(September 2, 2013 at 7:15 am)John V Wrote: This contradicts the premise of the OP: "The reality of the planet is that most people retain the religious beliefs of their parents."
If the number of people who join a religion (or change their faith) is lower than those who leave, over time the number of non-believers would increase. I have no idea how often the former occurs, though.
"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
-Stephen Jay Gould
