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Religion may become extinct in nine nations

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#91

Post by radu_floricica »

gjm11 wrote: post #55

I looked at the paper (already kindly linked by bartonfink, but here it is again: http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.1375 ). I think there's considerably less to it than meets the eye. The authors have a very simple model of the dynamics of religious adherence, which amounts to saying: people convert from one (ir)religious position to another in numbers proportional to some function of (1) the fraction of the population curre…

Remember that at some point in history being non-religious was either impossible or very underground. It could be that we're globally passing through a period of transition, from one stable uniformity to another.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#92

Post by phamilton »

a-priori wrote: post #82
bsandbox wrote: post #29

I'm unaware of any collection of humans in history that did not practice some form of religion. I suspect that religion will become extinct only when we humans do too.

You're right that religion seems to be a human universal. I believe that every human population ever studied practices it in some form or another. But, what may be declining is not religion per se, but rather monotheism. Zoroastrianism, one of the first monotheistic religions, emerged only in the 2nd century BCE. For the entirety of human history before that, about 200 millennia, humans practiced some form of nature…

2nd Century BC? What about the Jews? While exact dates are not very well known, Jerusalem was invaded around 600 BC. The dead sea scrolls have been dated back to well before the 2nd Century BC.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#93

Post by phamilton »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #36
aj700 wrote: post #23

In 200 years they will say: Irrational and women hating creation memes all died in the 21st Century, and the people became truly civilised.

I hope so. I'm seeing strong men and theocracies crumbling the middle east. I'm seeing proud gay men and women demanding basic humans rights in the west. I'm seeing a social acceptance of being non-religious. I'm seeing religious bigots think twice before spewing their hatred in the workplace. I'm seeing young people questioning the faith of their parents. I'm seeing basic science like evolution taught to more and mo…

I'm also seeing plenty of great citizens and neighbors who live what they believe. I see people drawing strength and happiness from their faith. I see people in the darkest stages of their life escape only after gaining that faith. I see religious organizations helping people to donate their time and effort to improving the world both locally and globally. I see good things coming from religion.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#94

Post by phamilton »

tintin wrote: post #57

"The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation." No religious affiliation does not mean people are becoming non-believers. I hear a lot of people who believe (in whatever) but don't want to be marked as religious.

In many cultures, it's quite a binary thing. Either you believe in religion or you believe in science. They are viewed to be entirely incompatible (which they aren't). People who have a belief in a higher power often feel unwilling to label themselves as believers because they don't want to be discriminated against as ignorant and bigoted.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#95

Post by a-priori »

phamilton wrote: post #92
a-priori wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that religion seems to be a human universal. I believe that every human population ever studied practices it in some form or another. But, what may be declining is not religion per se, but rather monotheism. Zoroastrianism, one of the first monotheistic religions, emerged only in the 2nd century BCE. For the entirety of human history before that, about 200 millennia, humans practiced some form of nature…

2nd Century BC? What about the Jews? While exact dates are not very well known, Jerusalem was invaded around 600 BC. The dead sea scrolls have been dated back to well before the 2nd Century BC.

You're right, my mistake. I had it in my head that Zoroastrianism was first, then looked up its origins to get a date, but didn't double-check it. It looks like Judaism pre-dates Zoroastrianism by a couple centuries, and Atenism (emerging in the 14th century BC) preceded both.

The argument still stands. We're still talking about 4 millennia of monotheism, preceded by 200 millennia of various other forms of religion.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#96

Post by microtherion »

winestock wrote: post #5

Religion isn't the only thing becoming extinct in those nations. Go to Wikipedia and search for "Demographics of X " where X is a nation from the list given in the above-linked article: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland. (Nation/ Total Fertility Rate) (Australia/ 1.97) (Austria/ 1.41) (Canada/ 1.58) (Czech Republic/ 1.49) (Finland/ 1.85) (Irela…

This implies that "fitness" of a society is correlated positively to fertility rates, which for a species which is not exactly on the endangered list, and which is capable of producing results that can be measured on other scales than just warm bodies, seems to be a dubious idea.

Your argument would imply that the 10 "fittest" countries in the world are: Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, Burundi, Liberia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Mali, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#97

Post by rbarooah »

dantheman wrote: post #86
winestock wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number for Iceland is the only one that surprises me. The rest exemplify the general trend in the West in modern times: religion has been on the wane and irreligious people are not as interested in baby-making as religious believers. Let's not get fooled by reputations. We may think of Spain, Portugal, and Italy as being very religious countries, but the Catholic Church more or less gave up trying to do its job s…

Don't confuse correlation with causation - less interest in baby-making could be due to: * better education * higher income

In the countries with declining reproduction, I'd be interested to see how rate of procreation relates to income-level. Is it the well off who are not reproducing, or the relatively poor?

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#98

Post by scott_s »

sigzero wrote: post #60
TamDenholm wrote: post #58

I've always thought religion would become less and less prevalent. Being non-religious was extremely rare before evolution was discovered and now its growing in popularity since we now know more, i think that trend will continue. Evolution has had about 150 years, religion has had multiple thousands of years. In my opinion its just a matter of time before religious belief becomes a minority everywhere.

What do we know? That one species can evolve into another? Never been remotely proven. That one species can adapt itself to its surrounding. Sure that happens. It doesn't change its species though. "Macro" evolution just doesn't happen nor can it be proven to have happened.

Take species A. For whatever reason, species A splits into two groups, A1 and A2. A1 and A2 are (initially) the same species, but the split causes them to be separated for a long time (hundreds, thousands, tens-of-thousands, hundreds-of-thousands, millions of years).

You have already accepted that A1 and A2 will adapt to their surroundings. What prevents those adaptations from eventually making A1 and A2 no longer able to mate?

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#99

Post by scott_s »

dantheman wrote: post #86
winestock wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number for Iceland is the only one that surprises me. The rest exemplify the general trend in the West in modern times: religion has been on the wane and irreligious people are not as interested in baby-making as religious believers. Let's not get fooled by reputations. We may think of Spain, Portugal, and Italy as being very religious countries, but the Catholic Church more or less gave up trying to do its job s…

Don't confuse correlation with causation - less interest in baby-making could be due to: * better education * higher income

And easy access to birth control by living in an industrial society with the capacity to make it.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#100

Post by drzaiusapelord »

phamilton wrote: post #93
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope so. I'm seeing strong men and theocracies crumbling the middle east. I'm seeing proud gay men and women demanding basic humans rights in the west. I'm seeing a social acceptance of being non-religious. I'm seeing religious bigots think twice before spewing their hatred in the workplace. I'm seeing young people questioning the faith of their parents. I'm seeing basic science like evolution taught to more and mo…

I'm also seeing plenty of great citizens and neighbors who live what they believe. I see people drawing strength and happiness from their faith. I see people in the darkest stages of their life escape only after gaining that faith. I see religious organizations helping people to donate their time and effort to improving the world both locally and globally. I see good things coming from religion.

Blinders are incredible things. People like you remind me of the average North Korean citizen. Even when presented with proof of Dear Leader's abuses, they will deny it and continue to love him and defend his regime to the death.
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