ Build hazardous waste disposal facilities8. Education (2016 - 2020)§ Improve the basic conditions of badly built and poorly operated schools providing compulsory education in poor areas throughout the country;§ Strengthen training for teachers working in rural areas;§ Ensure effective implementation of the nutrition improvement project for students receiving compulsory education in rural areas;§ Step up aid and financial support for students from poor families receiving pre-school education;§ Continue to implement the initiative to provide targeted training for people living in poverty in rural areas, ensuring that all high school graduates from poor families who have failed to receive higher education have access to vocational education.9. Development of world-class universities and disciplines (2016 - 2020)§ Give high priority to supporting the development of a number of worldclass universities and disciplines, and ensuring that some disciplines reach the highest ranks worldwide;§ Continue the initiative to improve universities’ capacity for innovation.10. High-grade CNC machine tools (2016 - 2020)§ Develop fast, flexible, and high-precision CNC machine tools, basic manufacturing equipment, and integrated manufacturing systems;§ Develop high-grade digitally controlled systems, bearings, gratings, sensors, and other major components as well as key application software, with a focus on improving reliability and retention of precision.11. Robotics§ Develop industrial, service, surgical, and military robots;§ Promote independence in the design and production of high-precision retarders, high-speed high-performance controllers, high-performance servo motors and drives, and other key parts and components;§ Facilitate the commercial application of artificial intelligence technologies in all sectors12. Modern agricultural machinery and equipment§ Develop advanced agricultural machinery suitable for all cultivation conditions, with a focus on high horsepower tractors and compound operations machinery, large and efficient combine harvesters, precision seeders, and other foodcrop equipment, as well as machinery for seeding, farmland management, and harvesting of cotton, sugar cane, and other cash crops.13. High-performance medical equipment§ Focus efforts on the research and development of diagnostic and treatment equipment such as nuclear medicine imaging equipment, superconducting magnetic resonance imaging systems, and non-invasive ventilators as well as in vitro diagnostic equipment such as fully automatic biochemistry analyzers and high-throughput genomic sequencers;§ Develop and put into use medical accelerators and other treatment equipment as well as implantable and insertable medical devices, such as artificial heart valves and pacemakers, stents, and artificial joints;§ Develop and put into use medical devices that utilize the distinctive strengths of traditional Chinese medicine.14. A complete set of advanced chemical machinery§ With the support of projects demonstrating upgrades to the modern coal-to-chemical industry, work toward the independent design and production of a complete set of advanced chemical machinery, focusing on coal classification, coal gasification, syngas purification, energy utilization, wastewater treatment, and other key areas;§ Accelerate research and development on key equipment for the integration of the oil refining and chemical industries as well as for the intensive processing of downstream petrochemical products, and help enhance complimentary support capabilities.15. Advanced materials§ Develop smart materials such as shape-memory alloys and self-healing materials, functional nanomaterials such as grapheme and metamaterials, next generation semiconductor materials such as indium phosphide and silicon carbide, new types of structural materials such as high-performance carbon fibers, vanadium titanium alloy, and high-temperature alloys, and also degradable materials and new biosynthetic materials.16. The modern seed industry§ Develop a national system for the collection, storage, and research of germplasm resources;§ Strengthen research and development of key technologies for crop heterosis exploitation, molecular design breeding, cell and chromosome engineering, high- efficiency seed production, and fine and deep processing of seeds;§ Strengthen capacity for seed quality inspection;§ Establish national seed production centers in Hainan, Gansu, Sichuan, and other provinces, and 100 regional superior seed production centers.17. Rule of law in the financial sector§ Improve systems that protect the rights and interests of financial consumers;§ Put an end to implicit guaranties and inflexible yields, and deal with credit violators in accordance with the law;§ Allow the deposit insurance system to play a better role and improve the market-based disposition and exit mechanisms for failing financial institutions;§ Explore the possibility of a system for collective litigation, strengthen punishments for financial crimes, and crack down on illegal fundraising.18. Young talent development initiatives§ Train the very best young talent in key disciplines and support their research;§ Establish national young talent training centers for outstanding college students at quality research universities and research institutes for basic disciplines where the strengths of the respective university or institute lie;§ Select the best talent from new senior secondary school and college graduates every year to participate in advanced training at first-class universities outside China and keep track of their progress.19. Military (2016 - 2020)§ By 2020, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will have finished mechanization of all forces and made important progress in incorporating information and computer technology. Priorities include the strategic restructuring of different services, the development of weaponry and logistics, IT facilities, combat training and international military cooperation.20. Classical Chinese literature (2016 - 2020)§ Protect ancient classical Chinese texts;§ Basically complete the nationwide survey of ancient classical texts;§ Encourage efforts to preserve the original form of or repair ancient classical texts;§ Publish 300 kinds of important texts through national projects;§ Establish a national database for ancient texts;§ Support efforts to reorganize and repair classical religious books, such as the Continued Taoist Canon and Tripitaka;§ Increase support for the compilation of historical works and chorography;§ Protect Chinese documents originating from the Republic of China era (1912– 1949);§ Systematically organize and publish major classical texts and documents written since the beginning of recent modern times.21. A nation of readers (2016 - 2020)§ Hold a series of activities around the theme of “Reading in China”;§ While making full use of existing facilities, coordinate the building of community reading centers, rural digital libraries, public digital reading terminals, and other such facilities;§ Provide books, newspapers, and periodicals for children;§ Provide books for city residents;§ Support the publication of literature in braille;§ Support the development of brick-and-mortar book stores.22. Development of the biotech industry§ Move faster to facilitate the wide application of genomics and other biotechnologies;§ Create demonstrations of network-based biotech applications;§ Stimulate the large-scale development of personalized medical treatment, new drugs, bio-breeding, and other next generation biotech products and services;§ Promote the creation of basic platforms such as gene and cell banks.23. Next generation information technology§ Cultivate integrated circuit industrial systems;§ Foster artificial intelligence, intelligent hardware, new display technologies, smart mobile terminals, 5G mobile communications, advanced sensors, and wearable devices into becoming new areas of growth24. Quality improvement programs for business executives (2016 - 2020)§ Train entrepreneurs who have a perspective on global needs, think strategically, and are innovative;§ Train 10,000 business executives in strategic planning, capital operations, quality control, human resources management, finance, accounting, and law25. National initiatives for the training of highly skilled personnel (2016 - 2020)§ Build 1,200 training centers for highly skilled personnel around the country to train ten million highly skilled workers.26. The Talent 1,000 Initiative (2016 - 2020)§ Attract science strategists and leading talent working in science and technology from overseas who have the capacity to engage in primary innovation, make breakthroughs in key technologies, develop high-tech industries, and drive the development of emerging disciplines;§ Bring in approximately 10,000 high-caliber talented individuals from overseas to make innovations or start businesses;§ Select from within China and offer support to approximately 10,000 urgently needed, highly talented individuals.27. Unconventional oil and gas (2016 - 2020)§ Build coal seam gas industrial bases in: the Qinshui Basin; the eastern Ordos Basin; Bishuixing, Guizhou.§ Accelerate the exploration and exploitation of shale gas in: the Changning-Weiyuan region, Sichuan; Fuling, Chongqing; Zhaotong, Yunnan; Yan’an, Shaanxi; the Zunyi-Tongren region, Guizhou.§ Give impetus to tight oil, oil sands, and deep-water oil prospecting and exploitation and to the comprehensive development and utilization of oil shale;§ Move forward with the prospecting and commercial pilot production of natural gas hydrate resources.28. Energy transmission routes (2016 - 2020)§ Build electricity transmission routes for hydropower bases and large coalfired power bases and, while building the 12 power transmission routes included in the action plan for air pollution prevention and control, focus on constructing power transmission routes from the southwestern, northwestern, northern, and northeastern regions;§ Step up work on the development of strategic land corridors for importing oil and gas and related trunk pipeline networks in the northwestern, northeastern, and southwestern regions;§ Improve the backbone pipeline networks for natural gas transmission, including the west-to-east gas transmission project, the Shaanxi-Beijing gas pipeline,29. Large-scale irrigation zones (2016 - 2020)§ Complete the building of auxiliary facilities and the upgrading of watersaving systems in all 434 large irrigation areas;§ Carry out large irrigation projects, including: the Nierji water conservancy project on the Nen River; the Songyuan irrigation project in Jilin; Xiangjiaba Dam in Sichuan; Centianhe Reservoir in Hunan; the Liaofang water control project in Jiangxi; the Hongling irrigation project in Hainan; the irrigation of large areas on both the southern and northern banks of Xiaolangdi Reservoir in Henan.§ The total area of irrigated farmland will reach more than 66.67 million hectares.30. Circular development (2016 - 2020)§ Work to see that 75% of national industrial parks and 50% of provincial level industrial parks are upgraded to promote circular operations;§ Build 50 industrial centers that comprehensively utilize industrial waste;§ Arrange for the construction of resource recycling demonstration centers in 100 cities at or above the prefectural level;§ Establish platforms for online recycling of urban waste, resource management in industrial parks, and waste trading.31. Emissions standards compliance for all sources of industrial pollution (2016 - 2020)§ Transform enterprises in the steel, cement, plate glass, papermaking, printing and dyeing, nitrogenous fertilizer, and sugar refining industries that cannot consistently meet emissions standards;§ Put a stop to all projects that cause heavy pollution in violation of state industrial policies;§ Ensure the upgrading of the sewage treatment facilities of industrial parks within a specified time frame;§ Work to basically eliminate coal-fired steam boilers with a capacity of ten tons or lower in all cities at or above the prefectural level across the country;§ Ensure that boilers with a capacity of 35 tons or greater are equipped with desulfurization, denitration, and dust purification technologies, that steel industry sintering machines are equipped with desulfurization technology, and that the cement industry adopts denitration technology;§ Put an end to production methods of PVC that use a high mercury catalyst for acetylene.32. Atmospheric environmental governance (2016 - 2020)§ Control the aggregate coal consumption of all regions, with the focus on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and adjacent areas, the Yangtze River delta, the Pearl River delta, and northeast China;§ Promote the use of natural gas in place of coal in major cities, increasing natural gas consumption by 45 billion cubic meters and eliminating 189,000 tons of coalfired boiler capacity;§ Work to reduce volatile organic compound emissions by petrochemical and chemical enterprises and refueling stations;§ Step up the removal of old or high-emissions vehicles from the roads;§ Implement national-VI emission standards and corresponding national fuel product standards;§ Ensure vapor recovery and treatment is carried out for oil tank trucks and oil depots.33. Water environmental governance (2016 - 2020)§ Ensure the strict protection of river sources and 378 rivers, lakes, and reservoirs with a water quality rating of Grade III or better;§ Implement improvement projects for sewage outfalls into major rivers, lakes, and reservoirs;§ Ensure water quality standards are met at major sources of drinking water;§ Comprehensively treat water pollution in lakes, such as Tai, Dongting, Dianchi, Chao, Poyang, Baiyangdian, Ulansuhai, Hulun, and Ebi, as well as endogenous pollution on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze and in the Pearl River delta;§ Promote comprehensive environmental governance efforts within the river basins of the Yangtze, Yellow, Peal, Songhua, Huai, Hai, and Liao rivers;§ Ensure that basically every body of water meets at least the Grade V water standards;§ Intensify efforts to improve black, malodorous bodies of water, and ensure that such bodies of water make up no more than 10% of the total in the urban districts of cities at or above the prefectural level;§ Carry out groundwater restoration trials in areas such as Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and Shanxi;§ Ensure the treatment of pollution in major estuaries and bays.34. Transportation development poor areas (2016 - 2020)§ Build or upgrade one million kilometers of rural roads including roads for facilitating the development of tourism, resources, and industrial parks in poor areas;§ Carry out 100 key transportation projects to connect poor areas with the national trunk highway network35. Maternal and infant health (2016 - 2020)§ Provide free maternal and child health information handbooks;§ Give free vaccines to children within the scope of the national immunization plan;§ Provide free maternal and infant care services;§ Expand the scope of cervical and breast cancer screenings;§ Strengthen our capacity for treating emergencies and serious conditions in prenatal and postnatal women and newborns;§ Implement a program to ensure maternal and infant healthcare and family planning services;§ Include screening for 20 complications including Down syndrome, deafness, and thalassemia as well as congenital heart disease in the plan for the comprehensive prevention and control of birth defects;§ Strive to see that conditions within the scope of this plan are detected and treated so as to effectively reduce the incidence of birth defects.36. Strengthen the provision of community-level medical services (2016 - 2020)§ Focusing on poor areas in the central and western regions, ensure each county prioritizes the operation of one or two county-level public hospitals (including county-level TCM hospitals), and that the proportion of community-level medical institutions meeting standards reaches over 95%;§ Ensure that community-level medical services can be reached from anywhere within 30 minutes;§ Strengthen and standardize training for 500,000 resident doctors, and ensure the number of general practitioners rises to two for every 10,000 people.http://en.ndrc.gov.cn/policyrelease/201612/P020161207645766966662.pdf

A great question, Beka Hutch, and one to which I’ve devoted much thought and writing, from a research standpoint. For this answer, I was not thinking about just America, but many other nations around the world as well.America has ultimately not remained the religious outlier that some have claimed it to be [1], and, if we go by quantitative dimensions of religiosity [belief, belonging, behavior, and salience], then yes, America has experienced its fair share of religious decline. That is beyond dispute.However, less certain is why this has been occurring. As I write, there are currently 8 other answers to the question, and, in my opinion, a lot of them are wrong (or underdeveloped) to some degree. If you survey these answers, you see patterns; the main items seem to be:Material prosperity (e.g. affluence, wealth, GDP)Increased knowledge via educationIncreased access to information via technology (e.g. the Internet)Lehloo Meh suggested that declining institutional trust was a factor; this is at least somewhat similar to Ernest Adam’s suggestion that “many people are turned off by the constant Bible-thumping, threats of hellfire, intolerance in the name of Christianity, and endless appeals for money.”Lehloo Meh also makes a mention of the “do-it-yourself” religious individuality (e.g. spirituality) of Millenials as a factor involved in religious decline in America.Overall, there are certain things that peer-reviewed research can tell us about how right or wrong these items are, so let’s look at some of that research.Daniel Metivier suggested that “the world is becoming less religious” and, if you go by measures of religious identification, this is statistically incorrect, largely because of demography. As Zurlo and Johnson [2] pointed out, 80.8% of the world population identified with a religion in 1970, whereas this figure was 88.1% in 2010, with a projected increase to 91.5% by 2050 (see also [3], which corroborates this point).Furthermore, the American scene in the 20th century was not entirely one of decline. As Bryan Wilson wrote of America in 1966 [4, p. 89]:The statistics available indicate that religious memberships have increased rapidly in America—more rapidly than population growth during the course of the twentieth century. Thus, in 1926, only 27 per cent of the population was in membership in the Protestant churches, and 16 per cent in the Roman Catholic Churches. By 1958, 35 per cent were claimed as members in Protestant denominations and 22.8 per cent were claimed as Catholics…Whereas in 1880 only 20 per cent of the population had church membership, in 1962 the figure was 63 per cent of the nation. Attendance at churches has remained fairly steady during the decade from the early 1950s to the early 1960s…about 45 per cent of Americans attend church each week.This analysis is seconded by commentary from Rodney Stark [5].Minor sidebar: Daniel also suggested that Beka’s question could be read to imply a focus upon “why atheism is increasing” (see my essays on Why more and more people are becoming atheists every day?, and on Why is atheism growing?) However, “why are people becoming less religious” and “why is atheism increasing” are two different questions; at the very least, professional scholars would treat these as similar or related but analytically separate issues. Has there been absolute growth in the numbers of atheists? Of course.But the world is not becoming “less religious” (and high-GDP, low-inequality, first-world countries do not constitute “the world”, but rather are minorities).Daniel further suggested that technology was driving up rates of atheism, and although he provided reasons as to why the connection between rising technology and rising atheism would make sense, he did not actually provide any evidence. Furthermore, there are many other problems with such an assertion.First, as Norris and Inglehart [6, p. 35] stated, “many aspects of societal modernization are closely interrelated, such as growing levels of affluence, education, and urbanization, so it is difficult to disentangle their effects [on religion].” Technological development could easily be added to such a list; in other words, if it was technology, and not education, urbanization, or growing affluence, then what evidence do we have that statistically separates out these effects? A factor such as “technology”, however measured, is conflated with many other variables that would have a complex impact on religiosity.Second, to suggest that “religion” exists (or began to exist) primarily as a means to derive and support explanations for the natural world, is to ignore that the then-increasingly mature cognitive capacities of our ancient ancestors still would not have impressed upon them the need to “figure out” why certain things happened around them—knowing the source or origin of a thunderclap wasn’t relevant to survival. Our ancient ancestors were survivors, not scientists, and many people erroneously think that these people were more interested in “proto-theology” than figuring out food, shelter, water, cooperation/competition, and sexual reproduction (i.e. survival). Or, as British philosopher John Gray observed [22], “Religion is not a primitive type of science; it is a form of life.” A view of the creation and function of natural spirits and other animist notions that rests upon an exchange relationship between parties is far more pragmatic and, in my view, likely. Other candidates would include the reinforcement of prosocial norms within groups [7].Third, invoking technology and access to ideas, information, and knowledge as explanations of the decline of religiosity falls victim to what sociologist Stephen LeDrew refers to as the cognitive critique. Elucidating the history of both scientific and humanistic strains of modern atheism, LeDrew says [8, p. 32]:…scientific atheism is defined by its denial of the existence of God and its understanding of religion as an ancient myth or superstition that developed in the absence of a scientific understanding of the material basis of natural phenomena. It involves the rejection of any truth claims not amenable to rational or empirical verification (for example, religious revelation) and a claim that science and reason constitute the only legitimate path to knowledge regarding natural processes. This view may be described as scientism, or the idea that science (referring specifically to the natural sciences) sets boundaries for what can be known about reality, and that no aspect of physical or social life is outside its domain. Scientific atheism therefore places emphasis on one major element of the Enlightenment critique of religion, the cognitive critique, which situates religion as the binary opposite of science and a contradiction of reason. [first italics in original]As such, to invoke (a) technology (e.g. the Internet or other proxies for access to information and ideas; [9]); (b) intelligence [10], or (c) education (especially science education [11]), as both Louis Cohen and Barry Hampe suggested in their answers to this question)…is to bank upon an Enlightenment narrative that casts “religion” as diametrically opposed to “science”. It is to think of “religion” as a parallel (but inferior) system of empirical explanations, similar in fashion to the functions of science. Not only have I already suggested why this is a bad idea, but, whenever we find intertwined explanations of varying levels of atheism (or decreasing levels of religion and belief in God) that rely upon these elements (or intellectualism and knowledge in general), these are part and parcel of the cognitive critique.There are problems with this. If one wishes to invoke cognitive critique factors as driving forces behind the decline in religiosity (or a rise in atheism), analyses from Norris and Inglehart do not support this [6, pp. 67-68]:What we can do is to rule out the Weberian argument, discussed in Chapter 1, that belief in science and technology has undermined faith in the magical and metaphysical. If the adoption of a rational worldview had played this role, then we might expect that those societies with the most positive attitudes toward science would also prove the most skeptical when it came to religious beliefs. Instead, as clearly shown in Figure 3.3, societies with greater faith in science also often have stronger religious beliefs. Far from a negative relationship, as we might expect from Weberian theory, in fact there is a positive one. The publics in many Muslim societies apparently see no apparent contradictions between believing that scientific advances hold great promise for human progress and that they have faith in common tenets of spiritual beliefs, such as the existence of heaven and hell. Indeed, the more secular postindustrial societies, exemplified by the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark, prove most skeptical toward the impact of science and technology, and this is in accordance with the countries where the strongest public disquiet has been expressed about certain contemporary scientific developments such as the use of genetically modified food, biotechnological cloning, and nuclear power. Interestingly, again the United States displays distinctive attitudes compared with similar European nations, showing greater faith in both God and scientific progress.…the Weberian account could still be valid if the rise of the rational worldview was interpreted as a broader shift in social norms and values occurring during earlier centuries of European history, associated with the gradual spread of education and literacy, and the rise of industrialization and modern technology, rather than reflecting contemporary attitudes toward science. But, as discussed further in Chapter 7, this historical interpretation of the Weberian argument cannot be tested with any contemporary evidence. What the survey data does show is that, rather than a clear trade-off, many people can believe in the beneficial effects of science without apparently abandoning faith in God.Fourth, and similarly, many people suggest that increasing “education” (however measured) is a factor that influences the decline of religiosity (e.g. see Barry Hampe’s answer to the OP’s question). But “education” has a tortuous relationship with religious outcomes (again, however measured). Consider the following items [for supporting citations, see the previous link]:Sometimes education boosts certain aspects of religiosity.Some studies find no evidence that education levels negatively impact religiosity (but, yes, others do).American scientists may be disproportionately atheistic, but most of them are not atheists (although see the National Academy of Sciences).Rates of nonbelief seem to vary across academic disciplines, with social scientists being less religious than natural scientists. If levels of education or intelligence are involved, as many claim, then surely the psychologists and sociologists, as a whole, are not “smarter” than the physicists, biologists, and chemists, as a whole?In 2007, Ecklund and Scheitle wrote:“…demographic factors such as age, marital status, and presence of children in the household are the strongest predictors of religious difference among scientists. In particular, religiosity in the home as a child is the most important predictor of present religiosity among this group of scientists.”This would support other research which suggests that atheists, as a distinct group, have very low "retention" rates when comparing which religious traditions that respondents are raised in, versus what tradition they identify with as adults.Critics who wish to champion education would have to explain findings that those who do not attend college exhibit even greater declines in religiosity than those who do [12, 13; see also 14].Braun’s 2012 study did support the notion that education fosters secularity, although frankly, having read the manuscript twice, I have my suspicions about some of his methodological decisions. At any rate, he reported that "secularity was not most highly related to material security, though these were highly related. Rather, secularity was most strongly related to the degree of formal education attained. Material security explained no significant variance beyond education.”In 2015, Schwadel reported:"Multilevel models of a religiosity scale show (1) in the aggregate, higher education has a moderate, negative effect on the religiosity scale, (2) this effect varies considerably across nations, and (3) the negative effect of higher education on religiosity is most robust in relatively religious nations. These results demonstrate the importance of national contexts in moderating the effect of education on religiosity. The results also support a cultural diffusion argument that suggests that the highly educated are innovators and early adopters of secular behaviors but that low levels of religiosity then diffuse to less-educated segments of a population as secularity becomes more common."As for atheism and education, Streib and Klein, in a chapter draft for an APA handbook, written around 2010, said that "the link between higher education and atheism/agnosticism is a 'classic' finding within the psychology of religion." The authors bring up some studies which further flesh this insight out, yet dispute these studies because they neglect certain factors and have argumentative or conceptual weaknesses. They conclude:“The tendency of higher education and better school achievement to be associated with atheism could be understood in terms of a particular 'social inheritance' within better educated families and institutions of higher education which transmit a scientific worldview challenging religious beliefs. The findings could then be interpreted as an indication that it is difficult and challenging to integrate a religious worldview and scientific education.”Lastly, some Pew data would show that college and graduate degree holders in America are less likely to believe in God, though not only is it indeterminable from their data as to whether this relationship is causal, but even a majority of both degree holder types still believes in God.Fifth, at the 2017 annual conference for the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, I sat in the audience as Elaine Ecklund presented her team’s research on atheist scientists.Although it only made comparisons between UK and U.S. scientists, one of their findings in particular stood out, regarding the impact of scientific training and education on future scientists:The implication is that, for a great many individuals undergoing scientific training, their scientific training does not have a negative impact on their religious beliefs, etc. Certainly, it can, but need not, and thus such a finding challenges the assertion that scientific education is of necessity corrosive to religiosity (however measured).Sixth, another very recent study would also show that analytic capacity is not a very reliable or widespread explanation for atheism [15].Religious belief is a topic of longstanding interest to psychological science, but the psychology of religious disbelief is a relative newcomer. One prominently discussed model is analytic atheism, wherein cognitive reflection, as measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test, overrides religious intuitions and instruction. Consistent with this model, performance-based measures of cognitive reflection predict religious disbelief in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, & Democratic) samples. However, the generality of analytic atheism remains unknown. Drawing on a large global sample (N = 3461) from 13 religiously, demographically, and culturally diverse societies, we find that analytic atheism as usually assessed is in fact quite fickle cross-culturally, appearing robustly only in aggregate analyses and in three individual countries. The results provide additional evidence for culture’s effects on core beliefs.Seventh, a cognitive critique (which would emphasize knowledge, ideas, and access to information, as proxies for critical thinking and, implicitly, processes of questioning) downplays the context in which such access and thinking occurs, namely the power of personal choice, which is a matter of autonomy and agency and how they are exercised [16, 17]. Thus, while cognitive processes and “thinking things through” at the level of individuals are not negligible elements, emphasizing them still downplays a larger context of historical change [18] which gives rise to the very notion that the common person can question [19], as part of a larger project of self-determination and identity construction.Eighth, Europe is no less technologically advanced than America, and yet, as Houtman and Aupers [20] suggested, the spread of post-Christian spirituality (“New Age”), characterized by a sacralization of the self, has become more widespread (in at least most of the countries in their study, and during the period 1981–2000). They noted that this form of spiritualityhas advanced farthest in France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden. This spiritual turn proves a byproduct of the decline of traditional moral values and hence driven by cohort replacement. Spirituality’s popularity among the well-educated also emerges from the latter’s low levels of traditionalism. These findings confirm the theory of detraditionalization, according to which a weakening of the grip of tradition on individual selves stimulates a spiritual turn to the deeper layers of the self.In no sense, then, does the decline of religiosity automatically translate into some kind of “win” for atheists in general; in places of ostensible religious decline, we can find a degree of religious change as well.Ninth, my own research [21] into how atheists convert to Christianity would reveal that intellectualism can absolutely play a substantial role in that particular transition.Taken altogether, this is why it is problematic to assert, as Daniel did, that younger generations are perhaps less religious than their predecessors because the former “[grew] up in the age of computers and the Internet”, and, consequently, that “they are much more aware of information and thus much more likely to question the answers that religion provides.”Tenth, one last major problem is that plenty of religious folk have access to all kinds of information, and this has not had an immediate, or even short to medium term, effect on them as individuals. Why not? Why does “access to information” not negatively impact everyone’s religiosity? Plenty of “religious” households have perfectly functioning Internet connections; the “technology as information” argument falls flat because it doesn’t concern itself with explaining how and why which information gets sought out in the first place, and how such motivation is connected to how this information is used and processed. There are many possibilities:On to my answer.My answer is not even my answer, but is rather derived from people who study these issues professionally. Stated in simplest terms, I would seek to analyze (at least) 3 factors:Family formation processes and child rearing (in particular, values such as obedience and autonomy/independence), and how they leverage a demographic intergenerational change over time. A number of studies suggest that parents are not as successfully modeling their religions to their offpsring, for a variety of reasons (e.g. desire to not force religion on their children; their own negative moral perceptions regarding organized religion). Parents may be increasingly giving their children the power to make their own religious choices—and there are a variety of factors underlying this move as well—and this could be seen as influential in religious decline.Conservation values and Openness to Change values, along with Openness to Experience (as a psychological trait). The rise of the Nones in the United States (as one element of the overall question about why America is becoming less religious) is related more to morality and personal values than it is some kind of “cognitive liberation”, and believing Nones are not as likely as atheists to identify intellectual factors. In other words, modernization has involved a shift from “survival” values to “self-expression” values, and some research indicates that nonreligious individuals, as a group, are more likely to exhibit values consistent with change rather than conservation; the same may be said for how open a person is to experiencing new and unfamiliar situations and stimuli. Such elements tend to be antithetical to security, tradition, and conformity, all of which more so describe religious populations.Existential security levels and living conditions in post-industrial societies. Technology is related to the religious decline, but not because it “makes people smarter” or “gives people more information” and somehow cures them of ignorance. As Inglehart and Welzel noted [18, p. 27]:One reason for the decline of traditional religious beliefs in industrial societies is that an increasing sense of technological control over nature diminishes the need for reliance on supernatural powers. In the uncertain world of subsistence societies, the belief that an infallible higher power will ensure that things ultimately turn out well filled a major psychological need. One of the key functions of religion was to provide a sense of certainty in an insecure environment. Physical as well as economic insecurity intensifies this need: the old saying that “there are no atheists in foxholes” reflects the fact that wartime dangers increase the need for faith in a higher power. But as industrial production outpaces population growth and as scientific progress prolongs life expectancy, there is a dwindling need for the reassurance that religion traditionally provided.In the preindustrial world, humans have little control over nature. They seek to compensate for their lack of physical control by appealing to the metaphysical powers that seem to control the world: worship is seen as a way to influence one’s fate, and it is easier to accept one’s helplessness if one knows the outcome is in the hands of an omnipotent being whose benevolence can be won by following rigid and predictable rules of conduct. These are important functions of religion in a world where humans have little or no control over their environment. Industrialization vastly increases humans’ direct physical control over the environment in which they live and work. This process undermines the traditional function of religion to provide reassurance in an uncertain world.But industrialization does not increase people’s sense of individual autonomy because of the disciplined and regimented way in which industrial societies are organized. In industrial societies, people – and especially factory workers – are embedded in uniform social classes with rigid social controls and conformity pressures. Life in industrial society is as standardized as its uniform mass products. The disciplined organization of uniform masses in industrial societies, which marches armies of workers from their barracks to the assembly line and back, creates a need for rigid codes of conduct. Although it tends to replace religious dogmas with secular ones, industrialization does not emancipate people from authority. The industrial standardization of life discourages self-expression values.Elsewhere, we can see that the influence of the Internet (on rising atheism) may be more post-hoc in kind, and, that its influence in generating atheism is probably primarily social, not cognitive [9].Entire books have been written about this question, but, this seems to be long (and thorough) enough of an answer for now.References[1] Voas, D., & Chaves, M. 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