Religion to be extinct

[TheAnimus]

personally, I like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZc3Xq8obk

Just me on a tangent, for 54 seconds

8-)

But it misses out the fact they might have already heard, understood and dismissed their argument.

It would also beg to question what about people who believe something we find to be distasteful OK.

If you believe that gays go to hell for everlasting damnations because you know jebus loves us, then if you don't constantly tell them they are gay, your bad, if you don't physically stop them buggering each other your bad.

Or on the same stance you could be compeltely wrong, interfereing between consenting adults, physically stopping people expressing love etc.

Its just a matter of perspective and arrogance. The issue is that most religion if you've not been brainwashed is so stupid, if you come to it from an outsider which do you choose to believe, its hard to pick one because they all have key tennants which denounce the others.

As such its hardly suprising to see people galivinised against those wish to endless bible bash. I think a lot of these people are actually turning the heathens ever further away.

[santa claus]

Hmm, perhaps we're at the dawning of a Third Testament. It's been 2000 years. The gospel of the 21st century.

It wouldn't be pretty, but it may unite the modern beliefs in faith and science (not that they are mutually exclusive).

And unity can't be bad. Can it?

[Blitzen]

Religion has it's place, as a 'comforter' to those in need of something else other than normal comforts in times of crisis.
Good for them if they can get peace from it.

Personally though, religion is not my cup of tea, and believing in a god/any god, is no different to believing fairies live at the bottom of the garden or the man in the moon.

[kalniel]

Good for them if they can get peace from it.

Well as threads like this prove, you tend to get rather more peace as an Atheist than as a Christian..

[badass]

Hmm, perhaps we're at the dawning of a Third Testament. It's been 2000 years. The gospel of the 21st century.

It wouldn't be pretty, but it may unite the modern beliefs in faith and science (not that they are mutually exclusive).

And unity can't be bad. Can it?

There is.
It's called the Qur'an. Or the book of Mormon. Or the..
Well you get the idea.

[santa claus]

There is.
It's called the Qur'an. Or the book of Mormon. Or the..
Well you get the idea.

I see your point....

[TheAnimus]

I think the big problem with most religions and why we are seeing them die out is they are too immutable.

Pick up a copy of the king james authorised and there is what to me is just a threat, or a curse on anyone who would dare reword this erm rewording.

This inflexibility can really create issues as trends in life change, as what society deems acceptable.

To me, wearing my grunt programmer hat, we know that we don't get it right first time, by it i mean understanding and implementing a solution to the problem.

Modern software development espesually for in house bespoke stuff is accepted to be a transitory state as everything is constantly evolving striving to learn for the last itteration and head torwards the perfection.

Most mainstrem religions don't allow such mobility. I would fear to think how the Pope ranks as the person responsible for murders and infections due to his stance on contraception. Whilst its OK to take your lady up the pooper to not get her nocked up, latex is a sin.

[[GSV]Trig]

It would be nice if religion was to die out and we as a race took responsibility for our own actions and accept the fact that some things cannot be explain and sometimes, **** happens..

However then it would be amusing if once the entire planet threw away religion and any "God" figures and went down the spiritual round, God did actually turn up and then say how proud he/it/she was that we had come this far

[Alex]

Surely if this is from census data then all that it is identifying is that people identifying themselves with religion is becoming less common.

Let's face it, a large proportion of the UK population don't attend church or have any real religious affiliation yet still call themselves 'Christian'. Most people, and especially older people, who have no religion in a real 'makes a difference to their daily lives' sense still call themselves 'Christian'. For hundreds of years it has been part of the cultural norms of most westernised countries to call themselves 'Christian' and therefore most people who couldn't care either way have called themselves that.

I think that nowadays it is becoming increasingly more 'uncool', for want of a better word, to be religious and therefore those that aren't really religious but couldn't care, have never thought about it etc are now ticking the 'no religion' option in the census. I think this is certainly part generational, though there is certainly something to do with the perception of science making religion somewhat redundant.

Slightly off topic, but I think the loss of religion would be something of a 'meh' for me. I've heard it said that a good man will do good things, a bad man will do bad things, but to make a good man do bad things takes religion. This is obviously bunkum, and (aside from the difficulty in making things either 'good' or 'bad' without a external comparitor, rather than 'acceptable to society' or 'not acceptable to society') the real truth is that for a good man to do bad things he just needs to believe in anything strongly enough. When religion goes, which I think it probably eventually will (though not for many hundreds of years) I'm sure we'll find other ideologies to commit atrocities for.

[TooNice]

[...]I'm sure we'll find other ideologies to commit atrocities for.

Death to you for using a different mobile OS!

Sorry, couldn't resist.. though I'd argue that it happens already, and always have.

[kalniel]

I think the big problem with most religions and why we are seeing them die out is they are too immutable.

Pick up a copy of the king james authorised and there is what to me is just a threat, or a curse on anyone who would dare reword this erm rewording.

This inflexibility can really create issues as trends in life change, as what society deems acceptable.

To me, wearing my grunt programmer hat, we know that we don't get it right first time, by it i mean understanding and implementing a solution to the problem.

Modern software development espesually for in house bespoke stuff is accepted to be a transitory state as everything is constantly evolving striving to learn for the last itteration and head torwards the perfection.

Most mainstrem religions don't allow such mobility.

Are you saying Christianity isn't a mainstream religion these days? I can't count the number of translations of the Bible that exist in English, and while the KJB is rightly celebrated for the huge impact it had at the time, the accuracy of the translation is surpassed by more modern translations of the original source documents, enlightened by discoveries of closer-to-original sources made since it was published as well (Dead Sea scrolls for example).

Why would the Church of English be likewise have corrected its stance on the ordination of women etc. after they realised they had got it wrong originally? And there is the full acceptance that they might still get things wrong - to be human is to be fallible after all, and such fallibilities are the cause of disagreements within the same religions (just as they are within political systems, or science, or philosophy). At the same time there is the danger of just responding to what society deems acceptable - if the religion is proposed to have an originating source outside of society then merely reflecting societal values isn't doing much. But that's not what Christianity does (again, as witnessed by threads on this forum - Christians certainly aren't considered to be representing an acceptable viewpoint).

[roachcoach]

If we could just stop killing in the name of it, that'd do for me for now.

[kalniel]

If we could just stop killing in the name of it, that'd do for me for now.

Religious understanding is generally at the point where most mainstream religions do not permit killing in the name of the religion. Sadly in some places and times (including our own history) the lack of religious education and knowledge has resulted in violence However it tends to be societies rather than religions that resort to violence - many of those societies take on the name of a religion without actually representing it in the slightest. Take the troubles in NI for eg - neither practising Catholics or Protestants would consider lifting a hand in violence against anyone, yet some in communities were fighting each other and using it to label themselves. Without religion it would just be some other label (Unionist/Loyalist/Royalist/Republican/etc.).

Tricky ground to tread though - some people argue there shouldn't be religious education for fear it leads to indoctrination. Done sensibly I don't think it does, and I think it's vital that we do work harder to understand beliefs (ditto for culture, customs etc.).

[roachcoach]

Your first paragraph is what I meant, just didn't type as many words

[aidanjt]

However it tends to be societies rather than religions that resort to violence

Crusades and Jihads aside.

[roachcoach]

Crusades and Jihads aside.

Bah, names given to conquest by people hell bent on increasing their powerbase using the guise of "religion" to get backing/support from the ill-educated populace.

"Religion" has nothing to do with it. It all comes back to power.