From Fox News:
A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.
Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.
Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.
On the one hand, I don’t have a problem with people becoming less religious. Let’s face it, some of the worst episodes in human history were caused by religion, and religious beliefs today sometimes stand in stark opposition to fact. However, where problems arise is when people dump religion and then replace it with something equally as irrational, or with nothing at all. The Commies got rid of their previous belief in Invisible Sky Buddies, and replaced it with a belief that Communism actually made sense, a belief every bit as unfounded in fact and logic as the goofiest religion. And since they elevated their new wacky beliefs to the level of Official State Faith, with the secular equivalent of anti-blasphemy laws, the supposedly non-religious Commies had themselves some witch burnings worse than those perpetrated by those claiming to be working for God.
Modern Europe has done a much more complete deletion of religion than the US so far, and fortunately they seem to not have replaced religion with Communism or Nazism. Instead, from here it kinda looks like they’ve replaced religion with a bland belief in the equality of all viewpoints. Which, while it sounds nice, ain’t. Some viewpoints are just plain wrong. The simple fact seems to be that humans have a built-in need to Believe; as with all things, there is a bell curve… some humans have a very strong need, some a very weak. But the need for faith in something seems to be ever present. And if you get rid of one system of faith, you’d damned well better have another one lined up, or otherwise you’ll just start accumulating random bits of fluff in its place. And random bits of fluff do not hold up very well against concerted attacks by more unified systems.
Too many lose their religious faith but don’t replace it with anything of value. Like, for instance, a basic understanding of scientific principles, a concept of cause and effect. Too often a faith in a god is replaced with a faith in “the basic goodness of Man,” or “tolerance,” or “diversity is our strength” and other equally ridiculous PC rubbish. Those who replace “something” with “nothing” are easy marks for those who have some othe, more seductive – or aggressive – “something” to push on ’em.
7 Responses to “Non-religiousity on the rise”
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Did they count the Obamatons?
[…] is an important part of why Christianity is on the slight decline in the US, and in major decline in Europe. The world as revealed by science is a wonderous place… and […]
Dead Christians HAHAHAHA!
What could be funnier than that?
LOL democide!
I suppose that since you are, admittedly, a equal opportunity bigot, it would be just as funny if it were a dumpster full of dead Muslims…but that might carry unwanted repercussions.
What a vile demotivator….
One reason that idiocy like Intelligent Design gets play is that the rabid anti religious bigotry displayed by those like like yourself in the above dispairware gives the quite rational impression that people like you are inimical to the very lives of those you are trying to persuade. This is a poor way of trying to win an argument and ultimately counterproductive.
Regards the rest of the post…
…which is rather less hateful and more rational than the first illustration…
I think that the bland nothingness coming into the fore in Europe is doubly troubling. Most people need something substantive and larger than themselves to believe in and in areas like Europe the most radical aspects of Islam are on the rise….not through immigration but CONVERSION. I am also unconvinced that a return to totalitarian statism is not in the cards over there…it is not talked about much but that impulse can be ginned up quickly if people have no personal anchor, and the “everything is relative…nothing is wrong” silliness in no way provides that.
Religiosity most likely evolved as a means by which self aware beings could be able to come to terms with the finite nature of life without going batshit insane over the personal futility of it all. There are other , less mataphysical evolutionary advantages to religiosity as well, see here:
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/03/your_tribe_is_m.html
It is quite probable that more people have been killed by atheists in the last 89 yeas than by religious nutters in the last thousand….So it is perhaps wise to not let a highly theoretical best be the enemy of the good.
Upon reflection I should probably scratch the word “bigot” from the above second paragraph. It is as unnecessarily hateful as the demotivator itself. It is also unfair, as the post, aside from the evil visual, was well reasoned (as the vast majority of your posts are).
> the evil visua
I suggest you look a bit more closely at the “evil visual.” In particular, pay attention to the name of the company stencilled on the side of the dumpster.
I’ve very little interest in placating those who can’t be bothered to actually try to understand a joke.
> It is quite probable that more people have been killed by atheists in the last 89 yeas than by religious nutters in the last thousand…
Seems doubtful. The biggest group of murderers this past century were the Commies, who were not atheists. They simply took the usual religious dogma and swapped out “God” for “State.”
I got the joke… I just don’t find dead Christians funny.
Perhaps you didn’t grasp how offensive it was.
” Seems doubtful. The biggest group of murderers this past century were the Commies, who were not atheists.”
Wow….That statement involves a level of denial and contortionistic rationalization more appropriate to the Discovery Institute.
Good blog btw…occasional nuttieness notwithstanding.
> I just don’t find dead Christians funny.
Then take it up with the owners of the dumpster. Come on, you can’t name a company “Christian Disposal” without *somebody* realizing the comedy potential.
In any event, I’ll wager a nickle that the people who staged the photo are themselves Christians. About two seconds of Googling shows that this is the company in question: http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/swmp/facilities/chris.htm
Even have the same phone number as shown on the dumpster. Located in Missouri. Not exactly a hotbed of anti-Christian activities, last time I checked.
> Perhaps you didn’t grasp how offensive it was.
A) Perhaps I disagree on how offensive it would be to most people.
B) Perhaps I don’t care how offensive it would be to the easily offended.
C) Perhaps both.
> That statement involves a level of denial
So it is your contention that the Commies *didn’t* replace God with The State?
I disagree. As with the Nazis, the Commies took the same basic trappings of theo-religion and warped them into a statist religion. The Nazis were more open about it, but the Commies worshipped irrationally every bit as much as the nuttiest Fundie. They had their own martyrs and saints, visible on parade placards, posters and whatnot; their own Scripture; their own revising of history to get rid of unpleast details; their own scientific dogmas supported officially long after the facts were in showing otherwise. Stack the general description of religion agaisnt Communism as it has actually been practiced, and the only functional difference is that Commies officially rejected Invisible Sky Buddy for Invisible Historical Dialectic.