By Charles Lewis

The number of teenage atheists is rising at a much faster rate than their parents, setting up what could be a potentially serious threat to organized religion, which is already struggling to regain momentum after years of declining attendance.

According to a new survey, teens who said they definitely believed in God, or a higher power, dropped from 54% to 37% between 1984 and 2008, while the number of atheists rose from 6% to 16%. The number of teens who remained uncertain about God remained at 31%.

Sociologist Reginald Bibby suggests that a drop-off in religiosity among Baby Boomers is the likely reason why more teenagers today say they do not believe in God.

"The reason is clear: beliefs need social support like fish and the rest of us need water," writes Prof. Bibby, who teaches at the University of Lethbridge and is the author of The Emerging Millennials, a new wide-ranging survey of teen behaviour and attitudes in Canada.

"With teens, we see what amounts to an ongoing inter-generational shift -- from tentativeness to agnosticism, and from agnosticism to atheism," he wrote. "The message all along has been that we have a situation where there has been a decline in attendance but people still believe something," he said. "The new part of this story is that an increasing number of people [not only] don't want anything to do with organized religion but they also are losing their belief."

David Giuliano, head of the United Church of Canada, said he sees many enthusiastic young people turning to Christianity but said it is possible religion may be evolving into a more radical choice in which you have less absolute numbers but more faithful adherents.

Material reprinted with the express permission of National Post Company, a CanWest Partnership.