Atheism to defeat religion by 2038?

flutterflye

Dempsey wrote: »

Is that the only acceptable definition of religion? No





Science couldnt possibly fall under this widely accepted definition!

I don't accept that definition as it's too vague.
Anyone with half a brain would also dispute that that is a decent definition.

Zebra3

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: So, is religious belief affected by economic growth or not.

What do you think??!!!!

Yes, I think it is.

af_thefragile

Zebra3 wrote: »

Yes, I think it is.

What about the Middle East and Iran? They have a pretty good economic growth, don't see them becoming atheists anytime soon...

Pushtrak

af_thefragile wrote: »

What about the Middle East and Iran? They have a pretty good economic growth, don't see them becoming atheists anytime soon...

They are wealthy countries, yes, but I'm not sure that the wealth is well distributed amongst the populace.

Ellis Dee

The wording of the thread heading reveals a profound misunderstanding of the nature of religion. Like ignorance, wilful or otherwise, religion is not something that can be "defeated", and especially not by something like atheism that can only be defined by what it isn't rather than what it actually is.:rolleyes: The people who suffer from religion will have to wise up and cop on on their own. And I won't hold my breath for that to happen.

Besides, atheism is not a movement, ideology, philosophy or other force that seeks to change the world. It is just a refusal, an inability to believe the unbelievable, to accept something for which there is not and could never be any measurable or detectable evidence. An atheist is not trying to make everyone else believe there is no god: he just wants them to stop trying to make him believe in one and live his life in the way that some mortals claim their sky fairy, holy spook, invisible friend wants him to.

For some religion is a good substitute for doing their own thinking, for others a useful tool for controlling others. That is why it will not go away nearly as soon as some people think.:)

My own view is that it won't go away even when and if intelligent life forms from an extraterrestrial advanced civilisation contact us, but such a turning point will certainly knock it back quite a ways. :eek:

But even then there will still be some who bleat about the truth of the bible. And why not the Beano for that matter?:rolleyes:

Dempsey

Pushtrak wrote: »

You did say to google it, and I posted here with what was forthcoming.

Science, or the scientific method is about evidence and repeating things with observation and understanding reality. Not beliefs. Not dogma. If you think science is a religion you just don't understand science.

Explain why things like hubble telescopes and Large Hadron Colliders have been built? Whilst they are observations on the world and universe around us they also completely changed people's cultural and beliefs systems. You going to say it didnt?

flutterflye wrote: »

I don't accept that definition as it's too vague.
Anyone with half a brain would also dispute that that is a decent definition.

Would they? Based on what evidence?

shizz

Dempsey wrote: »

Explain why things like hubble telescopes and Large Hadron Colliders have been built? Whilst they are observations on the world and universe around us they also completely changed people's cultural and beliefs systems. You going to say it didnt?

The only way they could have changed people's cultural and belief system's is by their discoveries undermining what religions speak of as truth. It doesn't make a new belief system.

af_thefragile

Pushtrak wrote: »

They are wealthy countries, yes, but I'm not sure that the wealth is well distributed amongst the populace.

Most people in places like UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and even Saudi are pretty darn rich. Iran is growing very fast too and has fairly high levels of education among the population. Turkey and Malaysia are another countries with a good distribution of wealth among the population and good levels of education too yet the majority people in these countries aren't atheists and that doesn't seem to be changing either.

flutterflye

Dempsey wrote: »

Explain why things like hubble telescopes and Large Hadron Colliders have been built? Whilst they are observations on the world and universe around us they also completely changed people's cultural and beliefs systems. You going to say it didnt?



Would they? Based on what evidence?

What's that phrase?
Wise men never argue with fools, because people from a distance can't tell who is who.

Corkfeen

Dempsey wrote: »

Explain why things like hubble telescopes and Large Hadron Colliders have been built? Whilst they are observations on the world and universe around us they also completely changed people's cultural and beliefs systems. You going to say it didnt?

They've updated our knowledge but religions are dogmatic in nature and they don't change their stances. Science aims to explain and this is demonstrated and investigated through things such as LHC. I wouldn't say say it's changed people cultural and beliefs systems for the most part. It doesn't make science a religion if one chooses to explain what religions would have previously explained as God's will or creation. This is what differentiates itself from religions.

Dempsey

shizz wrote: »

The only way they could have changed people's cultural and belief system's is by their discoveries undermining what religions speak of as truth. It doesn't make a new belief system.

The catholic church used to force the belief the world was flat ya know

Pushtrak

af_thefragile wrote: »

Most people in places like UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and even Saudi are pretty darn rich. Iran is growing very fast too and has fairly high levels of education among the population. Turkey and Malaysia are another countries with a good distribution of wealth among the population and good levels of education too yet the majority people in these countries aren't atheists and that doesn't seem to be changing either.

I guess the immediate thing that comes to mind isn't exactly a small point, but a very important one. In many Islamic nations, the punishment of apostasy is death.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/tamer-fouad/arab-spring-and-coming-crisis-of-faith

This may be changing, however, with many activists in the region openly proclaiming their lack of faith. Ironically, the biggest threat to religion may result from the tempestuous rise of political Islam in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The Turkish President predicted as much during a recent visit to Tunisia ↑ , when he warned, “If a political party that comes out in the name of Islam fails, it will defame and humiliate the religion itself”.

Governments across the region have responded by introducing strict laws against those who offend religion. “We need this legislation because incidents of cursing God have increased,” said one Kuwaiti MP after his parliament passed a bill stipulating the death penalty ↑ for such offences. Lawsuits along similar lines have occurred in Saudi Arabia ↑ , the UAE ↑ , Tunisia ↑ and Egypt

More on the article if interested.

donegal100

The reason why the original proposition will not turn out to be true is simple demographics. Religious people have more children than non-religious ones.

shizz

Dempsey wrote: »

The catholic church used to force the belief the world was flat ya know

What does this have to do with science and technology being a religion?

af_thefragile

Interesting...

Yet only time will tell what happens in the future...

Pushtrak

donegal100 wrote: »

The reason why the original proposition will not turn out to be true is simple demographics. Religious people have more children than non-religious ones.

While there is a bit of a point there, know too, though, that not all children of religious parents end up being religious.

Dempsey

flutterflye wrote: »

What's that phrase?
Wise men never argue with fools, because people from a distance can't tell who is who.

So you were just talking out your arse there. I know, everyone else now knows it too.

Look, you go believe whatever you want to believe. Why are you so bothered about what I think?

shizz wrote: »

What does this have to do with science and technology being a religion?

Religions like catholic church has been backtracking on the bull**** it peddles to the masses for centuries because of science. Traditional religions are fastly becoming defunct as their control over people wanes. They used to abuse people's fear of death and the unknown for wealth. Science has slowly changed how people believe the world was created, how we came to being on the earth, what happens when we die, changed heaven and hell to just religious idealism. Basically all the cornerstone of a religion. The likes of Catholism is now just widely used for morality and teaching people how they should treat each other.

Zebra3

af_thefragile wrote: »

What about the Middle East and Iran? They have a pretty good economic growth, don't see them becoming atheists anytime soon...

In some countries they do, skewed purely by oil reserves.

DrumSteve

stovelid wrote: »

Ah to defeat fucking religion threads by 2013.

Please.

We should create AH-Theism.

CerebralCortex

philologos wrote: »

You know that that's actually quite condescending . For the record, I'm educated to degree level at university, and I work in a job (software development) that requires my logical faculties to be used on a daily basis.

I've worked as a software engineer, saying that does not qualify me as someone who is very knowledgeable or logical and from my experience, unless you are doing probabilistic programming in a LISP like language or computational theory, you (and I) are nothing more than code monkey's or script writers. Arguments from authority still don't work.

philologos wrote: »

There's good reason to believe that the Bible was written as non-fiction. There's no good argument to suggest that the Bible was clearly written as a fictional text. That leaves us with two conclusions, either it is just so spectacularly wrong, or it is so right that it deserves our attention. I believe the latter, you believe the former, that's what's up for discussion.

I don't concern myself with the bible too much there are far more interesting books, however I believe there are loads of writings debunking the bible.

Capt'n Midnight

davet82 wrote: »

Atheism to defeat religion by 2038?

03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038 to be exact

I think someone needs to check their figures again instead of relying on dodgy software.

joseph brand

af_thefragile wrote: »

Most people in places like UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and even Saudi are pretty darn rich. Iran is growing very fast too and has fairly high levels of education among the population. Turkey and Malaysia are another countries with a good distribution of wealth among the population and good levels of education too yet the majority people in these countries aren't atheists and that doesn't seem to be changing either.

Apostasy, punishable by death. Convenient law eh? Think for yourself and you're dead!

Jester252

Love the tags

MisterEpicurus

af_thefragile wrote: »

Most people in places like UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and even Saudi are pretty darn rich. Iran is growing very fast too and has fairly high levels of education among the population. Turkey and Malaysia are another countries with a good distribution of wealth among the population and good levels of education too yet the majority people in these countries aren't atheists and that doesn't seem to be changing either.

I know some very well educated people from some of these countries yet still can't shake off the belief. I think you're comparing apples and oranges.

The countries you've mentioned are all highly Islamic and they take their customs and rituals much more seriously than folks in the 'West' do. So it's not surprising that they find it tougher to shake off regardless of how educated they are. Moreover, add in some death penalties and a sprig of apostasy and it makes it even more likely to stick.

It's not just religious matters though. Many folks in these countries can't even shake off political indoctrinations. For example, I know some very well educated Turks (some of which are in Ph.D's in Political Science), and they still believe the Armenian Genocide didn't happen. No matter how much these folks are educated, they will still believe what their culture and tradition forced them to think.

Unless there's some reformation within Islam, it's difficult to see this abating.

af_thefragile

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

I know some very well educated people from some of these countries yet still can't shake off the belief. I think you're comparing apples and oranges.

The countries you've mentioned are all highly Islamic and they take their customs and rituals much more seriously than folks in the 'West' do. So it's not surprising that they find it tougher to shake off regardless of how educated they are. Moreover, add in some death penalties and a sprig of apostasy and it makes it even more likely to stick.

It's not just religious matters though. Many folks in these countries can't even shake off political indoctrinations. For example, I know some very well educated Turks (some of which are in Ph.D's in Political Science), and they still believe the Armenian Genocide didn't happen. No matter how much these folks are educated, they will still believe what their culture and tradition forced them to think.

Unless there's some reformation within Islam, it's difficult to see this abating.

So by the year 2038 all of this will be gone?

Patrick Cleburne

Hopefully not. I would prefer to defend the rights of people to the liberty to worship in any way they want. When the war starts, I will be fighting with my Christian brothers and sisters.

Sarky

Man, you'll turn that other cheek so hard.

shizz

Patrick Cleburne wrote: »

Hopefully not. I would prefer to defend the rights of people to the liberty to worship in any way they want. When the war starts, I will be fighting with my Christian brothers and sisters.

If this Isnt a joke it really is a scary way of thinking.

SafeSurfer

Patrick Cleburne wrote: »

Hopefully not. I would prefer to defend the rights of people to the liberty to worship in any way they want. When the war starts, I will be fighting with my Christian brothers and sisters.

Yes. Jesus loves war.

af_thefragile

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Yes. Jesus loves war.

Sounds like fun... when is going to happen??