(June 11, 2015 at 10:12 am)SteveII Wrote: 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.

Edit: Interesting, you obviously haven't read page 5 of the report.

(June 11, 2015 at 9:25 am)SteveII Wrote: 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.

You keep repeating this nonsense and you're just wrong.  Religion is FALLING in the first world, not rising.  You've been proven wrong time and time again.  At this point, you're just a troll.

(June 11, 2015 at 10:17 am)SteveII Wrote:

(June 11, 2015 at 10:01 am)dyresand Wrote: 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.

And a decade ago, it was higher.  A decade before that, it was higher still.  It's DOWN to 52%.  In another decade it will be below 50%.  In a country where more than 70% of people claim to be religious, having those with a higher education only be barely above 50% is significant.  Of course, you refuse to acknowledge that.

(June 10, 2015 at 4:33 pm)SteveII Wrote: 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/

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. 

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. 

loam, they are worried about how you sound.  Too funny at a cesspool like this.  Its only ok to be dehumanize to people that don't believe what you do believe as long as it aint "your type" ...  be that as it may.

 
The reason is simple. atheism has little to offer.  "logically" atheism fits perfectly. It fits how I look at the universe.  emotionally athiesm is another story.  Toss in militant dopes and atheism is will struggle.   I also think the messages are different.  To a non literalist the message of Jesus is love and compassion.  The message of many  atheist is fuck religion.  I am atheist and I can't join a sect that preaches that.  no way.

So, Steve, let me break it down for you:

France, between 2005 and 2012, a decline of 21 percent in religiosity
Canada, a decline of 12 percent
The USA, 13 percent
Germany, 9 percent.
Austria, 10 percent.

That's from page 6 of the report, covering the top ten nations with a decline in religiosity. Within a timespan of 7 years.

Page 13 might also be of interest, since it covers national income and religiosity.

(June 11, 2015 at 12:06 pm)Cephus Wrote:

(June 11, 2015 at 10:17 am)SteveII Wrote: 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.

And a decade ago, it was higher.  A decade before that, it was higher still.  It's DOWN to 52%.  In another decade it will be below 50%.  In a country where more than 70% of people claim to be religious, having those with a higher education only be barely above 50% is significant.  Of course, you refuse to acknowledge that.

Excellent point. America is more religious than the rest of the western/westernised world, so it is perfectly natural that, even among highly educated people religiosity still holds some solid ground. The numbers will continue to drop.

Personally, I don't see atheism becoming the norm in the next 50 years - Non-religious is on its way to become normalized - It already is in some social circles; most of my friends are spiritual but not religions and they dislike organized religion. Some kind of belief system will continue to exist and theism will never go away, but it will eventually become less influential. Considering there's movements in Greece preaching about polytheism and the former Greek gods I think it's safe to assume no religion will ever completely disappear, but it will become less important, and stop impacting public sphere.

I live in a secular country where most people are Catholic (80%) - Only 20% go to church regularly - There are some benefits afforded to the Catholic church but honestly the funds used are so little that I'm not concerned and I'm satisfied with secular laws - Being an atheist is ok, unless you are around older, super conservative, old school religious people, but sometimes I feel like a unique specimen - Most of my friends think being an atheist means not accepting organized religion, but they're surprised when I say I don't believe in anything supernatural. This is troublesome when I have a friend that claims to have a relationship and spiritual contact with spirits and has panic attacks when someone says she's lying. Not believing in anything at all is still highly unpopular.

SteveII, your arguments have been refuted over and over and over again, and because you argued that what the majority believes is relevant to determine what's true and false, I'm guessing you will be ok that when Islam's demographics surpass Christianity's then Islam will become right - Will you convert to Islam afterwards? Whoever told you atheists are superior and more intelligent was wrong - Being an atheist doesn't make you smart, a good scholar, a good critical thinker - It just means you are most likely right about one thing (the existence of deities). I hold many unpopular opinions as an atheist, some I have never revealed to anyone b sides my girlfriend, so I don't and can't relate myself with the majority of atheists in many ways. I just happen to not believe, but what I think about topics, morality, politics and society doesn't depend on the fact I lack belief in deities.

I notice you didn't break down the statistics by region, Steve. Didn't want anyone to see that religion is growing mostly in backwater, uneducated places like Africa but on the decline in the first world?

(June 10, 2015 at 4:46 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(June 10, 2015 at 4:39 pm)Neimenovic Wrote: I guess it's ironically because atheism continues to grow. More and more people are becoming irreligious, so naturally there is a response to the contrary. Sorta like the reformation and counter reformation

Unaffiliated is dropping as a % of population. 

That's just simply not true at all, not in the United States anyway. Those numbers posted are seriously misguided because it's based on a projection model that starts pre-1980s. Now what happened significant in the 1980s? The fall of communism. Communism forced people who weren't Atheists to identify as such. When it fell the number of 'Atheists' dropped significantly world wide. However that's only because in communist dictatorships people were forced to cover up their real beliefs and statistics were sketchy at best.

If you started a projection model post fall of communism, you find that Atheism and Agnosticism are in fact one of the fastest growing beliefs, especially in the United States. Islam is only growing because of birthrates.

This is the problem with statistics, most people don't know what they really mean.

(June 11, 2015 at 1:00 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: Now what happened significant in the 1980s? The fall of communism. Communism forced people who weren't Atheists to identify as such. When it fell the number of 'Atheists' dropped significantly world wide. However that's only because in communist dictatorships people were forced to cover up their real beliefs and statistics were sketchy at best.

You're right in that assessment although there's a little more to it. First, religion was the more or less forbidden fruit, so it got interesting. Secondly, it was often the churches encouraging resistance. Thirdly, when locking at the Gallup polls, that those countries of the former soviet block are still the most religious which are economical and social backwaters. Such as Romania, Albania, Serbia (although that was never part of the soviet empire) and Poland. Now with Poland it's a little more difficult, since they always have been staunchly catholic.