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Sonic200
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13 May 2022, 8:05 am

Will organized religion die out in the future?



Radish
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13 May 2022, 8:09 am

No, there will always be gullible people willing to be led by others who offer them "salvation" or a promise of an afterlife to make their lives seem to have a point.


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Fnord
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13 May 2022, 8:20 am

Radish wrote:
No, there will always be gullible people willing to be led by others who offer them "salvation" or a promise of an afterlife to make their lives seem to have a point.
I agree.  There will always be cults masquerading a "legitimate" religions, too.



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13 May 2022, 8:27 am

Yes Fnord, I read your post in PPR about the Quiverfull movement. The US seems to be a breeding ground for these fundamentalist Christian type cults. Another thing I notice about organised religion is how then they tend to be "transmitted" from parents to their children, almost like a mind virus. Whereabouts you live in the world and the organised religion of your peers is typically the religion adopted blindly by the next generation and so on.


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klanka
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13 May 2022, 8:28 am

I saw something saying Christianity is now more popular than its ever been



Radish
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13 May 2022, 8:31 am

klanka wrote:
I saw something saying Christianity is now more popular than its ever been


Doubtful, here in the UK Churches are regularly being sold, falling into ruin or being demolished due to falling congregation numbers. I know very few practising Christians, the majority of those who do claim to be Christians only tend to say that as they view it more as a cultural thing but never attend church, or possess a bible or pray etc.


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Fnord
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13 May 2022, 8:41 am

klanka wrote:
I saw something saying Christianity is now more popular than its ever been
From my own observations, I believe that as Boomers age, they seek reassurances that only Biblical "just so" stories can give them, thus increasiong the overall population in the pews.  This increase may be what is giving the appearance of greater popularity.



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13 May 2022, 9:11 am

Radish wrote:
Yes Fnord, I read your post in PPR about the Quiverfull movement. The US seems to be a breeding ground for these fundamentalist Christian type cults. Another thing I notice about organised religion is how then they tend to be "transmitted" from parents to their children, almost like a mind virus. Whereabouts you live in the world and the organised religion of your peers is typically the religion adopted blindly by the next generation and so on.


A lot of deeply religious groups left Europe for the "New World" seeking religious freedom, even before the US was a nation. That ideal was later written into the Bill of Rights. That's why such groups are widespread and can flourish there.

Religion is here to stay. Though more people openly claim atheism, there are many more quiet religious people who believe but do not actively worship. The fanatical groups are in the minority they are just more vocal.



klanka
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13 May 2022, 9:16 am

Oh, I think it was in the whole world.
In Africa and China there has been massive growth. In Africa about half a billion.

I used to do evangelism in the UK, which includes asking people if they are Christian, hardly anyone said yes when asked.



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13 May 2022, 1:56 pm

Not as long as there are people who believe things such as the satellites in space being controlled by Satan and preventing prayers on Earth from reaching God.

If human-made satellites do that, imagine what the moon, the Earth's much larger and natural satellite, does to prayers. Maybe we should just blow up the moon. :roll:

But wait, if God is all-powerful, couldn't He just destroy the satellites and the moon Himself?



klanka
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13 May 2022, 2:08 pm

lostonearth35 wrote:
Not as long as there are people who believe things such as the satellites in space being controlled by Satan and preventing prayers on Earth from reaching God.

If human-made satellites do that, imagine what the moon, the Earth's much larger and natural satellite, does to prayers. Maybe we should just blow up the moon. :roll:

But wait, if God is all-powerful, couldn't He just destroy the satellites and the moon Himself?

Who told you the moon gets in the way of prayers :D
that's a new one



techstepgenr8tion
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13 May 2022, 2:21 pm

It's almost like asking whether specific Big Five (OCEAN) personality profiles will die out. Unless people with those traits stop having children or people without those traits stop having children with those traits then no, organized religion will perhaps attenuate in it's public attendance but the public need it fills won't go away.


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13 May 2022, 3:43 pm

There are many contradictory trends.

Christianity is dying in Europe, but expanding in Africa, and in China. Islam is also expanding in Africa. Folks have been coming out of the closet as being religious in former Communist countries that typically suppressed religion when Communism ruled. Today the former KGB man who heads Russia is staunch allies with the head patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

It may well be that "Christianity is more popular than ever". But atheism is also more popular than ever.

And there maybe more church goers on the planet today because of recent conversion in high birth rate countries in the third world such as in Africa. An absolute larger number than say fifty years ago. But the world population is twice the size that it was fifty years ago so that large absolute number could be a smaller percentage of the whole.



ScroogeMcDuck666
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13 May 2022, 7:57 pm

It seems very unlikely that it will cease to exist everywhere. Each culture is unique and there's so many of them. It's very possible that every or almost every first world country will mostly abandon religion, but this won't really change anything because when a culture removes religion, it always replaces it with another ideology, which has the same effects, both beneficial and destructive. Most people need an ideology, whether it's religious or otherwise, to comfort them and to make them feel like they're a part of a tribe. This will always cause them to become xenophobic and violent.



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13 May 2022, 8:11 pm

Sonic200 wrote:
Will organized religion die out in the future?


Hopefully, but never underestimate the emotional needs of people.



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13 May 2022, 8:17 pm

Radish wrote:
Yes Fnord, I read your post in PPR about the Quiverfull movement. The US seems to be a breeding ground for these fundamentalist Christian type cults. Another thing I notice about organised religion is how then they tend to be "transmitted" from parents to their children, almost like a mind virus. Whereabouts you live in the world and the organised religion of your peers is typically the religion adopted blindly by the next generation and so on.


This is what I find difficult about Amuurian society. The heavy Christian influence on social attitudes makes intellectual discussions difficult. The wowserism in many instances staggers the mind.