Why does religion continue to grow?

[dyresand]

So, what I am hearing is that the God Delusion thrives where there is lower education levels. It would follow that at least after awhile, highly educated countries should see precipitous drops in religion--despite birth rates. While that has been the prediction for hundreds of years, that's not the case. There are more Christians and Muslims every year--even in developed countries.. Perhaps your arguments are not as convincing as you think they are.

Yes that's pretty much it. A smart educated person with a degree from MIT with biological engineering wouldn't even have a religion or believe in a god.
More children these days won't believe in a god either they know the difference between fact and fiction. Education is a hell of a wonderful thing. Education
over all challenges the bible and god. That being said education is killing religion because of how absurd it is. A magic baby born of a virgin sent down to die for
our sins and then come back during the rapture to start the final battle between good and evil. This sounds like more of a made up story than something to be real.
Though it would make a kick ass movie....

Wait the left behind series of movies but they were decent nothing really interesting though.

[FreeTony]

So I guess that shortly after 2050 when Islam overtakes Christianity it becomes the true religion? Is that how it works?

[Crossless2.0]

The Left Behind movies were decent? Compared to what -- industry safety training videos?

[SteveII]

So, what I am hearing is that the God Delusion thrives where there is lower education levels. It would follow that at least after awhile, highly educated countries should see precipitous drops in religion--despite birth rates. While that has been the prediction for hundreds of years, that's not the case. There are more Christians and Muslims every year--even in developed countries.. Perhaps your arguments are not as convincing as you think they are.

Gallup is your friend. Look especially at the most religious countries.

http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf

More interesting was 52% of people with higher education are religious. Hmm, I though that education was going to eradicate religion. Higher education means these are not children of Christians in some backwater village bumping the numbers up.

[SteveII]

That being said education is killing religion because of how absurd it is.

And that is my point. Contrary to popular belief (here anyway) it is not. Like I mentioned above. 52% of people with a higher education degree are religious.

[dyresand]

So I guess that shortly after 2050 when Islam overtakes Christianity it becomes the true religion? Is that how it works?

Islam is a bubble it will keep growing even before then its going to pop and fizzle out.

[FreeTony]

So, what I am hearing is that the God Delusion thrives where there is lower education levels. It would follow that at least after awhile, highly educated countries should see precipitous drops in religion--despite birth rates. While that has been the prediction for hundreds of years, that's not the case. There are more Christians and Muslims every year--even in developed countries.. Perhaps your arguments are not as convincing as you think they are.

I'm not sure where you get the "prediction forhundreds of years" from. The relationship between religiosity and intelligence isn't simple for a multitude of reasions, but there is a reltionship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity...telligence

Well certainly in the UK the number of Christians is dropping fast, whilst Atheism is doing the opposite. Islam is however on the rise.

[dyresand]

Gallup is your friend. Look especially at the most religious countries.

http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf

More interesting was 52% of people with higher education are religious. Hmm, I though that education was going to eradicate religion. Higher education means these are not children of Christians in some backwater village bumping the numbers up.

The most accurate statics i found. Religion is on the decline Steve. 

[Ben Davis]

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According to Pew Research, religion will continue to grow worldwide through 2050. 

• Christianity will grow numerically (+800,000,000), but stay the same as a % of the world's population: 31.4% (the largest)
  
• Muslims will grow in both categories and should garner about 29.7% of the world's population by 2050
  
• Unaffiliated (including atheists and agnostics) grows a little numerically, but goes down from 16.4% to 13.2% of the world's population.
  

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/relig...2010-2050/

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In spite of your superior intellect, logic, and scientific proof to the contrary, your message that God is dead does not seem to be getting out.

You offer a disingenuous misrepresentation of the stats. The absolute numbers must be properly represented in an environment where the population constantly changes hence the necessity for using % of each category to provide insight. Having read your other posts, I get the distinct impression that your choice to use absolute numbers was deliberate and designed to misinform.

In spite of your protestations, education is a big factor: those who are well educated are less likely to be religious. You need to compare the % of those who claim to be religious in the 'well educated' group with the % of those who claim to be religious in the general population. In every nation where a 'decent' education system exists, a lower level of religiosity is seen in well educated groups than in the general population thus demonstrating a correlation between education and religiosity. Your attempt to claim otherwise is laughable.

Overall, your attempts at misinformation are transparent and easily rebutted.

I'm interested to hear your theories of why by 2050, contrary to 300 years of predictions, almost 3,000,000,000 Christians will be sitting in pews around the world praying for the salvation of your grand kids.

Because they've been deliberately misinformed by people like you.

[FatAndFaithless]

Steve being disingenuous? Never...