There are frequent threads here with atheists (myself included) posing very level positions on why organized religion is allegedly a sham.
I am absolutely NOT trying to spark a debate among the believers versus the non-believers; I’m simply curious as to whether or not Atheism is gaining grounds on organized religion.
I believe it is. I have no evidence. Do you?
As a symptom of the decay in society, yes, yes it is.
Did you mean to post this in The BBQ Pit?
No.
No, it isn’t. Only a tiny minority of people will openly profess atheism. But I think those few who do are becoming bolder about it. And I think September 11th brought the destructive power of religion home to a lot of people.
Great Debates is the forum for witnessing, after all. If that’s The Raindog’s opinion about the relationship between religion and atheism in society, can he not state that in this thread?
It wasn’t a comment from a Moderator-just a question. I like to know where I stand, that’s all.
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Currently, the Brights movement is having a pretty strong impact in the entertainment world with the Bullshit! TV series, His Dark Materials book series, Richard Dawkins’ writings, and even Mythbusters.
It’s almost a given that at least a few people will be converted over to atheism through this, but I don’t think you’ll see massive conversion and it’s certain that once the novelty has worn off that the TV shows will get into less impressive time slots, and the books less discussed, so they do have a limited amount of time.
And I’d assume that the religious world has taken some blows via Pope Palpatine, the Catholic pedophile cases, and gay marriage equality.
Thank you, Northern Piper.
To clarify my point, to the extent that atheism is advancing (and it may not be, as Larry Borgia implies) it is not, in my view, because it is a more compelling paradigm vis a vis religion.
Rather, atheism is the natural result of humanism run amok, it is secular humanism.
It’s simply bowing to a different master, bowing to self.
ETA: edited out language that looked too snarky upon review.
Indeed. Rather than trying to live a moral life based on what seems to work in the real world without hurting other people, we should bow to the master who says that you must stone to death anyone who works on Sunday (Christianity), run sharp leaves up and down the insides of your nostrils until they bleed (some random African religion), delegate a certain subset of your people to be toilet cleaners and meat butcherers who have to sweep the ground after themselves as they walk to remove contamination from the street (Hindu), etc. all just because you were told to and that you should do it without explanation.
Atheism is secular humanism?
Why don’t you look up both in a dictionary and get back to me.
That may well be the case - notice that many nonreligious people profess some form of spirituality, whether it’s new-age mumbo-jumbo or unreasoning faith in science (without considering its contraints when dealing with the metaphysical). However, this does not mean that the professed class of “atheist” may not be on the rise.
God, I hope so.
You need to define the population you’re talking about, but if we assume the OP is talking about the US, then I think it is. From this article in the WaPo:
I could be wrong, but it seems like your argument is that atheism is more compelling - compelling because it involves more selfishness, but compelling nevertheless. Of course i’d tend to disagree with you, in that I do not worship myself and indeed see many things as being above myself in importance, one of those being society, and indeed I would say that most atheists have a moral code putting others above themselves. But there you go.
I think it’s possibly both genuinely on the rise and more people are willing to say they are. I’m not sure which is the larger group.
I think a definitive answer depends on how you define your terms. If we are talking about straight atheists I would say the answer is probably no. If we toss in agnostics and those who don’t know and don’t really care or don’t associate with any formal or even informal ‘faith’ then I think the answer is yes.
My personal belief is that hard core atheism is more difficult for the general population to swallow…while agnosticism (even informal, unknowing sort of nebulous agnosticism) is the more general trend. That and in my own experience people simply saying they don’t care and don’t really think about it all that much.
-XT
The truth is exactly the opposite. God is either nonexistent or silent. Basing your morality or whatever on God is basing it on your self; because “God’s Will” is whatever you say it is, and nothing more. Humanism goes beyond the self, because it values other people.
And secular humanism and atheism are not at all the same thing, anyway, as Czarcasm pointed out.
As for whether or not there are more atheists, I doubt that it’s an answerable question, because so many people will lie about it, both ways. And so many people want to split unbelief into finer and finer factions (the principle of divide and conquer I expect ), which means as we see that it’s even hard to define the question.
That being said, I hope so, but I doubt it.
I am not an atheist because I am a humanist. I am a humanist because I am an atheist.
I’m an atheist not out of any desire for self-exaltation, but because religion and traditional concepts of God* aren’t supported by (or are flat out contradicted by) the facts and by logic. Although I certainly don’t think “science can disprove God”, I do think the rise of modern scientific explanations for things like the diversity of life on Earth and the origins of humankind, along with the scientific disproof of traditional religious accounts of creation and the world, have knocked away some of the reasons many people in the past felt a God was necessary. Combined with the rise of true freedom of religion, in which people are free to openly question religious dogma or the authority of scripture, instead of being forced to swallow whatever doubts they might have had lest they face the Inquisition, and you get an increase in atheism, or at least of open, publicly admitted atheism.
*Actually, every concept of God I’ve ever heard of that doesn’t boil down to semantic sleight-of-hand has failed to convince me.
And, given the rise in atheism, unless we choose sheer nihilism–which most of us aren’t very happy with, and which we are probably largely wired (by evolution) to reject–we need something besides religion, namely humanism (or secular humanism) to give expression to and reinforce our natural feelings of compassion, co-operativeness, dignity, wonder, and so on, in a way which is nonetheless compatible with reason and our scientific understanding of the world.
What is definitely on the rise is a shift away from the religious dogmatism expressed by groups such as the Evangelical Right in the US and Islamic extremists in the Muslim world. While those groups may be increasingly vocal, the broader public seems less willing to take a “You are absolutely wrong in your beliefs” stance.
The loss of dogmatism is replaced by an internalization of belief system with less emphasis on proselytizing the world and more emphasis on a personal “spirituality.” Rather than a shift toward a belligerant atheism of the type frequently seen on this board, I see a shift toward a non-specific, bland, “higher-power” loosely-constructed paradigm which has two key precepts: First, that we are not ourselves gods–we are subservient in some way to a higher order of authority even if that authority is left undefined–and second, it is not our mission in life to tell the next guy over that his belief system is inappropriate, as long as he conforms to a general kindness toward the earth and its creatures.
It may be that the need to believe in something (or at least, order of some kind) is built into our genes. It may be be that our ability to create culture and society is dependent upon not casting aside all except self-interest. Regardless, I think the hesitation to proclaim one’s self an atheist is more than simply the anxiety over being on the wrong side of Pascal’s wager.
For the forseeable future, developed societies with educated populations are moving in the direction of a practical agnosticism toward any specific theology. The result is kinder and gentler than a scientific atheism. My God is OK, and yours is too as long as he isn’t mean.
And, who, pray tell, is the master you describe?