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Faith in God Declining Faster than Church Visits
BELIEF in God is declining even faster than church attendance, according to a new study.Academics argued that contrary to the commonly accepted theory of "believing without belonging" - the idea that religious belief is fairly robust even though congregations are shrinking - all measures of religiousness had fallen. In fact actual belief had decreased even more than affiliation to a particular religion and participation - attendance at services - between 1991 and 1999.
The team at the University of Manchester also found that parents' religious behaviour has a big impact on children. Institutional religion has a "half-life" of one generation, they discovered, meaning that two religious parents have a 50-50 chance of passing on their beliefs.
Two non-religious parents will successfully pass on their lack of faith and one religious parents does half as well as a couple of believers. The report said one factor which might slow the decline in belief is that religious parents have more children than others.