Yes I do. So I'll take a look at the things you listed here.
I disagree. I truly believe religion and science can go together.
I worded that point badly. Religion and science can exist together but science to me seems to be extremely harmful to religion. Science forces religion to adapt its views (or risk looking completely irrational) and shakes the faith of religion's followers. Science also usurped one of religion's important functions (to explain the origin of the world and natural phenomena)
Belief in supernatural forces is hardly at the heart of most religions.
I think that we are using differing definitions of religion. In my opinion, belief in supernatural forces is what defines a religion. Without it, a religion is just a philosophical and ethical belief system like Confucianism (though I don't know much about Confucianism. I have been told that it contains very little if any mention of the supernatural).
I'm Catholic, so I'm farmiliar with the sensation of a dull and boring church service. But I go because I learn something when I do, as well as because it's one of the ways my family spends time together, and for the sense of community there is among the parishoners. Believe me, there were plenty fun things to do outside church long before this century, and it hasn't stopped.
Going to church has values such as spending time with family, and a stronger sense of community. But in the modern world, things such as entertainment and work may make going to church seem less appealing and more inconvenient to some people and this in the long term and in the large scale corrodes the faith of the followers of a religion, undermines the values of that religion, and deters people from practicing that faith. Modern day life IMO is very damaging to organized religion.
As I hope I've made clear, there is a lot more to religion than what makes up the origins and the workings of the universe.
That may be, but explaining such things was once a very large aspect of religion. Now that science has taken over the task of explaining these things, it is one less function that religion fulfills and one less force driving people to be religious.
That's fine by me. I think faith should be a personal thing, and nobody should tell you how to or make anybody who doesn't want to.
Secularism and religious freedom are good for society but the point I was trying to make was that they are bad for religion. When you are brought up in a non-secular country and taught a certain faith in school, than you are more likely to hold religious beliefs than if you were brought up in a non-secular country and taught non-religious subjects in school. Secularism greatly reduces the proliferation of religious ideas onto succeeding generations.
Will religion collapse? No.
I don't see many of your arguments as all that convincing to be honest. There are plenty of scientific, rational people out there who concede there is at least the possibility of the unscientific existing.
You are writing from the same old ignorant viewpoint that you are accusing religious people of having - namely, that there is some sort of polarity between religion and science.
Step away from false dichotomies and generalisms for a moment... your treatment of the concepts is unbalanced and unfair. One could equally list off the evils that science has wrought and the answers that science hasn't yet discovered, except that would be a dishonest discussion technique, when science has contributed so positiviely to our development as people in so many other ways.
I am not arguing whether religions are true or false or whether they are good or evil. I am pointing out factors that may undermine the values of organized religion, erode the faith of religion's followers, and slow the proliferation of religious ideas from person to person. I use these points to support my opinion that religions will one day collapse - not because their teachings are false but because of the social forces that are working against them.
About the polarity between religion and science: though they are not opposites and can co-exist, you cannot deny that science is a major factor in religion's decline.
Is that what you're getting on about? Way to make a mountain out of a molehill, serously. I probably know a good deal more about Okinawan Shinto than you, but what's that got to do with anything?
