religion is slowly dying?

[psychoslice]

The principles, precepts and allegories are timeless. They are not dependent on fads and fashions. To commit adultery is equally as bad today as it was 1500 years ago.

Yea, but we don't get stoned to death these days do we ?.

 

[Deadtroopers]

There is no accounting for ignorance and stupidity, so religion could still be with us in two centuries time. Education and the interwebs will probably see religion off; but there are lots of ways in which we could end civilisation and reason would have to begin again. It would be wise for you all to compare what is happening in the spreading oilspots of education and the 'net and the world where they are not. It also depends on how and what questions you ask. I am fairly certain that the vast majority of educated folk don't/won't believe the silliness that most religion involves when the silliness is explained to them and they are asked to defend it. No one likes to be called out as an idiot and we would all like to be taken seriously.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Uh... all of them? What are we, stuck in the box of infantile mythological literalism or something?

That's what literalism is. Literalism only becomes absurd when it deals with metaphors and faith.

What the blazes does "validation" have to do with anything?

So, what, you just up and say God told you such and such and your word (hearsay) should be all the validation anyone you tell that to should need? You're in my territory here where science and reason rule. I can understand you're desire to have patsies waiting with bated breath for what they're sure will be you next string of pearls. Can you spell h-o-l-l-o-w?

Well, yeah. But since when were we talking about supernaturalism? I thought this thread was about religions.

Unvalidated supernatural, religion, duh.

*blink* Okay, now I'm just confused. The sciences don't disprove religions and are not in the business of doing so.

Science is in the business of proving natural facts, and disproving false/supernatural evidence. So far, within this universe, it infinity to zero in favor of reason and science.

Religions quite clearly exist, and are studied by various social sciences. Religions aren't science. Why in the blazes would we pretend that they are and treat them like they are?

Because skeptics are continually doubting supernatural claims, and the religious (who don't know that their faith is blind) are continually appealing to logic and reason, a la Creationism etc. They don't know it but the tear of doubt in their slip is showing.

They're far more akin to the fine arts than to the sciences, even for paths like my own that deliberately integrate the sciences into their framework. Might as well ask a painting to offer up some "rational" evidence for itself. Rubbish.

Science is objective while art/beauty is subjective. But in today's scientific world, people are finding it harder and harder to accept that faith is purely subjective, like art. We can't live our lives in the subjective unless we just want to slip off into a coma and dream of castles in the sky.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

There is no accounting for ignorance and stupidity, so religion could still be with us in two centuries time. Education and the interwebs will probably see religion off; but there are lots of ways in which we could end civilisation and reason would have to begin again. It would be wise for you all to compare what is happening in the spreading oilspots of education and the 'net and the world where they are not. It also depends on how and what questions you ask. I am fairly certain that the vast majority of educated folk don't/won't believe the silliness that most religion involves when the silliness is explained to them and they are asked to defend it. No one likes to be called out as an idiot and we would all like to be taken seriously.

Yes, but religion is morphing into a new phase, using politics as its framework. No, not God ruling a theocracy, socialism is the newest church on the block, yet none of its converts understand they're using the same brick and mortar and that it's just another form of faith based "good old time religion", with Lenin's same useful idiots in the pews and with phoney "compassion" on everyone's lips. Looks like that's what Obama's doing, only morphing mosques instead of churches. Politics and religion have almost always shared the same bed.

 

[Quintessence]

@ThePainefulTruth , my apologies, but I think there are some irreconcilable communications barriers here. What you are talking about when you use the words "religion" and "science" and what I am talking about when I use the words "religion" and "science" seem to be dramatically different. It's going to result in constantly talking past each other, and I don't think a productive discussion can be salvaged. I barely even knew how to respond to your last post, much less your latest one.

 

[Me Myself]

A lot of smart educated people believe in a spiritworld.

I find it very naive to think religion is going out of humanity´s face any time soon.

 

[psychoslice]

A lot of smart educated people believe in a spiritworld.

I find it very naive to think religion is going out of humanity´s face any time soon.

I don't think its education that is needed, I think it needs intelligence, through intelligence religion will change for the better.

 

[Ouroboros]

Yea, but we don't get stoned to death these days do we ?.

With the new laws being passed all over the states, we can get stoned, but not to death.

 

[psychoslice]

With the new laws being passed all over the states, we can get stoned, but not to death.

He he, I think I know what your saying, even that would be better than religion, Oh yea.

 

[madera]

I can't remember where i read this, or perhaps heard it.. but i've heard/read that religions are slowl declining in favour of science.. would you say this is true? in 200 years from now might there be no religion ? your opinion I'm not sure, so I have no answer I guess..

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, if the Holy spirit is within, why do we need to practice just from study?

 

[suzy smith]

It is funny what some people claim about scriptures and what is exactly said. I have never seen anything in scriptures that is unbelievable and certainly not crazy stuff asking us to believe the unbelievable. The flood is a parable, as is the talking snake. The suggestion that we should believe it actually happened is not made in scriptures.

O.K. the virgin birth, will that do? Or dead people coming back to life maybe.
Perhaps you just cherry pick the bits of the bible that fit in with your ideas of what's real and what's a parable?

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

@ThePainefulTruth , my apologies, but I think there are some irreconcilable communications barriers here. What you are talking about when you use the words "religion" and "science" and what I am talking about when I use the words "religion" and "science" seem to be dramatically different. It's going to result in constantly talking past each other, and I don't think a productive discussion can be salvaged. I barely even knew how to respond to your last post, much less your latest one.

Hey, just open your mouth and type. And I don't think we're talking past each other--science is the exploration and study of the (natural, objective) universe, and religion is understood to be a hierarchy of those who claim to have some spiritual Truth. If you aren't talking church=religion, then you're referring to philosophy

A lot of smart educated people believe in a spiritworld.

I find it very naive to think religion is going out of humanity´s face any time soon.

Faith without reason can come in many forms. Christianity is facing a theological crisis that goes back to its origins, and Islam is imploding having been lax in addressing the zealot problem. The new faith based subjective religions are socialism and football.

I don't think its education that is needed, I think it needs intelligence, through intelligence religion will change for the better.

Indoctrination can't be nullified in a vacuum. We have to provide something for intelligence to process. We can't teach people to think without having something rational to think about. Sunday schools and government schools are both forms of education through indoctrination, to teach what? The party line. Revealed religion and it successor, revealed government, no matter what moving target for blind faith will be used, will require less effort than reasoned thought, and thus will always be with us via the couch potato class.

 

[Quintessence]

Hey, just open your mouth and type. And I don't think we're talking past each other--science is the exploration and study of the (natural, objective) universe, and religion is understood to be a hierarchy of those who claim to have some spiritual Truth. If you aren't talking church=religion, then you're referring to philosophy

I appreciate your patient understanding, but I just can't envision religion as being defined as you're defining it. Too many religions lack authoritarian hierarchy, churches, and/or dogma, including my own. Religions that don't fit the Abrahamic caricature are still religions, and on top of that there are branches of Abrahamic religions that are non-authoritarian, non-heirarchical, non-churched, and non-dogmatic too. On the whole, I say religion doesn't conflict with sciences because it's too damned heterogenous to. Specific elements of specific religions may, but on the whole, there is no intrinsic conflict. And regardless of those conflicts, the fundamental religiosity of humanity will endure and science itself is an outgrowth of that.

See religion is slowly dying? | Page 2 | ReligiousForums.com

 

[Moishe3rd]

Jud


Hi, don't mean to be a trouble maker, or a know it all, but Judaism is not the oldest theology. Not even by a long shot. Hinduism, which was recorded in sanskrit, which is the oldest language, is the earliest form of theological philosophy. Exact dates are debatable of course but most scholars agree that Hinduism became apparent culturally, about five thousand years ago. Perhaps you meant the oldest of the Semitic religions.

No, not really.
Vedic literature is not Hinduism. The earliest Upanishads were around 900 BCE. As a culture and religion, Hinduism did not formulate itself until some time later.
Although, everyone is free to believe what they want about their own particular ox.
Avraham Avinu was the first Jew, making Jews about 4,000 yeas old.
Then again, Christianity was fully formed until Constantine made it the religion of the Roman Empire - knocking off about 300 years from Christianity.
And, of course, the Koran and Hadiths weren't written and codified until sometime after Mohammad's death.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Perhaps you just cherry pick the bits of the bible that fit in with your ideas of what's real and what's a parable?

This is very common with religious texts. People impose the meaning they are comfortable with.

 

[Moishe3rd]

But it is still losing tons of members whether you want to admit it or not. This is especially true among the most orthodox sects, which have dropped from 41% of American Jews in the early 70s to less than 18% today. Even among the most liberal religious Jews, they are losing tons of members. Except for the increasingly shrinking number of fanatics, Judaism may not last much longer either.

LOL.
You read your article entirely wrong. That's kind of funny.
"Conservative" Jews are NOT the "most Orthodox" Jews. Torah observant or "Orthodox Jews" ARE the "most" Orthodox Jews.
And, religious Torah observant Judaism is growing by leaps and bounds!
This is good.

 

[Me Myself]

This is very common with religious texts. People impose the meaning they are comfortable with.

It s common with everything really.

 

[Serenity7855]

O.K. the virgin birth, will that do?

Do you think it is possible for science to take DNA and create an ear from it? How long before a leg, an arm. Is it that hard for you to comprehend the possibility of a virgin birth orchestrated by a scientist far more advanced then anything we can conceive?

Or dead people coming back to life maybe.

You think it is far fetched to bring people back from the dead. Spend a day at your local A&E and you might just see it yourself.

Perhaps you just cherry pick the bits of the bible that fit in with your ideas of what's real and what's a parable?

That would be fooling myself, dishonestly. How do you think a belief can be built on lies. No, I do not cherry pick. You have cherry picked with these two examples and I have easily refuted them.

 

[Serenity7855]

This is very common with religious texts. People impose the meaning they are comfortable with.

Impose? Really?

 

[evenpath]

No, not really.
Vedic literature is not Hinduism. The earliest Upanishads were around 900 BCE. As a culture and religion, Hinduism did not formulate itself until some time later.
Although, everyone is free to believe what they want about their own particular ox.
Avraham Avinu was the first Jew, making Jews about 4,000 yeas old.
Then again, Christianity was fully formed until Constantine made it the religion of the Roman Empire - knocking off about 300 years from Christianity.
And, of course, the Koran and Hadiths weren't written and codified until sometime after Mohammad's death.

Utter nonsense. It's one thing to prop up or strive to legitimize one's religion, but to ignore what is widely accepted by numerous scholars as well as historians (with out agendas) is ridiculous and narrow minded.