(June 27, 2017 at 4:01 pm)SteveII Wrote:(June 27, 2017 at 3:45 pm)Jehanne Wrote: Just look at the evolution of Europe over the last 600 years; as Europe goes, so shall the entire World. [1] Once a country embraces atheism, such as France, there is no turning back, no religious revivals, except among a tiny population, largely, of immigrants. [2] I don't think that most of the board members here give a hoot about liberal religious traditions, such as Episcopalians, who are nearly tolerant of everyone, atheists included, and would balk at imposing their religious and/or moral beliefs upon anyone.
1. That's interesting because for 500 years of the 600 you mention, religion dominated Europe. So, what exactly is the foundation of your premise that the rest of the world will follow it into it's slide into irrelevance?
2. How do you explain that China was the most atheistic country in the world a generation ago and now Christianity is making staggeringly large gains there in the last couple of decades and will become the most Christian nation (surpassing the US in numbers) in the world within 2 generations of being the most atheistic !?!? It seems your conclusions are entirely unfounded.
You don't know China's future any more than I do; in fact, it may be the repression in China with their Great Firewall that is leading scores of individuals down the path of ignorance into the nonsense of religious faith. And, I have no idea of how you can say that Europe, with 300 million people and with over one-half of all Nobel Prize winners, is somehow "irrelevant".
