When will Atheism become mainstream. Not IF, but WHEN. (pray, God, Christian)
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And note the graph. Not being religious is not the same as being agnostic/atheistic.
No, but that doesn't matter. Not being religious is all we need for the religious authority stranglehold to be broken
And I can also have confidence that 'Not being religious' is well on the way to agnosticism and agnosticism, one the Bad Rap that atheism has been given and it is a title that is no longer a term of abuse, that 'Not Religious' group will be happy to say that is what they are.
The obvious effects of the Internet on independent thinking, of critical analysis of all the once-thought inerrant biblical stories, has been simply staggering, as has the 'Net's amazing effect on all aspects of information sharing.
This includes the ability for an individual to post his or her ideas on anything, but significantly, on religious topics, without being publicly stoned or dragged into the village square for a suitable spiritual punishment.
That sort of historical and punitive practice is exactly what generated the errant but oft-claimed assumption by ardent modern Christians that, historically, all Americans and Europeans were indeed devout Christians. And that this country was therefore founded entirely on Christianity, and is, in it's heart, a Christian organization.
PoppyCock I say!
They didn't know it at the time, but they were simply being swept along by that vast tide of cultivated illiteracy coupled with the church's steadfast vigilance as regards any rising atheistic thinking. "Keep science in it's cave!" they insisted.
Thank God, so to speak, for the Internet, huh? Think on, fellow citizens! It's only a matter of a few more decades until Christianity fails and topples worldwide.
But then we'll still have to deal with that hive of fomented illiteracy, Islam.
No problem: by then, all of those people will hopefully have access to the 'net, though you will see a concerted effort by Muslim organizations to stifle such independence as it becomes mainstream.
Imagine: Islamic sandwich & tea houses with touch-screen WiFi screens built into each table! Yikes! Allahu Akbar!
I look forward to a time in this country when whatever belief or non-belief a person may have was like it was before the European came to this land and brought his many different interpretations of his Christian religion with him. The many native tribes that were here each had their own different belief and spiritual system and no one was judged or criticized for what or how they believed or not believed. Belief was a personal thing and other then consulting with a Spiritual Elder, it was kept to yourself and never imposed on others or ever incorporated into the laws which governed the tribe. These are the days that I think will eventually come around to again, after all, everything goes in a circle.
The Way it Should be....the future of functional atheism in the White house!
Boy oh boy, such true religious freedom would indeed be priceless, ptsum, but, and thats a very big BUT.... the gov'mint, and their true puppeteers in matters of religion, the RCC and other church adminisrators, have a good tight stranglehold on our leaders. Think of John F. Kennedy and the RC Church! Think of the state of agitation that comes about if anyone even tries to suggest that this country was NOT founded as a Christian country, which is obviously was NOT. In fact, mostly those pilgrims were fleeing harsh religious oppression, only to have it then raise it's demonic head a short few generations later.
Of course all citizens of the time were, or often called themselves, religious, since that was the only option when they were raise, unless they were raised by <gasp> Gypsies. Gypsies were, of course, not tolerated, just as today, and were routinely oppressed, vilified, abused in public, and even killed of, back in Europe, and then in the new United States.
Even today, the "Rom" (taken from their assumed primary homeland, Romania) re assumed to be thieves, villans and people of low moral standing. They make their money indeed, by various sometimes nefarious methods of trickery, theft and cunning, and are often chased out of any town they venture too close. Some modern images:
...and so on. Very itinerant, since no villages or towns will generally tolerate them or their trash piles, and their trips into towns to be active pick-pockets, etc.
Otherwise, organized religion eventually took it's position as the predominant structured authority in America, which accounts for the inclusion, after sufficient lobbying, of "In Go We Trust", and "So Help Me God" into various documents, incl. the Pledge of Allegiance, which I aid during my becoming an American Citizen, but I did not recite the added-in "...one nation under God": as part of it. [In the mid-'50s this was part of the hyped-up anti-communistic rigor by that ultra-religious and anti-communist loon Joe McCarthy. Always good to have that sort of nutcase making government policy, huh?]
It was not there to begin with, given the separation component of the First Amendment, but that was ignored and tossed out by the harsh religious bosses.
Can you imagine a confirmed atheist president ever being voted in? He'd be politically blackballed and vilified during the pre-election campaigns, with his bckground literally filled with whatever lies and vilification "the political priesthood" could conger up. All of it with , of course, witnesses to his or her participation in witchcraft gatherings, or perhaps an illusory and imaginary sacrifice of a just-born offspring, whose birth certificate conveniently showed "died of natural causes", etc.
The lengths to which org-religion would go to hype up such stuff would be unlimited.
Too bad they don't realize that, primarily due to the internet and scientific advancements and the minds of modern inquisitive children, their once powerful stranglehold reign as the dominant sub-culture is now officially on the wane. All within the next 3 - 5 decades it will indeed be gone with nary a quite POOF goodbye... and good riddance.
And so then, we can elect a disabled female black single mom with two wonderful kids she home-schooled in her spare time, but with a strong atheist background, and with a higher than average (let's say... 140+...) IQ plus three degrees culminating with the highest score on record at, oh let's say Hah-Verd PhD Grad School of Business, followed by a 5 year teaching stint as a professor in Poly-Sci at MIT... and then being a very productive, eloquent and surviving senator elect from say, oh maybe... Georgia?
Let'er rip, I say! At last: common sense and day-to-day survival and decision making based on reality arrives at the White House! Along side a functioning atheist base, i.e.: no more cow-towing to a mythical but mandated spirituality.
No more "and God Bless America" at the end of every POTUS speech! What a relief, huh. (PS:right now, Obama should be shouting Alluhah Akbar after his speeches, now should he not? Right now he's showing a marked preference for only one of our various official religions. Why IS that, one wonders. Must be those little puppet strings you can barely make out that lead straight up to a priest in the rafters.)
No, but that doesn't matter. Not being religious is all we need for the religious authority stranglehold to be broken
Most non religious people still believe in god.
The biggest reason that religion will never loose its "stranglehold" is people want to believe in a higher power. The thought of death being the end and the idea that you will never see your loved ones again after they die is disturbing to some.
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And I can also have confidence that 'Not being religious' is well on the way to agnosticism and agnosticism, one the Bad Rap that atheism has been given and it is a title that is no longer a term of abuse, that 'Not Religious' group will be happy to say that is what they are.
The reason atheists get a bad rap is their in your face attitudes. Name calling and ridicule gets you (i mean YOU as a general term)no where and is counter productive.
Using the same tactics, or worse,than the people you scorn is a losing proposition.
When things are good people tend to fall away from religion. When things are bad they tend to flock back.
Its the way its always been.
Most non religious people still believe in god.
The biggest reason that religion will never loose its "stranglehold" is people want to believe in a higher power. The thought of death being the end and the idea that you will never see your loved ones again after they die is disturbing to some.
This is quite true. I recognize that when I was a Christian I really wanted at least the good bits to be true. Who wouldn't want the most powerful being in the universe in your corner when that being is alleged to be perfectly loving and caring?
I came to realize though that an afterlife would be mere icing on the cake were it not needed as a place to defer all the closure, justice, and comprehensibility you don't get in this life. That is its real purpose, as an ultimate safety valve for the fact that most of the promised benefits of living righteously -- answered prayer, healing, wisdom, protection, prosperity, and many others -- are no-shows. The usual circumlocutions -- blaming the victim, hand waving platitudes about god's ways being beyond understanding and mysterious and ineffable and just trust him anyway, etc -- only go so far. But if you can rationalize that by and by every tear shall be wiped from your eyes, you will never lack for anything, and will finally get that endless feast of happiness and contentment that is so elusive in this life, you can put up with alot. It gives the believer something to look forward to.
While unbelievers lack that arguable advantage as a selling proposition, I don't think that religion is so compelling a proposition that it will never become the exception rather than the rule. I just see it taking a long time, perhaps a thousand years or so. Of course many scenarios could play out, there could be regressions or setbacks for any number of reasons, but I see god needing gaps in knowledge to exist and those gaps are becoming slim pickings indeed. I don't see us ever conclusively figuring out some things ... the origin of the universe, for instance ... but even that has to bow to reason at some point. People have too much info at their disposal, are becoming too educated, and society is becoming far too inclusive and welcoming to diversity. I see religion dying a long, slow, agonizing but inevitable death over the next 40 or so generations. Check with me on it in 3013, we'll have a beer and talk about the bad old days of 2013 ;-)
Most non religious people still believe in god.
The biggest reason that religion will never loose its "stranglehold" is people want to believe in a higher power. The thought of death being the end and the idea that you will never see your loved ones again after they die is disturbing to some.
That may be true, but in fact there is a much better alternative to religion and that is that an afterlife is open to all and no one religious authority has the monopoly on entry tickets.
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The reason atheists get a bad rap is their in your face attitudes. Name calling and ridicule gets you (i mean YOU as a general term)no where and is counter productive.
Using the same tactics, or worse,than the people you scorn is a losing proposition.
When things are good people tend to fall away from religion. When things are bad they tend to flock back.
Its the way its always been.
'In your face' is merely the annoying tendency of atheists to not shut up and go away as the religious would prefer. We name -call and ridicule no more than the believers do. 'Pondslime', 'Nihilist', 'Believe in nothing', 'miserable empty lives', 'believe in eugenics', 'have no morals'. Need I go on?
We are not going to shut up and go away. We are going to speak out, in your face, and if we can learn to do that in a cheerful and amusing way, that would be all the better.
We are going to go on showing that religion is nonsense, its adherents are either deluded or exploitative parasites and its claims are laughable. If the recent figures are reliable, this is not so much attracting a bad rap but throwing off the one that snarling, malicious intolerant religion has imposed on us for decades if not centuries.
Wait, are you saying that all belief in the supernatural will be eradicated in the future, or are you saying that organized religion will fade in the future?
Cause I still forsee a lot of people in the future still believing in an afterlife and a creating force... without being "religious"
the loudest voices that claim they are not religious are often the religious themselves. here in Canada where non-belief is mainstream it is another day
Wait, are you saying that all belief in the supernatural will be eradicated in the future, or are you saying that organized religion will fade in the future?
Cause I still forsee a lot of people in the future still believing in an afterlife and a creating force... without being "religious"
I believe organized religion will die out before privately held supernatural beliefs will, but I see those as destined for eradication as well, it will just take much longer. Rationally unsupportable beliefs are no longer a good adaptation and eventually will be bred out as belief in woo will not be a survival advantage.
The more fundamentalist / conservative believers are already having spasms of terror as they realize they are being marginalized in society and whatever hegemony they had is eroding as the bulk of society moves on. This is part of that evolutionary process.
A short term exception that some have rightly pointed out, is Islam. This is because Islam is an attractive meme for the poor and disaffected. But this is in my view nothing more than a temporary blip; it is obvious to anyone thinking about it for ten seconds that violence and mind control don't make poverty better, but rather, worse. There are various scenarios where fundamentalist Islam's reign of terror could be a major world force for a century or two, or a decade or two, or not at all. However it plays out, it's a self-limiting problem, though I acknowledge this is cold comfort for, e.g., those present at the Boston Marathon bombing.
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The Way it Should be....the future of functional atheism in the White house!
and good riddance.
