Why does religion continue to grow?

[abaris]

Religion dies in the face of education.  Guess where the final frontier for religion is?

The decline of the city of Rome with the advent of christianity speaks volumes. The idiots couldn't even be arsed to repair the aqueducts.

[Esquilax]

I'm interested to hear your theories of why by 2050, contrary to 300 years of predictions, almost 3,000,000,000 Christians will be sitting in pews around the world praying for the salvation of your grand kids. 

Golly gee, you mean a movement committed to cultural dominance, that routinely indoctrinates children into believing in it unquestioningly and backs up that demand for a total lack of resistance with threats of hell and, in some cases, social ostracism and other sanctions, that appeals to the least rational parts of our mind and reinvents itself utterly to take fiat credit for every secular social movement might, by hook or by crook, continue to grow? Who would have thought?!

Of course your religion isn't going to instantaneously shrink down to nothing; it has some of the most vicious mental hooks and self-reinforcement baked into it from the beginning, candy coated into supposedly good things by people trained for generations to swallow the doublethink it demands without question. It's going to be a long road, but I promise you this: the mainstream churches being attended in 2050 will be damn near unrecognizable to a christian from the year 2015. That's the nature of a church that remains amorphous enough to remain vital; it may not be getting strangled to death by the myopia of its own ideas, but it has no character of its own beyond the blandest of pablum.

[Minimalist]

In spite of your superior intellect, logic, and scientific proof to the contrary, your message that God is dead does not seem to be getting out.

Religion is growing in the less educated parts of the world....I'm sure you know the type!

[robvalue]

So... a giant appeal to popularity?

The number of people who believe in a claim tells you nothing about whether the claim is true. God could indeed "be dead" as you put it, and millions of people can still worship absolutely nothing regardless. Was the Earth actually flat until people realized it wasn't?

Religion continues mainly because of indoctrination and fear of consequences. Stop indoctrinating your kids before they learn their critical thinking skills and religion will most likely melt into obscurity. No, really, stop it. It's fucking sickening. Let them make their own mind up.

[Longhorn]

You know, obesity continues to grow too....

[dyresand]

You know, obesity continues to grow too....

Well there is a link between obesity and religion. 

[abaris]

You know, obesity continues to grow too....

Well there is a link between obesity and religion. 

Not necessarily. You have to have access to food to grow fat.

[SteveII]

So, what I am hearing is that the God Delusion thrives where there is lower education levels. It would follow that at least after awhile, highly educated countries should see precipitous drops in religion--despite birth rates. While that has been the prediction for hundreds of years, that's not the case. There are more Christians and Muslims every year--even in developed countries.. Perhaps your arguments are not as convincing as you think they are.

[abaris]

So, what I am hearing is that the God Delusion thrives where there is lower education levels. It would follow that at least after awhile, highly educated countries should see precipitous drops in religion--despite birth rates. While that has been the prediction for hundreds of years, that's not the case. There are more Christians and Muslims every year--even in developed countries.. Perhaps your arguments are not as convincing as you think they are.

Gallup is your friend. Look especially at the most religious countries.

http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf

[The Grand Nudger]

So, what I am hearing is that the God Delusion thrives where there is lower education levels. It would follow that at least after awhile, highly educated countries should see precipitous drops in religion--despite birth rates. While that has been the prediction for hundreds of years, that's not the case. There are more Christians and Muslims every year--even in developed countries.. Perhaps your arguments are not as convincing as you think they are.

Yep, and that -is- what we see.  There are more -people- every year, even in developed countries.  By brute force of demographics that means there are more religious people every year (and lets nod the hat to the fact that immigrants account for growth in places like the US, so we see the immigrants religious beliefs grow as a share of the pie even while the overall slice of "religion" in that pie becomes smaller).  This number does not and cannot speak to the point you wish to advance - the contention you hope to make, and you know that, you're not an idiot...so stop acting like one?

What does it all mean, why is religion growing? Because that's how math works, and that's how human reproduction works? How about you, why do -you- think religion continues to grow? I'm tired of this hand-washing post business where the OP asks a question they are too timid to answer themselves, and then jumps down their respondents throats..grab your nuts....lets hear it, Steve?