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On March 23 2011 11:16 aka_star wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 10:34 Warf wrote:i got the list from this study from highest percentage of non believers in god(s) to lowest ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/byAG0.jpg) Meh, Flip this graph around and you'll see that most of these countries have 50%+ believers so it really is saying to me that there are a huge percentage of religious people on the majority of these countries. Plus my own travel experience and people I've met through 10 years of backpacking leads me to believe religion is growing strongly in certain parts of the world such as China as they discover Christianity, sounds like an amateurish piece of media at first glance.
Wait wait wait. China 8% non-believers? I call bullshit. Unless you count ancestor worship or Confucianism or something.
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On March 23 2011 11:13 101toss wrote:
Just a note about the results of attempting to forcefully eradicate religion.
There were these people called Nazis. They thought Jews, people who believe in Judaism, should be eradicated. Then we had the final solution, the holocaust, an event to "purify" the world of the Jewish religion.
If you want to eliminate religion, you can't force it upon others (unless you plan on exterminating people). It will have to be a voluntary switch, a phasing out. That voluntary switch won't happen, though.
Why not? Because obviously your way is right and its right just because it is. disregard proof and logic.
And the study is not trying to achieve the extermination of those who are religious, its merely showing a reason as to why people think religion will become extinct.
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On March 23 2011 11:18 Kenderson wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 10:32 101toss wrote:On March 23 2011 10:24 TMStarcraft wrote:
I just wanted post yay! and end it there. But I'm truly glad that Australia was included in that list. Frankly I'm suprised that such a list can actually exist. Will religion ever disappear? Probably not, but small steps towards something cannot be a bad thing.
What do you guys think? How do you feel about your country being/not being listed? Religion is a touchy subject but it is one the definitely needs to be discussed. While you certainly have the right to your opinion, the rhetoric used here seems like it will start a flame war. After all, we're not here to bash religion, are we? On the article, horribly worded. Religion will never go extinct. It may have gone down in certain regions. Will it lower its prevalance in, say, the middle east? Or a large portion of America? Probably not. Beliefs are passed down from generation to generation, and in these regions, not being religiously affiliated makes one a pariah to an extent. Btw, I'm lutheran, and won't renounce my beliefs. Ever.Also, I'm expecting a lot of red text in this thread in a few moments. Closed mindedness is a big part of the problem. With sufficient evidence you should be open to changing your opinion on anything.
Well, you can't fiat everyone to change their mindset as you please, can you? :/
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On March 23 2011 11:18 Redmark wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:16 aka_star wrote:On March 23 2011 10:34 Warf wrote:i got the list from this study from highest percentage of non believers in god(s) to lowest Meh, Flip this graph around and you'll see that most of these countries have 50%+ believers so it really is saying to me that there are a huge percentage of religious people on the majority of these countries. Plus my own travel experience and people I've met through 10 years of backpacking leads me to believe religion is growing strongly in certain parts of the world such as China as they discover Christianity, sounds like an amateurish piece of media at first glance. Wait wait wait. China 8% non-believers? I call bullshit. Unless you count ancestor worship or Confucianism or something.
Buddism/islam/worshipping of minor gods, all count
china is a heavily religious country with MANY religions
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On March 23 2011 11:13 whiteguycash wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:07 BlackMagister wrote:On March 23 2011 11:00 whiteguycash wrote:On March 23 2011 10:48 Igakusei wrote:On March 23 2011 10:38 whiteguycash wrote:How quaint, an Atheist support group. On March 23 2011 10:38 Consolidate wrote:On March 23 2011 10:32 bumatlarge wrote:
As some one who has been a christian for his entire life, you eventually are going to have to start killing people before you make religion extinct. Whether that is sad to hear or not, it's the truth. You aren't going to be around forever. Religions are just advanced cults. It would be very difficult to eradicated cultist tendencies and behaviors. The best we can do is relegate Christianity to the same category as something like Scientology. Really, with that mindset, why wait at all? I mean, I would assume that you are a naturalist, and doesn't naturalist thinking promote evolutionary standards, up to and including the mind and society? Why wait, when your own school of though encourages eradication of different beliefs? [. . .]Just because we evolved through natural selection doesn't mean that we should continue to use "survival of the fittest" as an excuse to murder or otherwise eradicate our weaker cousins.[. . .] That might be right for you, but thats not right for me. Since we have nothing transcendental past ourselves, our own morals and decisions are relative. For someone championing naturalism, you really need to learn to follow the thoughts and worldviews developed into their logical conclusion. Or I guess you don't. Its all relative anyways. Naturalism is not the same as eugenics. Just because someone believes in evolution does not mean they think human society should be governed by "survival of the fittest." We can have standards of morality without religion and it's not like there is one standard set of morality even within religions because of various interpretations. But why bother? you are only held accountable to people, and there is no grand scheme, so why not do whatever you want? I find it interesting, By the way, that so very many renowned Atheist celebrities would agree with my school of thought.
Because you don't want other people to do the same to you. It's just common sense, there doesn't need to be any mysticism involved. And I find it interesting that you state, 'so very many renowned Atheist celebrities would agree with my school of thought' without saying who they are. Why even put that out there?
I'm making a leap here but it sounds to me like if you didn't believe in religion or didn't have religion in your life you'd go around breaking laws and causing havoc. Is that correct?
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On March 23 2011 11:14 Kojak21 wrote:
I like to beleive that im not killing/doing bad things to people, because i think its wrong, not because i think im gunna be punished for it
actually biblically, God calls his believers to obey out of joy because of what Jesus has done for us. If we go to "heaven" by our works, the bible says no one goes to be with God - and Christianity is exactly the same as every other religion. That is, if you're good, you'll receive good. Christianity says that if God is good (and you believe that God showed it through Jesus on the cross), you'll receive good. So i would definitely agree with you.
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This article is silly. Most people who find religion abhorrent have no fair basis to judge the beauty it brings to the lives of those who believe.
Hypocrisy is not religion. Please stop confusing the two. Hypocrisy is the main cause of the world's problems, not religion.
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On March 23 2011 11:14 Kojak21 wrote:
I like to beleive that im not killing/doing bad things to people, because i think its wrong, not because i think im gunna be punished for it
Damn striaght.
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On March 23 2011 11:05 101toss wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:01 hejakev wrote:
This is a slippery slope. You take out religion and next thing you know: gay rights, cures for life-threatening ailment through stem cell research, fewer genocides, less war and terrorism. The human race is going to be so boring afterward :/ When you try to take out religion, you'll be the victim of terrorism, war and genocide. If religion dies, moral code dies with it. After all, why should we forgive if Jesus was wrong? Of course, only in utopia/dystopia will religion completely die. In other words it will never happen.
Morality and religion are 2 WAY different things, sir. I guess, since you are american and protestant, you should read Friedrich Schleiermacher to get a grip of the seperation between religion, metaphysics(science) and morality.
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On March 23 2011 11:17 goiflin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:13 101toss wrote:
Just a note about the results of attempting to forcefully eradicate religion.
There were these people called Nazis. They thought Jews, people who believe in Judaism, should be eradicated. Then we had the final solution, the holocaust, an event to "purify" the world of the Jewish religion.
If you want to eliminate religion, you can't force it upon others (unless you plan on exterminating people). It will have to be a voluntary switch, a phasing out. That voluntary switch won't happen, though.
What's that law called? The one that states that the longer a conversation goes on for, the greater likelyhood there is for someone to make a nazi comparison? Anyway, that's flawed. They didn't actively eradicate christians. Their objectives weren't eliminating religion, it was eliminating a religion.
The internet law is Godwin's law. Although the usage here actually has some relevance to the issue at hand.
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On March 23 2011 11:13 whiteguycash wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:07 BlackMagister wrote:On March 23 2011 11:00 whiteguycash wrote:On March 23 2011 10:48 Igakusei wrote:On March 23 2011 10:38 whiteguycash wrote:How quaint, an Atheist support group. On March 23 2011 10:38 Consolidate wrote:On March 23 2011 10:32 bumatlarge wrote:
As some one who has been a christian for his entire life, you eventually are going to have to start killing people before you make religion extinct. Whether that is sad to hear or not, it's the truth. You aren't going to be around forever. Religions are just advanced cults. It would be very difficult to eradicated cultist tendencies and behaviors. The best we can do is relegate Christianity to the same category as something like Scientology. Really, with that mindset, why wait at all? I mean, I would assume that you are a naturalist, and doesn't naturalist thinking promote evolutionary standards, up to and including the mind and society? Why wait, when your own school of though encourages eradication of different beliefs? [. . .]Just because we evolved through natural selection doesn't mean that we should continue to use "survival of the fittest" as an excuse to murder or otherwise eradicate our weaker cousins.[. . .] That might be right for you, but thats not right for me. Since we have nothing transcendental past ourselves, our own morals and decisions are relative. For someone championing naturalism, you really need to learn to follow the thoughts and worldviews developed into their logical conclusion. Or I guess you don't. Its all relative anyways. Naturalism is not the same as eugenics. Just because someone believes in evolution does not mean they think human society should be governed by "survival of the fittest." We can have standards of morality without religion and it's not like there is one standard set of morality even within religions because of various interpretations. But why bother? you are only held accountable to people, and there is no grand scheme, so why not do whatever you want? I find it interesting, By the way, that so very many renowned Atheist celebrities would agree with my school of thought.
Who? Like Sam Harris?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape
The moral relativism thing is pretty silly. There are societies where most people do not believe in God, but they don't go around killing and raping each other. Life even without Heave and Hell, God/Jesus and The Devil still has meaning. I treat people kindly because I know my actions have consequences and I want to live in a world where we can get along. I know some people do exploit others and want to correct that. Some thiests claim without God they would kill, but of course they wouldn't. Even without God there are things to care about, there are consequences to actions even if you're just held to them by other humans and not something supernatural.
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One can only hope this trend is correct. Religion is one of the largest dividing forces in our world. I think we would be much more peaceful and unified without it.
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On March 23 2011 10:32 Malgrif wrote:
"God is dead" -Nietzsche, 1882
"Hell, it's about time" -Starcraft 2, 2010
"Nietzsche is dead" - God, 1900
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On March 23 2011 11:20 101toss wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:17 goiflin wrote:On March 23 2011 11:13 101toss wrote:
Just a note about the results of attempting to forcefully eradicate religion.
There were these people called Nazis. They thought Jews, people who believe in Judaism, should be eradicated. Then we had the final solution, the holocaust, an event to "purify" the world of the Jewish religion.
If you want to eliminate religion, you can't force it upon others (unless you plan on exterminating people). It will have to be a voluntary switch, a phasing out. That voluntary switch won't happen, though.
What's that law called? The one that states that the longer a conversation goes on for, the greater likelyhood there is for someone to make a nazi comparison? Anyway, that's flawed. They didn't actively eradicate christians. Their objectives weren't eliminating religion, it was eliminating a religion. The internet law is Godwin's law. Although the usage here actually has some relevance to the issue at hand.
People who Godwin threads always think that.
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On March 23 2011 11:20 0neder wrote:
This article is silly. Most people who find religion abhorrent have no fair basis to judge the beauty it brings to the lives of those who believe.
Hypocrisy is not religion. Please stop confusing the two. Hypocrisy is the main cause of the world's problems, not religion.
Religion is hypocritcal inherently though, god loves all its children except for the homosexual ones etc
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On March 23 2011 11:18 stalefish wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:13 101toss wrote:
Just a note about the results of attempting to forcefully eradicate religion.
There were these people called Nazis. They thought Jews, people who believe in Judaism, should be eradicated. Then we had the final solution, the holocaust, an event to "purify" the world of the Jewish religion.
If you want to eliminate religion, you can't force it upon others (unless you plan on exterminating people). It will have to be a voluntary switch, a phasing out. That voluntary switch won't happen, though.
Why not? Because obviously your way is right and its right just because it is. disregard proof and logic. And the study is not trying to achieve the extermination of those who are religious, its merely showing a reason as to why people think religion will become extinct.
lol so true
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On March 23 2011 11:13 whiteguycash wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:07 BlackMagister wrote:On March 23 2011 11:00 whiteguycash wrote:On March 23 2011 10:48 Igakusei wrote:On March 23 2011 10:38 whiteguycash wrote:How quaint, an Atheist support group. On March 23 2011 10:38 Consolidate wrote:On March 23 2011 10:32 bumatlarge wrote:
As some one who has been a christian for his entire life, you eventually are going to have to start killing people before you make religion extinct. Whether that is sad to hear or not, it's the truth. You aren't going to be around forever. Religions are just advanced cults. It would be very difficult to eradicated cultist tendencies and behaviors. The best we can do is relegate Christianity to the same category as something like Scientology. Really, with that mindset, why wait at all? I mean, I would assume that you are a naturalist, and doesn't naturalist thinking promote evolutionary standards, up to and including the mind and society? Why wait, when your own school of though encourages eradication of different beliefs? [. . .]Just because we evolved through natural selection doesn't mean that we should continue to use "survival of the fittest" as an excuse to murder or otherwise eradicate our weaker cousins.[. . .] That might be right for you, but thats not right for me. Since we have nothing transcendental past ourselves, our own morals and decisions are relative. For someone championing naturalism, you really need to learn to follow the thoughts and worldviews developed into their logical conclusion. Or I guess you don't. Its all relative anyways. Naturalism is not the same as eugenics. Just because someone believes in evolution does not mean they think human society should be governed by "survival of the fittest." We can have standards of morality without religion and it's not like there is one standard set of morality even within religions because of various interpretations. But why bother? you are only held accountable to people, and there is no grand scheme, so why not do whatever you want? I find it interesting, By the way, that so very many renowned Atheist celebrities would agree with my school of thought.
As an atheist who has absolutely no logical reason to believe in an afterlife, I absolutely want to make the best out of this life that I can.
That being said, that's a bit different than me doing "whatever I want".
I have specific passions.
I love to play tennis, so I play tennis when I get the chance.
I love math and I love to educate people, so I'm going to be a math teacher. That also allows me to make a difference in future generations, so I can leave my impression (however small that will be) on some people.
I can't wait to have a family, because I want to keep my genes going and spread the love that I received as a kid.
I choose not to do drugs, because that would endanger (possibly shorten) my lifespan.
I don't do illegal things, because I could end up in jail and waste part of my life.
I treat others with respect, and so I'm treated with respect.
I make relatively healthy and intelligent choices overall.
Why do I need to believe in a grand scheme or a deity? Because they would be cool ideas? Perhaps (or perhaps not), but I'd rather believe in facts that I know will directly affect me anyway.
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On March 23 2011 11:03 GreEny K wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 23 2011 10:58 danl9rm wrote:
I'm assuming Christianity is a religion according to this thread.
For religion to completely die out, the gospel would have to be false.
Religion, therefore, will never die. I agree with Statement 1. I agree with Statement 2. I think 3 is a non-sequitur, because... well, the onus is on you to prove the gospel to be true. lol. Actually you would have to disprove something to make it false. If something is a commonly held belief then it is considered to be true, when people thought the Earth was the center of the universe... It was a common belief, and had to be disproved.
1) Something that is a commonly held belief does not make it true. Whenever you make a claim, you have to prove it. On both sides. A lot of people thought the Earth was the center of the universe. We now know this is not true. However, if you go back in time a few thousand years, you wouldn't go back to thinking the wrong thing just because everyone else did.
Whoever makes a claim has to prove it. Galileo made a claim, and he proved it. Then everyone realized that he was right. Oops I mean the church made him throw away his work and not support it. When he stood up to them, they put him on house arrest for the rest of his life.
In fact, geocentricity was disproven long before Galileo by ancient astronomers, but that was probably against some people's best interest.
On March 23 2011 11:05 101toss wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:01 hejakev wrote:
This is a slippery slope. You take out religion and next thing you know: gay rights, cures for life-threatening ailment through stem cell research, fewer genocides, less war and terrorism. The human race is going to be so boring afterward :/ When you try to take out religion, you'll be the victim of terrorism, war and genocide. If religion dies, moral code dies with it. After all, why should we forgive if Jesus was wrong? Of course, only in utopia/dystopia will religion completely die. In other words it will never happen.
Do you only forgive based on the fact that you are not letting Jesus die in vein? If the answer is yes,
1) You are not a very good person morally, even if you are religious
2) Your moral code dies if religion dies.
For other people, they are nice, honest, etc. for the sake of being a good person, without being threatened with hell for endless eternity and promised rewards of heaven. For these people, religion dying will do nothing to their morality. In fact, I would much trust people with morality based on strictly the want of being a good person than the ones who base their morality on consequence.
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On March 23 2011 11:18 stalefish wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:13 101toss wrote:
Just a note about the results of attempting to forcefully eradicate religion.
There were these people called Nazis. They thought Jews, people who believe in Judaism, should be eradicated. Then we had the final solution, the holocaust, an event to "purify" the world of the Jewish religion.
If you want to eliminate religion, you can't force it upon others (unless you plan on exterminating people). It will have to be a voluntary switch, a phasing out. That voluntary switch won't happen, though.
Why not? Because obviously your way is right and its right just because it is. disregard proof and logic. And the study is not trying to achieve the extermination of those who are religious, its merely showing a reason as to why people think religion will become extinct.
I never posited my ideas as absolute truths. These are merely my views and opinions (and are certainly biased to an extent), and you have your freedom to refute my thought as you please.
And yes, the study has nothing to do with killing religion. It's merely statistical data. However, a majority of the posters here suggest that killing religion outright would be the best thing for the world. Thus, the thread devolved from discussing the data into discussing the validity of religion.
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atheism is just as useless as religion. take this thread for example.
the only way to win is not to play
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EPT
