A good example of the rise of atheism in Europe comes from Iceland where news reports claim not a single young Christian believes that God created the earth.
Exactly zero percent of respondents in Iceland in a recent survey said they believe that God created the Earth.
Only 20 years ago, nearly 90 percent of all Icelanders were religious believers. Today, less than 50 percent are.
With its growing number of non-believers, Iceland and much of Europe is distinct from much of the rest of the world, as a recent Gallup International and WI Network of Market Research poll found. In fact, internationally, those younger than 34 tended to be more religious than older citizens — especially in Africa and the Middle East, where eight out of 10 people consider themselves to be religious.
In the United States, a 2014 Gallup poll found that 28 percent of Americans between 18 and 29 said they believed that God created “humans in present form within the last 10,000 years.”
But even as the number of young believers in the United States declines, Christianity has maintained a strong influence there.
So, why are young Icelanders so different from much of the rest of the world?
Bjarni Jonsson, the managing director of the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association, an atheist nongovernmental organization. Credits “Secularization, which has occurred very quickly, especially among younger people.