Religion

My history teacher described it as a pendulum with religion on one side, money on the other. And that right now it's swinging towards money.
For example, during colonial America, there was a time when the new generation (this was like 100-200 years after the colonies were made) only cared about money and everyone wanted to build ships in Boston. The old generation didn't like it and believed they were rejecting god and such. So then there was The Great Awakening and Enlightenment when religion suddenly made a comeback and new religions and slightly altered values appeared. That continued throughout history. (I'm a history nerd >.<)
So religion might not disappear, it will just change to fit the advancing world. There will still be both religious and nonreligious groups no matter what time period. Maybe people will end up worshiping electricity or robots or something.

APUSH class, yeah

 

Both where I go to school and where I'm from religion is alive and well. It also influences , or tries to, every aspect of civil society. What really blows me away is people in here who think , or seem to espouse the notion anyway, that any type of religion that had any power or influence today , eg roman cathlolicism, Islam , Judaism , evangelical Protestantism (and even some of the more puritanical " liberal" Protestant denominations ; Presbyterianism, Methodism ) are ever going to be " accepting " of any sort of " alternate" lifestyle. I find this type of vacuity or false hope to be baffling . I just spent 2 days with someone who comes from a southern baptist family and wow, super scary .

 

I think it could be possible for one region of the world to be mostly nonreligious and another to be extremely religious. However, that would be frightening seeing as that will likely cause a huge war.

 

Um, the enlightenment = religion ?

 

oh, that was just part of the chapter name in my textbook, the great awakening part is the religion.

 

I think it will disappear as well specially if they continue down the hateful path .

 

pendulum seems like a bad way to describe it.

thesis/antithesis/synthesis of Fichtean nature is more useful.

for example the Enlightenment assaults on religion caused people like Schleiermacher and Kant to reconcile faith with the empiricism application toward religion of individuals like Hume.

Are you also holding the position that any sort of belief with disappear if it continues to be hateful? Religion props those sorts of beliefs up, but it is not the prime motivator for hatred. There are more fundamental causes, mainly in group/out group. If you get rid of religion you don't get rid of bigotry and hatred, you just get rid of some of the cover that religion provides.

 

True. But I doubt most kids in my class would have understood that.

 

well a pedulum implies that there is no progression forward, just swinging back and forth between both extremes, which obviously is not the case.

 

I think maybe my teacher was trying to describe what people of the time are holding at value in general rather than the content within the two subjects. But yes, he could have picked a wiser choice of words.

 

Politics has blended in with religion before, and it can easily do so again. It's usually called nationalism at the most extreme, and patriotism at it's infancy.

There is always going to be something, somebody does or utilizes, to keep a certain percentage of people under control. It may not be Yahweh, Allah, or God, it may not be Buddha, Vishnu, or Zeus, but it will be something. I suspect, as science continues to expand and technology continues to advance, that, some day, we might be worshiping the very things we claim we use, like our smart phones.

 

I agree with you. I think it will eventually disappear entirely, but I think that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people will die fighting to preserve it. We're supposed to be such an evolved species, but we're not. We fight and kill and maim other human beings just because we don't all share the same beliefs. To me, we're no different from animals in that way. So we're smarter? Big flipping deal. We don't use our intelligence for good. We use it to corrupt and cheat and harm one another, by and large. In the interest of digressing, religion is a huge source of justification in the minds of most people on this planet for the way they treat others. And these days, the way people treat each other is with hate.

Anyone who thinks we live in a wonderful, safe, loving world is completely delusional, I'm sorry to say. The sooner religion is gone, the better off humanity will be. We're seeing the beginnings of it now, but unfortunately we won't live to see its full eradication in our lifetime.

 

I don't think religion will ever dissappear. Maybe in western world it might seem that way but we are going to opposite direction lately. Religion and being religious kinda trend. I didn't know there were so many women willing to cover their heads.

Money is also a factor in this movement however it is rallied by religionous types who were butt hurt by Ataturk and his revolutions in 1920s.

In east religion is best way to control masses, be it like more money focused like in here or hate focused like in many outside countries.

Maybe I am old school but I believe people always will feel need to believe in a higher power. Religion just proves them means to do it. More and more people seems to believe religion is twisted but that doesn't mean they stop believing in God, if you get what I mean.

 

I am pretty sure the stats show religion (or at least church attendance) in industrialized nations has demonstrated steady decline each decade since the 1950s; I would think it has been in decline since the enlightenment period or maybe since the 1920s. I would also say with confidence it will continue to decline into nonexistence or to the point where it has little impact. I speak of the western nations only as it seems certain nations are increasing in religion; however, if scinece continues to progress and spread, I would think it will lessen worldwide over time.

 

politics always blends with religion. Religion is usually an important factor in nationalism but it isn't what happens when politics blends with religion. Ethnic Nationalism is loyalty to your national identity, which often includes religion, and is more or less "I'm better than you because I was born here."

It is different than patriotism which is socially conditioned loyalty and support of the state and its actions, as opposed to blind loyalty to a national identity.

 

Eventually? It'll end up going. We have so many pieces of pop culture, it's ridiculous. For many, those have essentially taken the place of what gods and goddesses did, in the early days of mankind.

Believe it or not, my faith in humanity still is there. I'm sure within the century, we'll end up getting rid of it altogether, provided science doesn't keep contradicting nearly every religion out there.

By 2500, we'll probably have gotten rid of the Semitic and Judeo-Christian religions, as well as perhaps any current religions with multiple gods.

By 3000, my guess is that religions like Buddhism and Wicca will have at least died down, if they're not entirely abolished.

Hopefully by 3500, the people will actually trust scientists. And by "The People" I mean The American people. All of them.

 

I appreciate the elaboration (I really do; you're a smart individual, by the way!), but replace the marked out parts with "God" and "the church/the faith", and it's amazing how well that fits. That is what I'm getting at.

Religion goes far beyond some old text, it's a means of justifying why one exists, or why one thinks or feels. It is easy to point to a Christian and say, "Ah, they are following a religion", yet we ignore those who are avid lovers of, say, music. Some people depend on music, like others depend on their faith, and some will even say, it has improved or saved their life as well -- like many claim, religion has.

Religion will vanish, yes, but only as we know it today. It will adapt, and take on other forms. I'm both curious and disturbed, as to what those forms could, and will, be.

 

yeah they're similar but the distinction is important. Religion plays a role in nationalism but it is not nationalism in and of itself. Religion can unite people from disparate national conditions, nationalism can't.


I disagree that religion will vanish as we know it today. It will change but the fundamental pieces of faith and community will not.

 

No it doesn't. The enlightenment was about skepticism and promoting the scientific method. It was about questioning religion and not believing things on faith. It was the opposite of religion.

I think you meant: "Um, the dark age = religion ?".