And the results are downright stunning. In stark contrast with composite polls showing the religiousness of Americans as a whole, a look at the numbers across generations shows almost all aspects of religious belief dropping generation over generation, reaching a low point with the current youngest generation, the millenials.

The media, including Pew themselves, seemed unable (or unwilling maybe) to spell out the implications of this study. The Los Angeles Times for instance, in a typical treatment put it this way:

Is faith losing its grip on the young? That would be one way to read a new report by the respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which found that more than one-quarter of Americans age 18 to 29 have no religious preference or affiliation, and fewer than one in five attend services regularly. That makes them easily the least religious generation among Americans alive today, perhaps the least religious ever. Or does it?

Yes, actually, it does. Most shocking for me was the finding that absolute belief in God for millenials is only 53%. That means that about half of the current younger generation are questioning whether God even exists. But equally consequential is the drastically reduced belief among across generations as a whole in the literal truth of the Bible.

Of course, these numbers also clearly show that some elements of religiousness rise as individuals age. For instance, although Gen Xers start at a slightly higher point on every metric than Millenials, they have grown more religious as they approach middle age, as have Boomers - which in some ways, seems logical. It should be pointed out, though, that for the most part, these are not huge increases, but on the level of about 5 points, only 2 points greater than the margin of error.

We also lack corresponding data for older generations from when they were, say, in their 20s, but here, common sense observation of our culture around us should be able to tell us something. It strains credulity for me personally, for instance, to think that only 27% of young adults in the 40s or 50s believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible, or that such a low number attended church.

It also seems wrong, in my opinion, to casually dismiss those metrics that have shown the most change - such as belief in a literal interpretation of the Bible. NOT interpreting the Bible literally is now an accepted strain of Christian thought, but it goes against how the religion has been practiced for most of its 2,000-year history. On the other hand, the metric that has shown the most growth over the course of people's lives, "importance of religion," doesn't at all imply or suggest a literalist interpretation. Overall, for religious belief to change this much over the course of 50 years is hardly something to be brushed under the rug - it deserves extended examination in the press.

Findings like these would seem to be bolstered by the results of a recent USA Today study, which compared polling from 1990 and last year, and found that ALL denominations are losing members, and that people not affiliated with a religion - a group that includes atheists and agnostics - is now nearly the largest single religious group (oh, the irony:)

The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely. ... So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.

It should be noted that the rejection of belief isn't an either/or proposition, and that those who reject a traditional religious outlook, but aren't ardent enough nonbelievers to call themselves "atheists" will probably see their numbers grow the most. Still, if this trend continues I wonder if we can safely infer that the next generation after millenials will consist of a clear majority who question belief in God. One also wonders how much current events, such as the neverending scandal consuming the Catholic Church, or further advances in our understanding of the world made through science, will have on this trend. And just today, Nick Clegg - an openly declared atheist - has taken the lead in the race to become the next Prime Minister of the UK in at least some polls.

And that's a good thing. Conservatives often make the argument that religion is a necessary element of a fair and just society. Once and possible future Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney went so far as to suggest, in a somewhat mind-bending statement, that "freedom requires religion." In fact, empirical observation tells us that exactly the opposite is true.

In study after study, European, and more specifically, Scandinavian countries are consistently ranked as having the highest quality of life. A recent Forbes study, for instance, rated the "happiest" countries along a variety of factors. Their results were as follows:

Denmark

Finland

Netherlands

Sweden

Ireland

Canada

Switzerland

New Zealand

Norway

Belgium

That's a remarkably high number of countries from a single part of Europe. Enough, in fact, to make you ask what these countries have in common. Of course, one factor could be their generally more equitable economic systems. But another key commonality is their lack of religiousness. As the New York Times put it:

Anyone who has paid attention knows that Denmark and Sweden are among the least religious nations in the world. Polls asking about belief in God, the importance of religion in people’s lives, belief in life after death or church attendance consistently bear this out. It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier. Well documented though they may be, these two sets of facts run up against the assumption of many Americans that a society where religion is minimal would be, in Mr. Zuckerman’s words, “rampant with immorality, full of evil and teeming with depravity.” Which is why he insists at some length that what he and his wife and children experienced was quite the opposite: “a society — a markedly irreligious society — that was, above all, moral, stable, humane and deeply good.”

While most people in these countries don't consider themselves "atheist," the effect, in terms of the role of religion in public life, is pretty much the same.

This indifference or obliviousness to religious matters was sometimes subtly enforced. “In Denmark,” a pastor told Mr. Zuckerman, “the word ‘God’ is one of the most embarrassing words you can say. You would rather go naked through the city than talk about God.” One man recounted the shock he felt when a colleague, after a few drinks, confessed to believing in God. “I hope you don’t feel I’m a bad person,” the colleague pleaded.

It kind of boggles the mind given everything we think we know, but that could be where America is headed over the next half century. John Lennon would be proud.

UPDATE: Some of the skeptics below have a point when they say I haven't given enough space to the phenomenon of people growing more religious as they age. I've added a couple of paragraphs to address those points, which I had acknowledged before. Of course, we'll never have a complete understanding of this issue, but I do think the data here shows a powerful trend. Everyone is welcome to make up their own mind obviously.