How do atheists do life?

[downbeatplumb]

Religious affiliation (%) in the UK according to the censuses 2001–2011

  Christianity
  Islam
  Other religions
  Not religious

See that blue line, that's people identifying as Christian going down by 10% in ten years that seems to be the definition of a religion dying out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_i...ed_Kingdom

Lower percentage doesn't = dying

There was a similar conversation on here about two weeks ago about how it has been dying in the United States, but that wasn't the case.  The overall number of "religious" was increasing, while the percentage was decreasing.  That has more to do with changes in population density and changes in other categories. For example, if you get a 1% increase with atheists, you're going to lose that percentage everywhere else.  You percentage increased, but there are still more people adhering to Christianity, Islam, Etc...

If I have a iceberg and 10 penguins are sitting on it, the population is 100% penguin.  If I add 8 more penguins, and 2 polar bears, the population is now 90% penguin and 10% polar bear.  The population increased, the number of penguins increased, but the percentage of penguins dropped.  As we add more variables, those percentages will continue to change, but that doesn't mean the penguins are going to end up at 0 percent.  That is unless you ask the polar bears and it's dinner time, then the result may change.

As I said before percent isn't the only indicator that Christianity is dying. Churches are closing across the country and church attendance has plummeted.

As I said its dying.


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religio...d-low.html

Attendance at services has plunged to its lowest level ever as the Archbishop of Canterbury warned it was battling to maintain its place in an increasingly “anti-Christian” culture.
Official figures – based on an annual pew count – show that only 1.4 per cent of the population of England now attend Anglican services on a typical Sunday morning.
Even the Church’s preferred “weekly” attendance figures, which include those at mid-week or extra services, has slipped below one million for the first time ever.

http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/church-att...1980-2015/

This graph shows church attendance has dropped from over 500,000 to about 300,000 almost a 50% drop in people going to church in the UK since 1980 and that is with a larger overall population and many of the immigrants being from religious countries like Poland. So you can say that for people born in Britain the drop would be sharper.

In my immediate circle of people I know, I know of one Christian.

[Angrboda]

If a decline doesn't mean dying, then what does? I'm getting older and my health is declining. I am in fact dying. Maybe not according to some arbitrary standard of how fast, but arbitrary standards are just that, arbitrary.

[Cod]

If a decline doesn't mean dying, then what does?  I'm getting older and my health is declining.  I am in fact dying.  Maybe not according to some arbitrary standard of how fast, but arbitrary standards are just that, arbitrary.

Well that was cheerful...

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

If a decline doesn't mean dying, then what does?  I'm getting older and my health is declining.  I am in fact dying.  Maybe not according to some arbitrary standard of how fast, but arbitrary standards are just that, arbitrary.

Well that was cheerful...

We're all dying, mate.

Boru

[Cod]

Well that was cheerful...

We're all dying, mate.

Boru

Yeah, there's nothing more certain, that's for sure.

[vulcanlogician]

For the most part I get my philosophy through literature, I guess.

I'm not a huge literature guy. I like Tolstoy and Kafka for its philosophic value. Especially Kafka; "The Hunger Artist" makes a pretty profound statement about meaningfulness in one's life (on par with Sartre). "The Metamorphosis"- a classic. One of my favorite short stories ever. Other than those two, though, I usually get my philosophy from philosophers.

My main focus for a long time was the work of William Blake, who was a great thinker. Really second only to Dante as poet-philosopher.

When I was younger I liked Kahlil Gibran. He's sometimes called "the American Blake" (even though he was Lebanese). I think he is a great philosopher/poet for, say, tennagers to get into. He was influenced by Nietzsche, and it shows. I'd characterize him as a "theistic Nietzsche"-- which is perhaps why (given what you said) people call him "the American Blake." Once you read Plato, Gibran won't offer you much in the way of profundity... but he's a beautiful poet nonetheless.

I always liked Ginsberg and Whitman as far as poets go. Emerson too. You like Emerson at all?

A good friend of mine loves Dante. She tried to get me to read him, but I was a little lost not too far into the Inferno. Perhaps I should give it another shot, being a little more proficient with difficult works than I was then. In any case, this particular friend is a very special person. If she likes Dante, there must be something there. I'm not opposed to giving Blake a looking-over either. I would guess he's a bit more approachable than Dante, but I'm not that familiar with either of them.

Once you've worked on Blake, you come back to the Bible (which he called "the great code of art") and all the objections to it that the naive atheists make seem irrelevant.

If you say so. It's tough for me to get into the Bible as literature. Perhaps Ecclesiastes has some value in that department. And Paul can certainly wax poetic. Too bad he so often punctuates his poetic moments with bigoted tirades. I wonder if you aren't simply admiring the Bible "through Blake's lens."

I'm reminded of a poem I heard in San Francisco called "Ode to a Piece of Shit." This particular poet happened upon a piece of shit lain upon the sidewalk outside of his apartment and composed a poem about it in the style of Neruda. It was a rather beautiful poem, despite its title. Perhaps anything, no matter how foul and contemptible, can be made beautiful when portrayed in verse by a skilled and visionary poet.

[no one]

Jörmungandr:
If a decline doesn't mean dying, then what does?  I'm getting older and my health is declining.  I am in fact dying.  Maybe not according to some arbitrary standard of how fast, but arbitrary standards are just that, arbitrary.

IWNKYAAIMI:
Well that was cheerful...


Serpents aren't normally known for their pleasant disposition. 

[Cod]

Jörmungandr:
If a decline doesn't mean dying, then what does?  I'm getting older and my health is declining.  I am in fact dying.  Maybe not according to some arbitrary standard of how fast, but arbitrary standards are just that, arbitrary.

IWNKYAAIMI:
Well that was cheerful...


Serpents aren't normally known for their pleasant disposition. 

I always found this particular serpent to be very very pleasant

[Brian37]

If a decline doesn't mean dying, then what does?  I'm getting older and my health is declining.  I am in fact dying.  Maybe not according to some arbitrary standard of how fast, but arbitrary standards are just that, arbitrary.

When you consider the global history of every religion in our species history, what you see over thousands of years, is either discarding or morphing. If any Hindu or Buddhist or Jew or Christian or Muslim thinks their religion will be around 20,000 years from now, or even if it is, will be viewed the same, are nuts.

Now, that is if we don't kill ourselves off through climate change and or a nuclear war.

[no one]

One must be slightly on the nutty side to begin with to accept religion in the first place.