The end of Religion is inevitable?

[Birdjaguar]

I hope that Islam will become more humane.
I do not care much about other religions.

Sufism (mystical Islam) is very humane.

 

[Crezth]

The end of religion will never occur and indeed, has not occurred to any extent in the world we are living in.

 

[Narz]

Taking people's churches from them, through brute force or through taxation backed by brute force, hurts them. It's flat malicious.

Many people who don't prefer to pay tax feel the same.

I chose to be an atheist, after some deliberation.

For me it's not something I chose. It's rather a non-choice. Like if five salesmen are trying to sell me some hokey service I can't bring myself to buy because it seems like a scam that I would feel dumb buying into I wouldnt say I choose not to buy the fraudulent service, I would say I couldn't bring myself to buy it or choose any of the options. But maybe that's just semantics

That is shockingly low

Have you been to church? So boring. I'm shocked anyone at all drags themself there on their day off.

I hope that Islam will become more humane.

I hope it goes extinct.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

No, put those rolling eyes back in your head, boy.

Attitudes like that are partly what prompted me to seek out what atheist groups might be around on FB. I've found a couple I'm comfortable in, and have seen very little of this type of condescending rudeness.

So I guess I should thank you. Your posts are part of the reason I did that.

Just the how, not the why. But, to clarify, are you claiming that those ancient structures were not built using mathematics and an understanding of physics, and materials, and so forth?

There are still a lamentable number of people who are convinced that humans couldn't possibly have built the pyramids at all, and that space aliens did it.

And, to get back to the topic of the future of religion, do you believe that science and engineering, going forward, require religion as a kind of - pardon the pun - engine to drive it? That is, do you think people need religion to want to develop technology, build things, and advance our understanding of the universe? (Or perhaps, given your comment about 'zillenials', to just get up and go to work in the morning.)

My view is that they require a reason or purpose, and if religion is involved, whatever, as long as it's not something intended to forcibly convert everyone.

I haven't made any such claim. Only that if you're going to describe this historical knowledge in the lens of Greek to Roman to Western European thought(or Arabic, or Chinese, I'm not picky), you can track where that thought was at the time for many of these and whether or not such thought was widely shared.

If you are just going to rename any observation and repetition with learning or counting as "science" then sure, godscience organized it somehow.

"Godscience"?

Can we please NOT get into this nonsensical BS of science being a religion?

Yeah, your outputs to our conversations might as well be random noise for all I can tell, too.

Don't worry. Your religion that isn't a religion is very nice and I'm sure you're all good people. For real and stuff. Or, if it isn't a religion because it isn't an organized practice, then I'm sure they didn't need to practice to improve at being good. It comes naturally to a chosen or blessed people who are not held in the thrall of dark dieties.

Televangelists are entertaining to watch. Nuns are humbling to watch. Within thier deviations, of course. Archbishop Fulton Sheen wasn't any Gospel of Prosperity Baptist, for example.

Televangelists are nothing more than con artists who are fleecing the gullible. Nuns? If they're sincerely helping people, fine, and if that help doesn't come with strings attached. If they're hypocrites like that sadist, "Mother" Theresa, they can (I can't really say without violating forum rules against inappropriate language).

I agree. It doesn't seem plausible. That was always something that stuck in my craw about the future envisioned in Star Trek, more so than the magical technology or the "we don't use money" Federation or all of the aliens that looked just like Humans, but with funny foreheads. Deep Space Nine corrected that somewhat, by making religion a big part of their stories.

The mentions of religion in Star Trek need to be considered according to which decade the relevant series was made and whether or not Gene Roddenberry had any input into the scripts. He tackled a lot of religious themes in TOS, but wanted to show a future where humanity wasn't shackled into any particular religion, and where religion wasn't holding science back. So there was a room on the Enterprise that was used as a chapel ("Balance of Terror" and at Spock's shipboard funeral, Scotty played "Amazing Grace" (it always annoyed me that audiences in the theatre would laugh at that).

TNG, in matters of religion, was full of Picard's Pompous Blatherings ^TM because Roddenberry didn't want religion to be something that Earth people subscribed to.

Roddenberry had no input into DS9, so the producers and writers were free to have a religion-themed storyline. Kudos, they made me like Keiko in one episode because of how well she stood up to Vedek Wynn in that episode about the school on the station. Note that it was the Bajoran religious leader who decided to get violent, when all Keiko wanted to do was teach a science class to the kids on the station.

Voyager also had some religious story arcs. Yes, Chakotay's arc was so ridiculously clumsy, but they also explored the Talaxian beliefs, various alien cultures' beliefs, there's still debate going on as to whether Harry Kim and Naomi Wildman are "real" because the two of them who finished the trip and arrived at Earth aren't the same who set out, since both of them were killed and these two are from an alternate dimension, and even the Borg had some ideas that weren't strictly based on logic (ie. the Omega molecule).

Are we less superstitious, or are there fewer oportunities for superstition then there were 500 years ago?

As long as there are lotteries or other similar contests, there will be superstition as people will buy into it because they "feel lucky" or they have "lucky numbers" (even if those numbers don't usually win).

I'll need some evidence warfare pre-dates religion. Most ancient wars were because of religion.

Wars often use religion as the excuse, but they aren't the main reason. The main reason is either revenge for real or perceived wrongs perpetrated by the other side, or it's for acquisition of land and goods. That includes people, as slavery has been going on all over the world for many thousands of years and continues even now. I'm frequently flabbergasted by the number of people on comment pages who think it was confined to the U.S. during a several-century span of time that's actually fairly recent, as human history goes.

I think there's a term for this, the window within which humanity could destroy itself. We've already entered the window, with the invention of the atomic bomb (or maybe with the invention of the hydrogen bomb). We may not know we've exited the window until after we have. Star Trek envisions a future in which humanity has exited the window and is no longer in danger of obliterating itself.

Mostly. But then there's the Mirror Universe in which humanity is quite capable of getting obliterated, depending on who's in charge at any particular time.

Taking people's churches from them, through brute force or through taxation backed by brute force, hurts them. It's flat malicious. They are an end. Unless of course, only things that help ME are a legitimate end. ME.

Nobody said anything about taking churches through brute force.

Taxing them would. Which you know. Which is why you suggest it? I guess if you haven't dealt with real estate taxes much, I'd forgive the oversight. But paying taxes does not relate neatly to providing public good. McMansions in the burbs pay taxes that would break Southside Chicago churches in locations people that live in Chicago can actually be part of.

But you want a use do you. Alright, they're the only people I know that willing spend time with the old, alone, and dying, for free. At least that's how it's played out around here. I'm sure there are people that do it for money.

So you're fine with the obscene amount of riches in the Vatican and other churches and cathedrals that drip with gold and other fancies that cost $$$$$$$ while their own worshipers may be people who can't even count on eating on any given day and may not have a roof over them?

Y'know what happened when Pope Francis finally got off his entitled backside and came to Canada to formally apologize to the indigenous people for how the Catholic church treated them in the years of the residential schools? He was accompanied by a bunch of archbishops, some of whom had the utter gall to ask the indigenous people they were supposed to be there for to fundraise for money to pay for the archbishops to come. Not to mention asking that the indigenous medical personnel who would be present at these gatherings donate their time.

Apparently they think indigenous doctors shouldn't be paid. The doctors said no, and rightfully so.

And in the end? Francis couldn't bring himself to say the words, while he was on Canadian soil, that would admit that the Catholic church attempted to commit cultural genocide with the residential schools. He didn't say it until he was in the airplane back to Rome.

Coward.

In the UK I know that a lot of religious practices, for example being wed in a church, are vanishing in a few generations. That is easily observable. It's not overly complex. I know this not because I was at my grandparents wedding.. But that I have been told.

Its anecdotal of course...but I see this trend across all my peers.

It would have been quite scandalous a few generations back, is now the norm.

Not sure about my mother's parents. But my dad's parents were married by a judge at the courthouse. My parents were married in a church, and my mother's second marriage took place at the courthouse.

I've never been married, but I do know that if I'd ever intended to, it wouldn't happen in a church.

 

[Gorbles]

Anecdotally again r.e. being married in a church - it happens even if you're not a believer. They try to make you jump through hoops, but generally so long as someone puts in a good word, you're often good to go.

It's been a cultural norm for more than a few generations regardless of the faith of those attending. My paternal grandparents can attest to that.

 

[PhroX]

Anecdotally again r.e. being married in a church - it happens even if you're not a believer. They try to make you jump through hoops, but generally so long as someone puts in a good word, you're often good to go.

It's been a cultural norm for more than a few generations regardless of the faith of those attending. My paternal grandparents can attest to that.

I think this reflects a larger point that many people seem to overlook: while Britain is definitely becoming less religiously Christian - i.e. less people are Christians - we are still overwhelmingly culturally Christian.

 

[Kyriakos]

Religions die at some point, and then can get replaced by other religions.
1000 years from now, assuming something of a humanity does exist, it is highly unlikely we will still have christianity or similar. It is typically marginalized, watered-down, or both, even today.
Its continued existence owes a considerable amount to the cultural allure of national foundational myths - which too will die if those nations die (and they obviously will have died, 1000 years down the line; they aren't the Byzantine Empire ).

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Religions die at some point, and then can get replaced by other religions.
1000 years from now, assuming something of a humanity does exist, it is highly unlikely we will still have christianity or similar.

Of course not, we'll have Zen-Sunnism and the Orange Bible.

But jokes aside Hinduism has existed for thousands of years, and doesn't look like popping off anytime soon

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Anecdotally again r.e. being married in a church - it happens even if you're not a believer. They try to make you jump through hoops, but generally so long as someone puts in a good word, you're often good to go.

It's been a cultural norm for more than a few generations regardless of the faith of those attending. My paternal grandparents can attest to that.

A few generations ago in the UK it would be ubiquitous.. you couldn't get married any other way. That is not the case now.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

A few generations ago in the UK it would be ubiquitous.. you couldn't get married any other way. That is not the case now.

1836 is quite a few generations ago.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

1836 is quite a few generations ago.

My 4th Great Grandfather (John) was born 1796.. its really not that many generations.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

1836 is quite a few generations ago.

Marriage Act 1836 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Marriage Act 1836 allowed marriages to be legally registered in buildings belonging to other religious groups.

 

[Gorbles]

A few generations ago in the UK it would be ubiquitous.. you couldn't get married any other way. That is not the case now.

And yet, like PhroX said, this doesn't map to actually being Christian.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

And yet, like PhroX said, this doesn't map to actually being Christian.

Yet it does. We are not culturally getting increasingly Christian as a nation either. It just is slower.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Of course not, we'll have Zen-Sunnism and the Orange Bible.

But jokes aside Hinduism has existed for thousands of years, and doesn't look like popping off anytime soon

Zen-Sunni are the Fremen. It's the Imperium that follows the Orange Catholic Bible.

Not that the Fremen are gung-ho about thinking machines, either.

 

[Gorbles]

Yet it does. We are not culturally getting increasingly Christian as a nation either. It just is slower.

No, it factually doesn't map. We can't assume that because someone got married in a church, they are therefore Christian. We can assume it as a possibility, but it's in no way a guarantee.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Marriage Act 1836 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Marriage Act 1836 allowed marriages to be legally registered in buildings belonging to other religious groups.

Yes that's what wikipedia says, but it actually included registry offices.

 

[Farm Boy]

Hi Valka. Maybe property taxes work different there. Here, real estate taxes would destroy all the little urban churches. But a bunch of ***holes would wind up with new property for the capitalist machine!

Don't worry, I only laugh at eye rolling when, yeah. It was a laugh worthy conclusion from where I sit, but I clarified. If you take issue with the idea that people get better at the things they practice, well, I guess that's a stance. Either way, it's nice you found people who share your social outlook on people. Kudos.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

No, it factually doesn't map. We can't assume that because someone got married in a church, they are therefore Christian. We can assume it as a possibility, but it's in no way a guarantee.

It is not a stretch to suggest those not getting married in a church.. are not Christian.

But this is insanity. Religion is decreasing, this is verifiable fact. My question is will it thus end completely.

 

[PhroX]

There are probably more religious people alive now than at any point in history.