Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says

reply to post by edmc^2


Eastern Mysticism probably covers it.

Thanks for asking for clarification.

Originally posted by edmc^2
reply to post by ButterCookie

 

I wonder which religion are you reffering to cuz most of the ones I know are big on helping people materially, physically and most of all spiritually.

Is it all, majority or just a few?

thx,
edmc2

Good point! Mainly Christianity

Ah, everyone is celebrating the Great Apostasy to come, how prophetic.
There will always be some kind of religion, it will never go away.
The one religion that most will accept will be the religion of man, and they will not even recognize that they have even joined this new religion. It will captivate them, spellbound them, it will promise them all that they've long for. And when it has rooted itself, it will give them a sense of security for a time. But after awhile it will show it's true intentions, and many will be shocked, but by then it will have been too late.
All this because of their stubbornest, they failed to take on their own responsibility, they failed to look within themselves for their own shortcomings. They were selfish, they want to blame somebody. No don't look at me, and say it's my fault, he or she is the one that caused all the trouble, not me. What did I do? No look at them they're the problem.
And some even think that if religion is done away with, that all the problems will go with it, how naive.
We have two major beliefs, one is Christianity, and the other is Islam. One is of love, and the other is of oppression.

Then we have hate, with that comes selfishness, irresponsibility, arrogance, jealousy, greed, conceit, covetousness, vengeance, pride, lust, racism, gluttony, vanity, dissatisfaction, depression, murder, and it's all insanity.
Yes, religion has caused a lot of problems, why has it caused a lot of problems, because of all of the above.

Men refused to accept a Creator, man continually try to think that in their little minds that they are wiser, smarter, all knowing. If you take the time to get the scope of how small we are on this planet, and how small this planet is in this universe, and how big this universe is, and that space goes on past that universe, we are nothing more than the smallest of the smallest particle.

Someone in this post said that space is chaotic, and yet this planet has lasted eons. How can a place such as this planet possibly last in a place of chaos where man has no control? No, the chaos is here, right here on this planet, and the chaos is not in nature itself, it is in the nature of man and in his thinking. In his pig headed I'm better than you thinking.

So go on, get rid of God, if you think you can do better without Him, go, try, that is the way it's heading, right? If you tell the child, no! don't do that, no! don't touch that, the child usually does it anyway. And what happens? They get hurt, but I guess that's how it's got to be.

We have love, love conquers all. And the one Man that lived among other men and women that taught how love conquers all, was killed. But through His death He rose and left a promise and gave a gift, free to anyone who would accept and to those who would persevere. And they that persevere will not be let down, and this is called faith.

reply to post by hawaii50th


You wrote:

["There will always be some kind of religion, it will never go away."]

Hopefully, ....probably..... it'll grow into being a non-invasive, individual and subjective activety like stamp-collecting or SM-sex, which people can practise alone or in groups of consenting adults without Hitler- or Stalin-like interference in others' lives.

From sheer lack of interest religion will decline into small groups.

Quote: ["The one religion that most will accept will be the religion of man, and they will not even recognize that they have even joined this new religion. It will captivate them, spellbound them, it will promise them all that they've long for."]

Are you suggesting, that religionists will choose from a basis of uninformed 'dumbness'? Aren't many of them doing this already?

Quote: ["And when it has rooted itself, it will give them a sense of security for a time."]

Are you in principle against people having a sense of security, even when this security actually is somewhat 'real'? I gather from your posts, that you personally are a person with much misery in your life, that you have chosen a religion with misery at its core, and you preach to spread this message of misery. Maybe because you believe that your mindset is universal.

Quote: ["All this because of their stubbornest, they failed to take on their own responsibility, they failed to look within themselves for their own shortcomings. They were selfish, they want to blame somebody. No don't look at me, and say it's my fault, he or she is the one that caused all the trouble, not me. What did I do? No look at them they're the problem."]

Those secular, liberal and egalitarian democratic societies which have survived the onslaught of political or religious ideological fascism are far more functional, ethical and responsibility-taking than e.g. the former examples of christian theocracies.

Quote: ["And some even think that if religion is done away with, that all the problems will go with it, how naive."]

Considering that religion more often than not is the illness, not the cure, many problems WILL disappear with declining religion.

I'll disregard the 'how naive' as a purely propagandistic exclamation.

Quote: ["We have two major beliefs, one is Christianity, and the other is Islam. One is of love, and the other is of oppression."]

Sweeping generalizations completely unrelated to reality, but useful in your black/white propaganda (which actually will backfire on you).

Quote: ["Then we have hate, with that comes selfishness, irresponsibility, arrogance, jealousy, greed, conceit, covetousness, vengeance, pride, lust, racism, gluttony, vanity, dissatisfaction, depression, murder, and it's all insanity.
Yes, religion has caused a lot of problems, why has it caused a lot of problems, because of all of the above."]

You forgot homophobia, which you have propagated for yourself. So I question this ethical tirade of yours.

Quote: ["Men refused to accept a Creator, man continually try to think that in their little minds that they are wiser, smarter, all knowing."]

Some people arrive at answers from observed and processed information. Others like you buy a pre-digested answer, and later invent 'facts' to prove it. So if category 1 individuals feel smarter or wiser than category 2 people, they are right. You just make subjective make guesses.

Quote: ["If you take the time to get the scope of how small we are on this planet, and how small this planet is in this universe, and how big this universe is, and that space goes on past that universe, we are nothing more than the smallest of the smallest particle."]

And then it's OK to fill out all the knowledge gaps with wild speculations, resulting in that Brahma (as a creator) OFCOURSE is THE answer.

Quote: ["Someone in this post said that space is chaotic, and yet this planet has lasted eons. How can a place such as this planet possibly last in a place of chaos where man has no control?"]

I can't recall this, but generally the word 'chaos' can mean several things. E.g. in a scientific context the universe contains both principles of (scientifically defined) order and chaos.

Quote: ["of chaos where man has no control? No, the chaos is here, right here on this planet, and the chaos is not in nature itself, it is in the nature of man and in his thinking. In his pig headed I'm better than you thinking."]

Using the word 'chaos' in a cultural context as you do here, it's quite obvious from this post and your writings elsewhere, that your suggested answer to this 'chaos-problem' is totalitarian control.

Quote: ["So go on, get rid of God...."]

There's no need to take any violent or invasive action to 'get rid of 'god'. The 'god' concept will disappear by itself, because it's a/ partly ridiculous in many of its versions, and b/ because many religionists are VERY good examples of: "Why NOT to become religious". You are very helpful in that direction yourself.

Quote: [" if you think you can do better without Him, go, try, that is the way it's heading, right?"]

When religionists stay in their homes, prayer-centers or churches and religionize there, things usually become much, much better very quick. Personally I'm happy about the end of the inquisition, church duty, enforced christian sexual morality and christian involvment in politics.

Quote: ["If you tell the child, no! don't do that, no! don't touch that, the child usually does it anyway. And what happens? They get hurt, but I guess that's how it's got to be."]

Any parent even slightly resembling the schizoid and power-obsessed Jahveh, should be committed on the spot.

Quote: [" We have love, love conquers all. And the one Man that lived among other men and women that taught how love conquers all,"]

Considering your repeated emphasis of your own messenger-role on this, it's a pity, that this message doesn't shine very well through in your posts.

Quote: ["But through His death He rose and left a promise and gave a gift, free to anyone who would accept and to those who would persevere."]

And as often as not Hell to those refusing this 'gift'.

Quote: ["And they that persevere will not be let down, and this is called faith."]

Sure. Faith on YOUR conditions. You have already counted islam and buddhism out as inferior.

"S*eg Halleluja".

reply to post by edmc^2


You wrote:

["Of course I can present a made up world-view but it's not gonna matter for it's not based on reality. But as you can see the book that I'm using as an authority on such matter as world events is unmatched and always proven to be true. It is as old as (modern) man about 6000 years, it's the only book in existence that contain an accurate history of man. It's prophecies are impeccable and unmatched by any other book. In fact the things that we are seeing and witnessing today worldwide in the 21st century points to it's authenticity. These "signs and wonders" that you talked about points to the fact that although penned by men (40 to be exact) the words written therein are of divine origin. So I'm very confident that the rest of the prophetic events, these "signs and wonders" that are still to come will absolutely 100% going to be fulfilled. And it's not because of "gut-feeling" but because as the scripture says: ....."]

Honestly; I had hoped for something better from you than such. Subjective 'faith' is a concept I have no problems with, because when used correctly, it implies equal 'truth' and social 'rights' to all (non-fascist) religions.

But if you're trying to introduce elements of 'objectivity' into your faith, you'd better be darned sure, that you follow the procedures of science/logic (which have kind of copyright on 'objective'). This mish-mash you present only gives an impression of sneakiness; you're hijacking and/or faking procedures outside of their fields and outside your competence.

The only people you will fool with this are the already saved or the terminally uninformed on what 'objective' is. Anybody with some knowledge of science/logic will see your efforts as con-man work, and as I guess, that you care about your credibility, this is a risky direction to take.

Emphasized by:

Quote: [“. . .All Scripture is inspired of God . . .” (2 Timothy 3:16)"]

A classical example of total circular argumentation. Totally worthless from any rational position.

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reply to post by hawaii50th


You wrote:

[quote removed by staff]

Similarly to this quote from you, I've also on occasion lashed out against you; especially in the context of following:

a/ When you rather vehemently were a 'messenger' for condemning and judgemental homophobia, based on your 'message of love'-book; .... without any further explanations.

b/ When you make vague pseudo-scientific claims, you don't bother to give the slightest evidence for, when asked.

c/ When you ignore an invitation to a mutually agreed-on common communication basis, and use my offfer of a thread 'armistice' to continue preaching to me on your terms.

d/ When you (for debate-tactical reasons and most likely without any medical competence on your part) diagnose me as 'schizophrenic'.

e/ Without any ado and without any justification apart from your own subjective 'absolutes' and dislikes categorize my non ideological-fascism as 'bleeding-heart' liberalism, when I defend the ethics of secular society.

But all the while (when I've been 'ranting'), I have ALSO offered you the option of actually answering me at a factual level. This offer is ofcourse still valid, but will require, that you are able/willing to a dialogue and that you will have to be meticulously relevant, honest and competent on the position you choose (involving the risk, that I can challenge and regress this position of yours).

I apologize in advance for my stilted language here, but by using somewhat formalized terms, I hope to avoid any excursions into rhetorics, soap-box oration, scholastics or excessive semantics.

From the topic perspective of 'the extinction of religion' this confrontation between you and me would explain a great deal of the decline of religion.

It's not only the intrinsic messages and the systematic methodology of various religions playing a part in such a decline. It's also the mindsets and attitudes of the adherents as ambassadors of religion.

reply to post by bogomil

In pain simple language, you don't agree with all that I have to say, you don't believe in what the bible has to say, you don't believe in common sense and you don't believe in putting faith in God because you don't believe in God. And I don't believe that science has all the answers, I don't believe that logic can be applied to everything thing, I don't believe that physics can answer all the equations and figure everything out.
You believe that man has the answers or can get the answers on his own, I don't. Man may be able to get some of the answers, but not the most important ones of all.
So we can go on until hell freezes over, and we will not agree, except to disagree. So there, that's the end of that, to continue on serves no purpose.

reply to post by hawaii50th

So we can go on until hell freezes over, and we will not agree, except to disagree. So there, that's the end of that, to continue on serves no purpose.

If your only purpose in engaging non-Christians in debate is to convert them to your belief, then I would agree that continuing would not serve your aim. However, if the intent is to share you perspective and invite understanding, then perhaps some progress is evident.

I think the key lies in delivery of the message. Religions and those preaching their message are themselves undermining its sustainability by presenting their belief as an exclusive absolutist perspective which devalues and discounts the realizations and perceptions of all those unaligned to their particular way of thinking.

In a time where a huge variety of information pertaining to spiritual matters is readily available to everyone who has access to the internet or a good bookstore, seekers are free to study and compare from this vast storehouse of knowledge and assess for themselves what path most resonates with their state of mind. Those shouting the loudest that they posses the Truth may be ignored in favour of the humble voices offering love and deeper understanding of our mortal existence in this universe.

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by hawaii50th

 

So we can go on until hell freezes over, and we will not agree, except to disagree. So there, that's the end of that, to continue on serves no purpose.

If your only purpose in engaging non-Christians in debate is to convert them to your belief, then I would agree that continuing would not serve your aim. However, if the intent is to share you perspective and invite understanding, then perhaps some progress is evident.

I think the key lies in delivery of the message. Religions and those preaching their message are themselves undermining its sustainability by presenting their belief as an exclusive absolutist perspective which devalues and discounts the realizations and perceptions of all those unaligned to their particular way of thinking.

In a time where a huge variety of information pertaining to spiritual matters is readily available to everyone who has access to the internet or a good bookstore, seekers are free to study and compare from this vast storehouse of knowledge and assess for themselves what path most resonates with their state of mind. Those shouting the loudest that they posses the Truth may be ignored in favour of the humble voices offering love and deeper understanding of our mortal existence in this universe.

I'm not trying to convert anyone. I just don't feel the need to converse with someone like bogomil, I don't like arrogance, and a know it all attitude. This person strikes me as a high strung type that wears blinders.

How much clearer can the argument be made, when people are always looking for an excuse to point blame, rather than look in the mirror, and maybe be honest with themselves for a change. No body wants to take responsibility for their own actions. It's always got to be somebody elses fault, it's sickening already. Damn it, look in the mirror. Never mind blaming others, own up.

reply to post by hawaii50th


You wrote:

["In pain simple language, you don't agree with all that I have to say, you don't believe in what the bible has to say,"]

Correct on both points.

Quote: ["you don't believe in common sense"]

Far more than I believe in you or the bible (as above). But then 'common sense' is not a very precise concept, and can actually be anything from something as subjective as a 'faith' to co-sensus in a group. I strongly believe in the principle of objectivity though, but not as an absolute in any sense.

Quote: [" And I don't believe that science has all the answers,....."]

Neither do I.

Quote: ["......I don't believe that logic can be applied to everything thing,...."]

Neither do I.

Quote: [".....I don't believe that physics can answer all the equations and figure everything out."]

Neither do I.

These three 'neithers' in my comments relate to your use of the words 'all' and 'everything' in the quotes above.


Quote: ["You believe that man has the answers or can get the answers on his own,...."]

I'm agnostic on this, but with a lot of patience and optimism.

Quote: ["Man may be able to get some of the answers, but not the most important ones of all."]

How can you possibly know that?

Quote: ["So we can go on until hell freezes over,..."]

That could be fun.

Quote: ["and we will not agree, except to disagree...."]

So now you are 'agreeing' for both of us, and not only for yourself. I'm far from finished.

Quote: ["So there, that's the end of that, to continue on serves no purpose."]

Maybe it serves no purpose for you. I'm sure, it does for me. In any case you've been saying this quite a few times; and you have even advised edmc^2 follow this advice, which you don't follow yourself.

Soon I'll write a post explaining my world-view, alternative to the one you have presented. Sofar you've been to busy propagating your own to be interested in what other models could be like.

Originally posted by bogomil
reply to post by hawaii50th

 

You wrote:

["In pain simple language, you don't agree with all that I have to say, you don't believe in what the bible has to say,"]

Correct on both points.

Quote: ["you don't believe in common sense"]

Far more than I believe in you or the bible (as above). But then 'common sense' is not a very precise concept, and can actually be anything from something as subjective as a 'faith' to co-sensus in a group. I strongly believe in the principle of objectivity though, but not as an absolute in any sense.

Quote: [" And I don't believe that science has all the answers,....."]

Neither do I.

Quote: ["......I don't believe that logic can be applied to everything thing,...."]

Neither do I.

Quote: [".....I don't believe that physics can answer all the equations and figure everything out."]

Neither do I.

These three 'neithers' in my comments relate to your use of the words 'all' and 'everything' in the quotes above.


Quote: ["You believe that man has the answers or can get the answers on his own,...."]

I'm agnostic on this, but with a lot of patience and optimism.

Quote: ["Man may be able to get some of the answers, but not the most important ones of all."]

How can you possibly know that?

Quote: ["So we can go on until hell freezes over,..."]

That could be fun.

Quote: ["and we will not agree, except to disagree...."]

So now you are 'agreeing' for both of us, and not only for yourself. I'm far from finished.

Quote: ["So there, that's the end of that, to continue on serves no purpose."]

Maybe it serves no purpose for you. I'm sure, it does for me. In any case you've been saying this quite a few times; and you have even advised edmc^2 follow this advice, which you don't follow yourself.

Soon I'll write a post explaining my world-view, alternative to the one you have presented. Sofar you've been to busy propagating your own to be interested in what other models could be like.

edit on 27-3-2011 by hawaii50th because: (no reason given)

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reply to post by hawaii50th

In the name of Jesus Christ, begone Satan.

Have you ever considered that it is precisely the kind of attitude reflected in your words which may be condemning the Christian fundamentalist religion to an eventual extinction?

Originally posted by hawaii50th
reply to post by bogomil

 

post removed by staff.

It wouldn't hurt, if you tried to get some basic knowledge of logic. This would enable you to understand, that everything doesn't have to be put in black/white frames, as in the case you try make above.

It's completely rational and functional to use any existential 'tool' available (e.g. science and logic) to a defined extent and in fitting contexts, but without turning them in to absolutes.

Science/logic(/technology) are very good at quantum-physics, astro-physics, medicine, farming technology etc, but can't 'explain' the beauty of a classical symphony.

No-one can ever really know, what ditch-digging is like, before it's been tried practically and physically.

Religion can't relate sensibly to the mundane world, before it (religion) relates to 'the ways of the world' instead of enforcing speculative abstractions or fantasies on the world and mankind.

Each 'perspective' (existential map) has its own territory, where it's relevant.

But all will be explained to you, when I present my own more encompassing 'map' of existence to you.



Quote: ["In the name of Jesus Christ, begone Satan."]

It's a bit uncertain, if you here refer to me personally as 'Satan', or you're just performing a minor internet-carried exorcism generally meant to remove an external 'Satan' from the situation. So please give me more information, based on following personal data I give you:

I have on occasion been inside churches, and no pictures fell from the walls, no windows shattered, no statues of saints moaned and no priests ran screaming away.

In my last contact with holy water (admittedly years ago) it didn't start to bubble or boil.

And a tricky point: I haven't stoned any homosexuals to death recently, but I'm not sure if this counts as a virtue or a sin from your position of much holiness.

Here's a video regarding the article:



There's another important trend to note:

Let's look at the top 15 countries with the highest inequality adjusted human development index and compare it to the list of countries mentioned in the article...

1) Norway
2) Australia => mentioned
3) Sweden
4) Netherlands => mentioned
5) Germany
6) Switzerland => mentioned
7) Ireland => mentioned
8) Canada => mentioned
9) Iceland
10) Denmark
11) Finland => mentioned
12) USA
13) Belgium
14) France
15) Czech Republic => mentioned

So about half of the countries mentioned in the article are also part of the most prosperous countries with the highest standard of living.

I also think the Internet plays a crucial role. In ancient times, most people didn't have access to proper education, and therefore blindly believed in whatever religion was the strongest in their area. Now, with the Internet and TV, it's easy to get education for (almost) free. People realize that many claims made by religion are complete and utter nonsense:

1) Noah's global flood => hogwash
2) Talking snakes => hogwash
3) 10k year old earth => hogwash
4) Humans coming into existence in their current form without evolution => beyond hogwash
5) Giant space gods, sometimes with elephant heads => hogwash, not a single shred of evidence
...just to name a few...

The track record of "god did it" is HORRIBLE! In fact, we don't know of a single thing proven to have been done by god...we don't even have objective evidence to prove his/her/it's existence in the first place. People are slowly realizing that you can't just claim "god did it" if there's no logical/rational answer...else you're using the god of the gaps.

Also, I think it's laughable that some people in here (edmc2) talk about morality as if religion was required for that. It is NOT required to act morally!! If your assertion was correct, all non-believers would be savages...but this articles proves that's not the case, on the contrary. Many of the most developed countries see a drastic decline in religious believers, but it doesn't result in an increase in crimes or bad behaviour.

I'm baffled at the fact that some people continue to believe in stuff that's demonstrably wrong...like talking snakes, global floods, gods with or without elephant heads (well, that might not be wrong, but we have ZERO evidence backing up their existence), comets being signs of gods, the earth only being 10k years old, humans not having evolved like the rest of the beings on this planet, and so on. It's really quite sad...

However, I do believe saying religion will go extinct is an overstatement. I'm (originally) from one of the countries, in fact, I hold passports of two of the countries...Switzerland and the Netherlands. And while in those countries people who talk about the "mark of the beast" or the whole middle east crisis as if it's the fulfillment of some bible prophecies would be considered INSANE...we still have believers. It's just that those people realize that the literal interpretation of religious doctrine is beyond crazy. Spirituality won't disappear, but religions have always come and gone, and as education levels increase, religions will change and the literal interpretations will be looked at as crazy.

For some reason many Asian religions seem better at adapting to the modern world. They often don't contradict science when it's obvious that the old doctrine is WRONG. The Dalai Lama said it nicely when asked what happens if religious doctrine contradicts science. He said that it would be ignorant and wrong for religious believers to contradict REALITY (aka science) and that religion requires flexibility in order to continue to exist.



People have to stop being ignorant by closing their eyes to objective evidence and facts. The humorous videos videos bellow explain nicely why I sometimes feel like banging my head against the desk if someone in the 21st century claims there was a global flood, or that the sun was created after the earth as in Genesis.





And lastly, a shoutout to Neil Degrasse Tyson, one of the coolest scientists I know:



Why intelligent design is a stupid hypothesis given what we know of earth and the universe:

reply to post by MrXYZ


Thanks for bringing this (potentially) promising thread straight back on topic, instead of concentrating on my (Bogomil's) possible satanic affilliations.

Unfortunately my internet technology doesn't allow for videos, so I'll have to make an educated guess on the videos' content. (Though being a South Park fan I own one of them myself).

But first, just for the record in a possible later semantic contest from certain directions. Personally I prefer the concept 'egalitarian principles' instead of talking about 'equality'. Technically speaking I'm e.g. not able to conduct a symphony orchestra or run a nuclear power-plant, thus not being 'equal' to a conductor or a nuclear engineer, whereas I'm probably more competent in e.g. bee-keeping and ecological farming.

Commenting on your list of (what I take to be) progressive liberal nations, I can (as a northern european) add:

Those european contries not referred to as 'mentioned' on the list in your post, e.g. Scandinavia and continental North European countries, also have an above-global average living standard, a safer legalistic system and not least a better protection of minority rights.

I have on the last point, 'minority rigths', observed an especially US-christian-right un-informedness on such liberal principles. These christians seem to believe, that liberalism in Europe is an expression of 'majority-dictatorship'. A point such christians maybe will take up here, as one pivot-point in the declining-religion debate is extremist religion's confrontation with liberal systems.

And not to stay exclusively with these (sometimes 'older') established liberal democracies, maybe Poland can be included as an up-and-coming example. Poland has in the last 20 years become independent of the Sovjet centralized-authority system, but also more recently increasingly from the catholic church.

As extremist christians for (probably) tactical reasons avoid the issue of OT elements of racism and slavery, such considerations are no hindrance concerning propagating OT homophobic attitudes. And Poland used to have an almost legendary national homophobia, something which now is diminishing rapidly, so the polish situation is an excellent opportunity to observe the effects of an emerging liberal system in the field, increasingly freed from fascist ideologies.

reply to post by bogomil


Pity you can't watch the videos, they're pretty good

I wasn't trying to single out any countries, as even in the countries that weren't mentioned, religion is on the decline. That's the case because a lot of western religions are fairly inflexible. Even in the US, religion is on a strong decline since the 50s...and the amount of people picking up on that is growing strongly.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8e4e59e27281.gif[/atsimg]

The amount of people believing religion is suitable to fix real life problems, and that religion isn't out of date in our modern world has been decreasing by 41% since the 50s. During the same time, the amount of people who consider religion "out of date" increased by 400%!

Pretty clear trend...and education levels (partly supported through technology like the Internet) is definitely responsible for that.

reply to post by MrXYZ


Thanks for your answer.

I'm trying to protect my back against our resident word-mongers amongst the extremist-christian fringe, so I can avoid their endless deflectionary going off into cosmetic statistics and definitions on definitions on definitions.

So I try to stay on as safe ground as possible, when 'objective' information takes a part.

But even on a more subjective estimation basis, I do see a global decline in especially the christianities, not least demonstrated indirectly by the very suspect 'statistics' presented by pro-christian sites, where the numbers are faked to mean something else than they actually do.