Causes of desecularization

There are a number of factors is causing desecularization.

Below are some of the factors.

Fertility rates of religious vs. irreligious

High fertility rate of religious conservatives and the sub-fertility rate of the irreligious and liberal Christianity.

Legal and illegal immigration of religious to Western nations

See also: Multiculturism and European desecularization

Legal and illegal immigration of religious immigrants to Western World nations - particularly Europe. An aging Europe needs workers for its businesses and to help support aging pensioners.

As far as illegal immigration to Europe, The American Interest website declares:

“

Securing Europe’s vast land and sea borders—a task greater than that faced by the United States along its border with Mexico—is proving exceptionally challenging for the European Union (EU).... Traffickers use small boats to reduce the chances of being picked up by patrol boats’ radars; migrants are often dropped off on stretches of inaccessible coastline, or left to drift ashore. In the case of illegal land crossings, small trucks are used to penetrate the most porous parts of eastern or southern Europe’s borders. Penalties for this are low or non-existent all around Europe, and traffickers are rarely caught anyway. Smuggling people across Europe has become easier and more profitable than anything other criminal activity, including drugs.

”

Growth of Christian apologetics

Christian apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith through logic/evidence based arguments.

There is a proliferation of Christian apologetics and creation apologetics in the world. For example, there is the Trinity Graduate School of Apologetics and Theology initiative which offers quality Christian apologetics for free to third world country students and charges extremely low costs for others. In addition, Ratio Christi is launching Christian apologetics clubs at college/university campuses.

In addition, there has been a growth of creationist apologetics (see: Creation apologetics and evangelicalism).

The majority of philosophers of religion, or those who have extensively studied the issue of the existence of God, are theists (72 percent).

In 2001, the atheist and philosopher Quentin Smith declared:

“

Naturalists [atheists] passively watched as realist versions of theism … began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians…. God is not 'dead' in academia; he returned to life in the 1960's and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments."

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Poor quality of atheistic arguments

See: Rebuttals to atheist arguments

Lower degree of confidence among atheist intellectuals

In 1990, the atheist philosopher Michael Martin indicated there was a general absence of an atheistic response to contemporary work in the philosophy of religion and in jest he indicated that it was his "cross to bear" to respond to theistic arguments. Yet, in 1994, Michael Martin was criticized for his eleventh hour cancellation of his debate with Greg Bahnsen (see: Greg Bahnsen and debate and Bahnson-Martin debate press release).