The End of Religion

Post Reply New Topic

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-lade ... 13000.html interesting article regarding the massive decline in religion and soon to be no more!

The influence of religion may be declining in the West, but that's not the case for islam (as far as I know).

All religions fade eventually. The problem is that more rise to replace them.
The biggest one at the moment is probably the Cult of Celebrity, in which people worship non-entities with no talent who are famous just for being famous. The mind boggles.

There may be a trend in decline of certain political or social stances with regards to religious institutions, but it's going to be very hard to make humanity as such irreligious, because people just naturally are religious.

That said, the trend is very late in the US compared to much of the world.

There's religious belief as a particular codified, meaningful way to live and make sense of life. It has proven a very useful, large scale way of talking about things that are important to human life.

And there's religion as a certain attitude of particular veneration and, equally, of despising. One can have this attitude and be very much atheist and think religious doctrine a nonsense. Like certain folk songs, the words change but the music stays the same.

I don't see either of these going away anytime soon.

While it is true religions have a finite life, the applied hypocrisies of religion are alive and well and spreading faster than ever. They have evolved and are evolving on an ongoing bases. One of the fastest growing is Pentecostalism (Central and South America, Africa and Asia) probably even faster than Islam. These new memes are spread by emotional experiences and oral persuasion.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv3aLp27sO4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuldNNzoU_M[/youtube]

As Lewis Black put it...

'I would love to have the faith to believe the world was created in 7 days.... but.... I have thoughts....and that can really F up the faith thing'.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfqTYeGim2E

Education trumps superstition given enough exposure to science and information. People start to think for themselves rather than letting priests/religious snake oil salesmen do the thinking for them.

There is great misunderstanding to the true usefulness of born again religion.

Typically there are more women involved in born again churches and they find it very useful for good reason. It is not used as a disciple; that is following rules of conduct for themselves and the treatment of others. Operationally they use religion to lord power and superiority over others. At the same time God is used to justify any action they choose and expunge all guilt away to mistakes which were not there fault. This applied hypocrisy is a very useful tool.

Of coarse it would be hard to fault someone for not wanting anything to do with that kind of headache and hypocrisy.

I don't see a decline in religion. I see a decline in acceptance of traditions and radicalism, which is good.

In other words, religious people are going to church less, following certain holidays in a less serious way, and not being as strict. I think this stems directly with not taking their holy book literally. A rise of more moderate religious people.

In truth, there is a point where they might as well not even claim a religion anymore because of their lack of commitment, but I'm not complaining.

Of course, I only see this in the West and among younger people.

As far as I could tell you, Canada is not much of a religious fanatic as the U.S. is. Same thing with Europe. Ironically, the more the U.S. Is religious, the more theres a high rate of shootings, obesity, cosmetic surgery, poverty, among other issues. How terrible. Why is it that? What I mean is how can one be religious when you don't prevent the aforementioned issues? I believe it's screwed up. Western U.S has always been irreligious, so that's not much of a big a deal.

Religion is not dying, as one may think it is. It's just that people don't believe in that kind of stuff anymore, especially if they want to leave religion or no one talked to them about it. For instance, some people say there's no hell, others say religious leaders use religion to indoctrinate them into adopting their beliefs, in other words they want everybody to believe in a certain thing. Look you don't have to force people in adopting your beliefs. If they want to join in an organization, that's their choice. I don't necessarily believe in one religion coercing other people to adopt it.

I notice a correlation between wealth and religion. In Europe, particularly Scandinavia, the more rich you are, the less religious you are. In poor countries like Somalia, the moe poor you are the more religious you are. So generally speaking I don't mean this is the end of religion, as it had been predicted before. Nowadays most people are preoccupied with celebrities. I don't know. I'm not into celebrities but I would rather read a book about....whatever I choose....about spirituality I guess

Religion is not the end. It's just that most people aren't that attach to institutions like churches anymore or believe in that kind of stuff. In recent years people adopted atheism or simply became unaffiliated. I don't think I'd have to worry about that.