A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one. The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland…
They found…that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them. And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
Since the study only examined well-educated secular democracies, the United States obviously has little need to fear a change.
we can only hope.
Religion wastes time, money, and LIVES.
Probably tells you more about what people in those countries at that time were prepared to say to a government inspector
Only where education and decency are social values.
It is organised religion that will fade.
It will be replaced with “spiritualism” and religion more akin to the days before the Catholic church rose to prominence after 313CE.
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I think there are several reasons why this trend could continue, particularly in countries that have reasonably free internet access and news services.
I think the simplest reason is as you learn more about the many other religions around the world, you begin to question, why is my religion the one-and-only right religion and all of the others the wrong religion? How can over half of the reset of humanity be so wrong? Then you begin to question the origin of your own religion (and all others) and realize the biggest reason you believe the way you do is because that is what you were raised with. Most people never had the chance to objectively determine their own religious affiliation. It was essentially forced on them since the day they were born. Once this line of thought sets in, you wonder, why am I following this?
why is my religion the one-and-only right religion and all of the others the wrong religion?
Answered by my most recent nauseating visit to a church, “since they don’t know the truth, and the truth won’t be revealed to them, but you can share the truth, but they may not really know the truth, because they don’t seek the truth, but since you ask for the truth, I will tell you the truth, the bible is the one truth, the truth and nothing but the truth, isn’t that the truth”.
50% of the population is below average intelligence. Belief in imaginary things will be around forever.
interesting to note that as government grows and freedoms diminish, “religion” (read Christianity) also beings to fade. Be careful what you wish for.
Man, they are going to have to start teaching something different at the Semenaries.
Were we created from nothing? Did we create ourselves? Is matter eternal?
You don’t need to claim religious affiliation to be rational.
Science and Religion both attempt to provide answers to the unanswerable questions. Science provides this with theories based on evidence and observations. Religion provides this with explanations (theories) based on faith.
Until science has absolutely solved and proven all of these mysteries, there is room for both in the world.
Apparently what is headed for extinction is math education. Or the people who follow the logic in this story.
Hint, there is a difference between those who claim no religious affiliation and those who do, that bears directly on the question.
This article is also being discussed on Cage Match.
WHAT?
NOW Im responsible for my OWN actions??
I can get NO FORGIVENESS for my sins??
God, help me.
Why do atheists spend so much time trying to convince people that their religion is the only true religion?
Ouch, that actually hurt me head.
Pity that NONE of the countries included in this study have any great proportion of Islam-based faiths.
I guess it would have enormously skewed the data to irretrievable depths. All those savages have to do is keep having 7-8 child families and they will outbreed all rational thought in a few short generations.
#11
Yes
No
Yes
I must say that the story is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the respondents are saying that they “aren’t affiliated with an organized religion” or “do not believe in a supernatural God”. Those are two different things.
My father, for example, believed in God, but refused to affiliate with any particular church, even if he DID attend services on occasion with his wife.
I’d really like to see the same people asked:
“Do you believe in a supernatural God?”
“Do you believe in an afterlife?”
and, for good measure,
“Do you believe in Astrology?”
religion will be extinct because religion does not evolved. it is the stagnation of faith that will be it’s undoing.
As a non-religious person myself, I’ve noticed my sect is particularly self-righteous about their beliefs and enjoy proselytizing the most.
If only the gutter cult mentality of Judaism and Talmudic Zionism would become extinct.
Even if religion finally dies out in some distant future, it has certainly left its ugly marks on world history. Leaders of all types have successfully convinced their followers that the bloodshed of innocent people needed no justification greater than labeling it “God’s will.” But atheist despots have repeatedly proven that religion itself isn’t always to blame, and as handy as religion might be, it’s a tool that they can accomplish plenty of evil without.
My only wish for an afterlife is that religious people would have at least an hour after their death to be informed that it was just a hoax intended to trap weak-minded people, and then they could spend the hour fully contemplating how much time and money they’ve wasted supporting the spread of their various cults. After an hour, their screen could fade to black — that would be enough punishment.
#5 gets it most right. Being a “Christian” carries a social stereotype that large volumes of people don’t want to be associated with. So they don’t identify as one. Which screws up the stats.
I disagree with #5 and #25–the logical residue of mankind’s desire to understand the universe and recognizing his powerlessness in it is not spiritualism but SCIENCE. Yes, the masses will worship the scientific method and have faith that the answer is out there if it is just given enough study.
Ha, Ha. (sarcasm/off).
Let me clue you in on the real joke about that stuy. List those 9 countries and I’ll bet you a fiver against nothing that all of them will be majority Islam in 100 years.
You see boys and girls you have to look at the long term population trends and the people that are anti religious by and large fail at reproduction. If you fail at reproduction you go extinct. In 200 years the views of the people pushing that study will be pretty much a forgotten and failed inkblot on the pages of history.
The statement that “there’s probably no God” is idiotic since there is nothing mathematical about the estimation. Humankind is set for extinction.
You can’t put millions of tons of Muslims into the biosphere and not affect global conforming.
#18
1) that is completely illogical and has no scientific basis
2) very good
3) science today tells us this is not true, everything physical has a beginning and an end, science also tells us the universe had a beginning:
“Together with Roger Penrose, I developed a new set of mathematical techniques, for dealing with this and similar problems. We showed that if General Relativity was correct, any reasonable model of the universe must start with a singularity. This would mean that science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning, but that it could not predict how the universe should begin: for that one would have to appeal to God.” Stephen W. Hawking “Origin of the Universe” lecture
The science is in!!
Face it. Even the typical cafeteria christian (most are) “believe” only to cover their bases and it makes practical sense. If it’s the wrong pick of the 7,000 religions, I suppose you can argue with the gatekeeper that “hey, but I was on the right track”, right?
Humans will continue to learn that there is no answer. Mother nature doesn’t owe any of us (you) shitholes an explanation. There is no need to make up shit as a placeholder for an explanation. We accept life, enjoy life and try to live in harmony, acceptance and diversity. Some day, we will get there and I agree with study.
In the mean time, we live on a spinning rock that we’re fucking up. Full of religious nuttballs each claiming to have the right magical guy in the sky and willing to kill each other just to make that point. I see a long time between now and when that happy time cones to be.