The rise of atheism and the non-religious

I imagine its more that educated people are better at having nuanced views on things, and many of the more outspoken religious advocates absolutely despise nuance.

The whole point of religions growing because of birth rates really worries me.

Religion isn't in your blood or in your genes. Religion is a set of viewpoints and practices which you choose to follow. It makes me sad to see, from these statistics, how many children automatically take on the same religion as their parents - and it reaffirms my suspicions that many of those children don't feel they have a choice in the matter at all.

One's upbringing will, of course, always have some influence on one's views; but I think that in an ideal world, the correlation between a given person's religious (or non-religious) views and those of his parents would be much, much lower.

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...

In the Middle Ages, there was a correlation between education and subscribing to Aristotelian metaphysics. In the Renaissance, on the other hand, there was a similar correlation between education and Platonism.

It is true, nowadays atheism is very popular among the educated elites. I don't see that, in itself, as evidence that atheism is true (and, to be fair, most atheists I know do not consider it such either).

edited 30th Aug '12 9:01:32 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Those areas with the most poverty also tend to be the most religious, though that could be down to poor areas having worse education in general rather than something inherent in poverty.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

well, yeah. Anyone with half a brain knows proving atheism true is as impossible as those religious types proving their deities exist.

I suspect its more that when you have little, you tend to cling to ideals that your suffering has some greater point to it instead of you having terrible luck.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:03:42 AM by Midgetsnowman

No one is arguing that atheism is true. We're arguing that the data trend of education correlating with areligion is possibly a sign that education leads one to dismiss religion as being a superstition. That, in and of itself, is not a sign of a religion being true or not.

The name of the trope is Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions, based on the sentiment often expressed by characters who represent the trope. People on this site like to refer to things by trope names, so the concept of outgrowing religion kind of carries the rest of the trope's name.

The concept of "outgrowing" religion refers to many of the resons why myths are invented and why people believe in them; and those reasons (such as a desire to "explain" something that isn't yet understood) can indeed be outgrown.

We shouldn't snipe at religion, but expressing the notion that people can find the "benefits" of religion (such as group solidarity and comfort in distress) from somewhere else is not sniping.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Here is part of the Barna group study.

I'm decently educated and it's only reinforced my religious beliefs. Maybe that's just me.

Also, to answer an earlier post, Christianity AFAIK is more about what you do, less where you pray.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:17:57 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor

I did not talk about proof, but about evidence. As far as I know, plenty of atheists argue that the nature of our world makes the lack of a deity more likely than the existence of a deity. As far as I know, "many professors are atheists" is not generally considered a solid argument for that.

This may well be the case, at the moment. But as I said, if we look in the past we can find correlations between education and other systems of metaphysics; and since philosophy lies well beyond the reach of the scientific method and is not subject to "progress" in the same sense in which, I dunno, chemistry is, I think that much of this correlation, perhaps all of it, may be due to contingent factors (such as the overall worldview of our times.)

edited 30th Aug '12 9:17:34 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

This was my primary reason for dismissing organized religion as well, although I never was "inside" it so much as exposed to it by default and finding it lacking. Interestingly, I arrived at this conclusion entirely on my own without being "indoctrinated" into an atheist mindset.

I would suggest that lack of religious indoctrination is a primary contributing factor to the decline of people self-identifying as theistic. If you don't teach religion, then your children don't grow up thinking it's a natural thing to believe in and will more likely make an educated decision in the matter.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Carco, can you really say that the two metaphysics systems you proposed are less "theological" than the prevailing religious attitudes? What you suggested is actually the exact same phenomenon-as we learn more and more about science, the educated population is more and more willing and able to conceive of a physicalist's view of reality, as opposed to an authoritarian dualist view.

This doesn't mean the educated are right. That's a different thread. But it strikes me as protesting too much to reject the clear pattern between high level thinkers and areligiosity.

A factor might well be lack of good religious education. Many people, it seems, are taught incredibly simplistic versions of their religion, lacking the theological sophistication that all of the world religions have as well as much of their spiritual value.

These versions do not really stand up to any halfway serious critical examination: and if one knows these and these alone, it won't be difficult to convince him or her that what their beliefs are unsubstantiated.

What about Hegelian Idealism then? It used to be extremely popular among the educated elites, and it is still quite popular in parts of them. At the moment, physicalism is indeed quite popular among educated people; but it seems to me that this is far more likely to be due to contingent factors.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:28:33 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

@Carciofus: But what if one does look into the more sophisticated theology that you speak of and find that it's merely window dressing over the more fundamental beliefs? I'm trying to avoid a derail into criticizing religion, but my point is that if you believe the premise flawed in and of itself, then it doesn't matter how sophisticated the arguments based on that premise may be.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:30:03 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

which I find is very common in highly religious areas because the average parishioner doesn't actually bother studying the book past whatever ideology their pastor wants

still, I was a rather avid reader of the bible outside of church and I never was satisfied with the answers.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:30:30 AM by Midgetsnowman

Then they may be right or wrong, and I won't discuss which one they are in this thread.

But it seems to me that people are generally first presented the "Lies to Children" version as the true one, then they are disabused to it, and then perhaps they see an inkling of the more sophisticated variants, if that, after they have came to terms that what they had been presented as the Real Ultimate Truth was, in fact, anything but that.

This cannot dispose one very favorably.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:31:53 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I also get a feeling that part of the disagreement here is because there are some pretty big differences between theistic belief in the US and theistic belief in Europe, likewise there are some pretty big differences between being non-theistic in the US and being non-theistic in Europe.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

I think one problem is that religions by and large present a very anthropocentric view of reality that modern science, particularly cosmology, doesn't really support. The fact is that humans are not nearly as significant as these tomes would have one believe.

It's a real problem, don't get me wrong, that religious education is basically horrible. I'm in the same boat as Fighteer as I don't find it convincing at all...and to take it a step further I'm not sure how you teach it to the masses...it's too complicated and too philosophical. But on a very base level, there's so much of modern Christian culture that is simply not biblical and it's not really being challenged. I do think that religious leaders do have to carry the blame here.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

But modern science does not really have anything to say about significance. If I am not mistaken, according to the standard materialism point of view whether something matters or not is entirely in the mind of who makes the call: Science cannot really tell me whether I am more or less important that the galaxy of Andromeda.

Science can tell me that Andromeda is really, really, really, really... (repeat for quite a while), really bigger than me: but that's a whole different matter.

And as an aside, the fact that the cosmos is huge compared to Earth is not precisely a new discovery.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:43:33 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Science doesn't attempt to answer the question of 'significance'. To be quite honest, I'd have less problem with religions if they weren't constantly trying to deny scientific discoveries on the basis that they somehow "demystify" the universe. Why would God give us a brain if he didn't intend for us to use it to explore the cosmos that He supposedly created?

Also the notion that humans occupy a privileged place in the universe above and beyond our status as the only known thinking, reasoning beings strikes me as an entirely philosophical one, and I don't see how you leap from there to the conclusion that evolution must be false.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:45:59 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

That as well.

Stuff like the Rapture doesn't even exist in the text, yet its a rather big part of evangelical belief.

what annoys me more is people who selectively want to use some science but contest big parts of science that'd render even the parts they use inviolate.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:46:46 AM by Midgetsnowman

This is one trend in religion, true, and — while it is by no means general, in religion as a whole or in Christianity in particular — it is a worrying one. I disagree with this kind of thinking as much as you do; and the fact that this sort of thing exists might actually be one of the factors why much of the educated elite is indeed dissatisfied with religion.

No argument from me here.

As far as I am concerned, you don't.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:52:00 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

That's another point. The negative correlation between education and religious belief could be down to a difficulty reconciling a pursuit of knowledge with adherence to a sect concerned with mysticism and faith to the point where is almost glorifies ignorance.

ninja'd

edited 30th Aug '12 9:52:29 AM by Elfive

My major beef is with how people will gleefully claim carbon dating or dinosaur bones are a "test of faith" completely not realizing that if one bit of geology is falsifiable, then God or Satan could have falsified all of science altogether and Satan could snap his fingers and destroy gravity.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:54:44 AM by Midgetsnowman