It does suggest that the decline has stopped. Maybe also true in other western countries.
It is what I expected. Given stable rates of loss religious belief and non-religious people converting (ignoring conversions between religions) there will be an equilibrium.
It still matter what religion people follow. One of the big changes, especially in the US, has been the growth of evangelical Christianity (often Biblical literalist and right wing) at the expense of traditional big denominations.
Its hard to imagine a non-neurological basis for the ardent believers, it takes a lot to stick to belief in obvious falsehoods. There have been hundreds of religions throughout history, all of them thought they were the true one. None of them even stand scrutiny to basic arguments, let alone the very high amount of rigor such a supposedly fundamental truth must demand.
The point of a religion is to provide a devoted in-group with a coherent set of values and principles, subsequently fulfilling an individual's social needs of stability and belonging. God and other supernatural concepts are just social communication tools to enable the same, and are not meant to be treated as scientific theorems to prove or disprove.
Your ad-hominem tirade is embarrassingly juvenile.
I have met very few religious people who claim the god and supernatural stuff isn't capital T Truth. They'd be offended if I said religion is just a lifestyle or moral system, some even to the point of violent genocides.
Of course they do, because that intangible symbol of God is the base of the whole social structure. Just like how cash is nothing but paper without the underlying intangible idea of a nation to give an exchange value to it. It doesn't matter that it's artificial, what matters is that it's held up with collective faith to give validity to a set of ideas and values.
Normally we'd call that schizophrenia, hallucinations or any number of serious mental illnesses. The religious are on the other hand coddled. I'll be honest, at a fundamental level, I don't trust religious people at all, I work with people as needed to, but its like trusting a wild unpredictable beast, you never know what dangerous form their insanities would one day pop up as.
Cash has value because the government, which is a real thing that verifiably exists and has power because of collective decisions made regardless of whether you agree with them, demands that you pay taxes and will put you in prison if you don't.
What verifiably happens to me if I don't pretend I believe your particular god exists?
But why do they claim god has powers over man if he needs mans hand to execute it? Cash or governments don't claim to be some all powerful fundamental truth of the universe. Nobody ever said that. Why do we infantilize and accept such utter absurdity from religious people? And what's funnier is most religions hate "LGBT" because its made up....how is it more made up than their beliefs? At least gender is a real thing that we can see, and one day in theory the body could be modified to truly change gender. Religion hasn't even, in principle given us any reason or explanation for their absurdities yet violently push back on anyone saying doubts.
They are liars because they don't just say "Let god fix it" when they face crime, disease, what not. Well, some are insane enough that they do yes, I'd at least consider those people honest who go to faith healers for problems.
Anecdotally,seems to be less of atheism online: the Dawkins/Rationalist types seem to have retreated from public debates.
Headline asks a question... the answer is No.
It does suggest that the decline has stopped. Maybe also true in other western countries.
It is what I expected. Given stable rates of loss religious belief and non-religious people converting (ignoring conversions between religions) there will be an equilibrium.
It still matter what religion people follow. One of the big changes, especially in the US, has been the growth of evangelical Christianity (often Biblical literalist and right wing) at the expense of traditional big denominations.
…I thought I saw Amongus in the title. I'm going back to bed.
Hopefully!
"Recent polling shows no clear evidence of a religious revival among young adults"
Betteridge's law strikes again!
Belief in the absurd waxes and wanes. Its probably some kind of neurological or genetic weakness in certain people and just trained in others.
Its hard to imagine a non-neurological basis for the ardent believers, it takes a lot to stick to belief in obvious falsehoods. There have been hundreds of religions throughout history, all of them thought they were the true one. None of them even stand scrutiny to basic arguments, let alone the very high amount of rigor such a supposedly fundamental truth must demand.
The point of a religion is to provide a devoted in-group with a coherent set of values and principles, subsequently fulfilling an individual's social needs of stability and belonging. God and other supernatural concepts are just social communication tools to enable the same, and are not meant to be treated as scientific theorems to prove or disprove.
Your ad-hominem tirade is embarrassingly juvenile.
I think this kind of belief system is relatively common with the kind of people who frequent HN but vanishingly small out in the rest of the world.
I have met very few religious people who claim the god and supernatural stuff isn't capital T Truth. They'd be offended if I said religion is just a lifestyle or moral system, some even to the point of violent genocides.
Of course they do, because that intangible symbol of God is the base of the whole social structure. Just like how cash is nothing but paper without the underlying intangible idea of a nation to give an exchange value to it. It doesn't matter that it's artificial, what matters is that it's held up with collective faith to give validity to a set of ideas and values.
Normally we'd call that schizophrenia, hallucinations or any number of serious mental illnesses. The religious are on the other hand coddled. I'll be honest, at a fundamental level, I don't trust religious people at all, I work with people as needed to, but its like trusting a wild unpredictable beast, you never know what dangerous form their insanities would one day pop up as.
Cash has value because the government, which is a real thing that verifiably exists and has power because of collective decisions made regardless of whether you agree with them, demands that you pay taxes and will put you in prison if you don't.
What verifiably happens to me if I don't pretend I believe your particular god exists?
But why do they claim god has powers over man if he needs mans hand to execute it? Cash or governments don't claim to be some all powerful fundamental truth of the universe. Nobody ever said that. Why do we infantilize and accept such utter absurdity from religious people? And what's funnier is most religions hate "LGBT" because its made up....how is it more made up than their beliefs? At least gender is a real thing that we can see, and one day in theory the body could be modified to truly change gender. Religion hasn't even, in principle given us any reason or explanation for their absurdities yet violently push back on anyone saying doubts.
They are liars because they don't just say "Let god fix it" when they face crime, disease, what not. Well, some are insane enough that they do yes, I'd at least consider those people honest who go to faith healers for problems.
tips fedora
Iran and Afghanistan are nice religious countries. I'd gladly fund your deportation there if you think religion is true.
fedora tipping intensifies
Tip it to whatever retarded god you believe in, not to me.
Materialist magician incoming!
[dead]