Is Religion Dying Out?

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HAVE you given up on organized religion? If so, you are far from alone. In many countries the number of people who describe themselves as ‘not religious’ is growing—a trend that suggests an uncertain future for institutional religion.

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Type: Question • Score: 10 • Views: 2,566 • Replies: 63

[+4] - rosborne979 - 07/25/2016Ultimately Religion is doomed by its own silliness. Those who aren't indoctrinated see it for what it is. Unfortunately, it's a long way from dying out.
[+3] - Setanta - 07/25/2016One can only hope so.
[+3] - Setanta - 07/25/2016Of course, institutional religion includes all those creepy watchtower types, too--although i'm sure you want to claim that they're different.
[+3] - edgarblythe - 07/25/2016Despite the growing percentages of atheists, it looks to me as though religion will be a force during the foreseeable future.
[+3] - georgeob1 - 07/25/2016I generally agree with your proposition. However I note that in parallel with this phenomenon new secular belief systems are growing up with many of the accoutrements of the fading religions,...
[+3] - rosborne979 - 07/26/2016[quote="TomTomBinks"] [quote]Ultimately Religion is doomed by its own silliness.[/quote] This sounds reasonable. But I think the Human Race is NOT reasonable and so will continue with...
[+3] - ehBeth - 07/26/2016I'd be happy if we started by pulling the tax-free status of churches in Canada.
[+3] - cicerone imposter - 07/26/2016Religion is difficult to give up because people are unwilling to admit that they've been duped all their lives.
[+3] - thack45 - 07/27/2016[quote=Bertrand Russell]Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought...

@BroRando,

Ultimately Religion is doomed by its own silliness. Those who aren't indoctrinated see it for what it is.

Unfortunately, it's a long way from dying out.

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One can only hope so.

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Of course, institutional religion includes all those creepy watchtower types, too--although i'm sure you want to claim that they're different.

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Despite the growing percentages of atheists, it looks to me as though religion will be a force during the foreseeable future.

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@BroRando,

I generally agree with your proposition. However I note that in parallel with this phenomenon new secular belief systems are growing up with many of the accoutrements of the fading religions, including narrow-minded intolerance, and little of their occasional esthetic beauty.

Human nature hasn't changed materially and I suspect that religion in one form or another will survive.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

Ultimately Religion is doomed by its own silliness.

This sounds reasonable. But I think the Human Race is NOT reasonable and so will continue with the old religions and continually invent new ones. Sad.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I generally agree with your proposition. However I note that in parallel with this phenomenon new secular belief systems are growing up with many of the accoutrements of the fading religions, including narrow-minded intolerance, and little of their occasional esthetic beauty.

This is a brilliant observation.

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@TomTomBinks,

TomTomBinks wrote:

Quote:
Ultimately Religion is doomed by its own silliness.

This sounds reasonable. But I think the Human Race is NOT reasonable and so will continue with the old religions and continually invent new ones. Sad.

In general I might agree with that, but technology is changing global civilization rapidly as more and more dark corners of isolated belief systems have new light shed upon them. Not only are more people being educated than ever before, but the Internet is allowing people to communicate like never before. And that will continue because it's lucrative. First world industries are pushing very hard to expand into all population bases.

I don't believe religion can withstand exposure to the light of functional knowledge for long. We already see it eroding and that erosion is accelerating.

I don't see this happening over night or anything, and I don't really see it pushing all religions back into the realm of cult mythology within my lifetime. But in the end it will happen.

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@rosborne979,

Good answers, people.

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If being 'created in the their image' is reality rather than myth, belief in them is an inevitability by at least some, and therefore that belief could not be 'stamped out' by mere 'education'.

Just a theory...

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So long as religion remains profitable, it will continue to exist regardless of whether a God does or not.

If you want to force the God issue, you would need to systematically shut down places of worship, shut down organisations feeding the religious, and remove religious literature as well as stopping gatherings for the reason of sharing faith.

For me, If the biblical God exists, the religion or religions that has the backing of this God will still be standing when the dust has cleared.

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@Smileyrius,

I'd be happy if we started by pulling the tax-free status of churches in Canada.

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@BroRando,

Religion is difficult to give up because people are unwilling to admit that they've been duped all their lives.

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@Smileyrius,

Smileyrius wrote:

So long as religion remains profitable, it will continue to exist regardless of whether a God does or not.

It can only be profitable as long as it has followers.

Smileyrius wrote:

If you want to force the God issue, you would need to systematically shut down places of worship, shut down organisations feeding the religious, and remove religious literature as well as stopping gatherings for the reason of sharing faith.

Nothing needs to be forced. All that has to happen is for the followers to start seeing through the scam. A world full of skeptics is an inhospitable environment for religion.

Smileyrius wrote:

For me, If the biblical God exists...

But it doesn't. It just doesn't.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

A world full of skeptics is an inhospitable environment for religion.

That is as false as saying that a world full of believers is an inhospitable environment to atheists.

Some of the most ardent believers were once actively hostile to belief in God and vice versa.

Think I've lost count of the atheists on a2k who said they were from religious backgrounds.

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Did it ever exist? As long as homo sapiens have existed belief in the supernatural will have existed.
Belief will never perish, even if actual institutions do.

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@Thomas33,

I agree. That's the reason all cultures have their god(s).

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@Thomas33,

Thomas33 wrote:

Did it ever exist? As long as homo sapiens have existed belief in the supernatural will have existed.
Belief will never perish, even if actual institutions do.

How do you know that? There was no recorded history for a pretty long stretch.

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@BroRando,

BroRando wrote:

HAVE you given up on organized religion? If so, you are far from alone. In many countries the number of people who describe themselves as ‘not religious’ is growing—a trend that suggests an uncertain future for institutional religion.

In many Western countries perhaps, but then Westerners as a population are dying out.

Islam certainly isn't dying out.

It's ironic that the opponents of religion hope that increased education and an enlightened liberal (classical) philosophy will put an end to it, and it seems that their hope is being realized, however the engines of their hope have also resulted in birth rates that are unable to keep up with death rates.

So apparently, once one portion of humanity frees itself from religion they perish and leave the world to the fecund who are religious.

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Is Religion Dying Out?

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