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Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 5:23 pm
(This post was last modified: February 8, 2015 at 5:26 pm by TheMessiah.)
I believe that while traditional organized religion is declining, the New Age spirituality movements are rapidly increasing, into a multi-million dollar business. Richard Dawkins did a documentary called The Enemies of Reason which was interesting but sad.
While religion was declining, equally silly and primitive Astrological beliefs are becoming more popular.
A betrayal of the enlightenment? 
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 5:26 pm
People are dumb. Always have been, always will be. End of story.
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 5:30 pm
People and religion both evolve. Religion evolves to become more compatible with the changing people. Thus, religion will never be completely wiped out, but always evolved until maybe it does not resemble religion so much as it does a spirituality that is recognized as more comforting than anything akin to the primitive worship of a deity.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 7:00 pm
(February 8, 2015 at 5:23 pm)TheMessiah Wrote: I believe that while traditional organized religion is declining, the New Age spirituality movements are rapidly increasing, into a multi-million dollar business. Richard Dawkins did a documentary called The Enemies of Reason which was interesting but sad.
While religion was declining, equally silly and primitive Astrological beliefs are becoming more popular.
A betrayal of the enlightenment?
It isn't that religion is declining, old religions are declining. People get tired of what they see is the abusive old ways but simply replace old woo with new woo. It is still our species inability to accept that all it is is placebo gap filling to give ourselves a sense of false comfort.
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 8:01 pm
Islam is increasing at an exponential rate.
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 8:11 pm
It shouldn't be surprising that a greater belief in woo would come with a decline of religion, because religion is actually a symptom of a bigger problem, which is poor reasoning. If people don't learn how to reason, they'll just replace one bad ideology with another.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 8:15 pm
(February 8, 2015 at 8:11 pm)Faith No More Wrote: It shouldn't be surprising that a greater belief in woo would come with a decline of religion, because religion is actually a symptom of a bigger problem, which is poor reasoning. If people don't learn how to reason, they'll just replace one bad ideology with another. Of course, you know that the IQ of half the population is below 100, right?
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 8:21 pm
(February 8, 2015 at 8:01 pm)Forsaken Wrote: Islam is increasing at an exponential rate.
Fortunately they have a high attrition rate.
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 8:26 pm
(This post was last modified: February 8, 2015 at 8:27 pm by Faith No More.)
(February 8, 2015 at 8:15 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Of course, you know that the IQ of half the population is below 100, right?
That's no excuse, because you don't have to be smart to learn good reasoning skills.
And if that is true, how come it's more like 75% of human beings that are stupid?
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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RE: Is religion declining?
February 8, 2015 at 8:34 pm
(February 8, 2015 at 8:15 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Of course, you know that the IQ of half the population is below 100, right? No amount of IQ points will help against deeply-ingrained presuppositions and emotional arguments. I think that what has worked most effectively against religion is both time and the steady march of scientific progress. We should have reasoned gods away centuries ago, but with so many people unwilling to apply it, the best thing to do is let science and knowledge and the constant stream of unfulfilled threats chip away at it.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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