The ironic end of chrisitianity

[robvalue]

[Caveat- this is all my opinion!]

I think that there's a good chance that Christianity (and hopefully other similar religions) will die out in the not-too-distant future. The only thing I see stopping it is actual threat upon human life, which I have heard is very real in muslim communities. So I'm talking about countries where you at least have the freedom to be atheist without someone trying to kill you. How pathetic is their god that he has to have groups of thugs threatening people on his behalf in order to keep followers? That's all he's got?

Christianity literally lives by the bible. It's all the "evidence" they have and it's all they can keep coming back to. Now we are in the internet age (did you notice ) the bible is truly "finished" in two senses. It is finished in that no one is going to get away with editing shit in/out of it anymore, because it will be readily apparent to everyone that they are messing with it and that would be the ultimate admittance of failure at this point. Before now, they could fuck around and take out whole books, "translate" things into their favour and whatever. But that's done with now. (In case any theists didn't know, yes they did this. Men actually voted on which books to keep in the bible, and which to conveniently remove and brand "non-canonical". If this isn't evidence that the bible is the word of man and not god, I don't know what is. Would god allow you to screw around with his word like this? For people who thinks the ones they kept are bad, you should check out some of the stuff they got rid of.)

The bible, and christianity, is also "finished" for the same reason. The holy books are the only type of books which try to teach you something but never get updated for accuracy. This means that the more we learn about science, facts and reality, the less accurate the bible will be. Newer generations who can learn about reality as soon as they can fiddle with an Ipad are going to be in a much better position to see through all this stuff. And look at what the bible is now stuck with: slavery, sexual inequality, barbarism, genocide, torture, not to mention a wealth of contradictions and hypocrisy enough to fill up whole websites. We already have a significant amount of christians accepting that adam and eve never really happened. Therefore, original sin never happened. Therefore, the biggest reason for jesus doesn't apply. Whoops!?

So it will become clearer and clearer for each new generation, as science brings us ever closer to truth, how big the rift is between reality and this book of nonsense. The age-old arguments (which are unchanging, like the bible, they just undergo facelifts with new bullshit pseudo-scientific terms) are going to be weaker and weaker. Eventually a generation will come that see through it all and atheism will become the majority. From that point on it will be down hill. As Sam Harris said, religion allows large numbers of people to believe something that only an a crazy person would believe on their own.

It's already happening in the UK really, christianity is so toned down as to be non existent everywhere I have been. I hope that in my lifetime I see it happen in the US (I know atheism in on the rise there) and in all other free countries. And of course, I want the not-free countries to become free. Pull together and rise, my blasphemers!

[MJ the Skeptical]

I've been called an optimist before but I also feel like in my lifetime there will be a huge drop in religion, maybe not the end of religion but a very rapid decline into a majority of Atheists is likely. I think for Atheism to get popular, there would need to be some kind of atheist movement, atheist politicians or on a minor scale, a number of atheists becoming mainstream, or perhaps a popular show with atheist characters. Anything that removes the negative stigma from Atheists will also help.

Those kind of things could help in America anyway. The biggest thing that the internet has been doing to religion (imo) is keeping them more accountable because whatever they say is forever archived into the internet. And just the fact that these religious scandals are getting known by more people also hurts them, almost every religious person I've ever known can criticize the church for their scandals, but somehow still keep going back.

Science of course will be another huge reason people will start to move towards a more intellectual and technological "awakening" so to speak, the more science helps us in our daily lives. Little by little people seem to be getting fed up with the fairy tales of our past and going with reality. We could plunge back into a dark age or destroy ourselves but here's to tomorrow. Cheers.

[Minimalist]

I'm a pessimist and I think there will always be people stupid enough to cling to absurd fairy tales.

A manageable proportion of the population believing in gods ( say 20%) should be attainable.

[psychoslice]

I much of religion did fade away, then what will take its place, atheism ?.

[robvalue]

Reason. Religion breaks your leg then sells you a crutch. Once we stop it breaking legs (indoctrination) there will be no need for it.

In my opinion, people have religion due to:

Being told/forced to believe it's true
Comfort
Fear of the unknown and of dying
Intellectual laziness
Conformity

This is pretty easy to see, since no christian I have ever met follows the morals of the bible in any meaningful way.

[Diablo]

For religion to die out it would have to be stopped from being taught to young children, which ain't going to happen. I would say religion is increasing in popularity, at least in Africa and the ME. Africa's population is exploding and so will the growth of christianity and islam there. The educated people who are most likely to be atheists also have fewer children, so the demographics favour the uneducated with much higher birthrates. The god botherers are going to win.

[robvalue]

Have you seen the move Idiocracy That is a good, and sad, point.

[Dystopia]

Atheism won't take the place of religion, agnostic/liberal theism and deism will since most young people feel a need to be spiritual, almost certainly

Cool exposure OP, I read this while eating breakfast, I think I'll rep you. PS - I can't because I've already done it, damn it

[robvalue]

Well thank you very much, I appreciate it

I guess if I throw enough darts, some will hit the target

[Mudhammam]

So long as people have the reasonable fear of their forthcoming annihilation in eternal oblivion, they will come up with irrational solutions to skate by it.