In the future there will be no religion!

[The Common Potato]

Sure!

I recall fondly the confidence with which I announced to my mates in Form 5 at school (11th Grade for Americans) that religion would be dead and gone by the year 2000, then still over a quarter of a century away. How did that turn out?

Science, nor anything else, will ever kill religion.

People wants to believe.

Douai, my old place, shut in 1999, so you weren't far wrong.

Here's the thing, though, The Atheist, religion, at school, was just something that we sort of did, a bit like maths or chemistry. Certainly for me it wasn't a big deal. I basically drifted out of it once I left. My old place was responsible for inflicting Swing Low, Sweet Chariot on the world

 

[Belz...]

Science may not have destroyed religion yet. However it is making progress. Before the modern printing press in the 1400s everyone was deeply religious.

Were they deeply, though? Or were they mostly just practicing Christians who spent little of their time thinking about it because they had a lot more stuff to do, day-to-day?

 

[Apathia]

Before the modern printing press in the 1400s everyone was deeply religious.

And then came the dime novels, penny dreadfuls, and the Comic Books! Popular music, dancing, the theater, movies, TV, video games, Facebook, Twitter, skateboards! They took Bible and prayer out of our schools. They put Norse gods in our movies!

And most are still deeply superstitious!

 

[rjh01]

Were they deeply, though? Or were they mostly just practicing Christians who spent little of their time thinking about it because they had a lot more stuff to do, day-to-day?

Lots of things were done in the name of religion. Like the crusades. Many people were burned alive for being the wrong religion. Galileo was put under house arrest because his knowledge was in conflict with the church. Many very big churches were built with lots of labor. There are heaps more examples showing that many people took religion seriously.

 

[LongFuzzy]

Will we call ourselves Unified Atheist League or United Atheist Alliance or Allied Atheist Allegiance?

 

[catsmate]

In the future science will make the gods.

 

[Myriad]

Meh. They told me in the future there would be Rollerball.

No Rollerball.

"Always in motion is the future," Yoda said. But not Rollerball motion, apparently.

 

[Pope130]

Meh. They told me in the future there would be Rollerball.

No Rollerball.

"Always in motion is the future," Yoda said. But not Rollerball motion, apparently.

But were are not yet in the future, we remain in the present.
"Jam yesterday, and jam tomorrow, but never jam today."

 

[Craig4]

Christianity

Which one?

 

[JayUtah]

Which one?

I guess whichever one omits the restriction against consorting with familiar spirits.

 

[wollery]

Will we call ourselves Unified Atheist League or United Atheist Alliance or Allied Atheist Allegiance?

Splitter!

 

[Athyrio]

Sure!

I recall fondly the confidence with which I announced to my mates in Form 5 at school (11th Grade for Americans) that religion would be dead and gone by the year 2000, then still over a quarter of a century away. How did that turn out?

Science, nor anything else, will ever kill religion.

People wants to believe.

Fear not that the tyrants shall rule forever
Or the priests of the bloody faith
They stand at the brink of a mighty river
Whose waves they have tainted with death

It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells
Around them it foams and rages and swells
And their swords and their sceptres floating I see
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity
__________________________________________

Shelley wrote that about 200 years ago. I have had it memorized for over 50 years. Yet it persists.

Yes, people wants to believe.

 

[dann]

Were they deeply, though? Or were they mostly just practicing Christians who spent little of their time thinking about it because they had a lot more stuff to do, day-to-day?

I guess most unbelievers tended to shut up about it. I know that I wouldn't have proclaimed my disbelief under those circumstances. But some were brave or foolish enough to be frank about it: Atheism for Dummies (for European examples go to p. 89).

 

[Susheel]

Splitter!

We all know the only real one is Atheist League Interntional (ALI). Just noticed your subscription has not come in...

 

[Cheetah]

Hasn't managed to yet. And it's been at it for centuries.

No, in the future we'll just have different religions, with some masquarading as science.

But science is advancing and religion retreating. Science will chase religion down and maybe not slaughter it, but at the least neuter it... eventually.
I'm one of those rare optimistic atheists.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Pfft. The norse religion is already scientific. Watch me prove it with EVIDENCE: Thor kills frost giants. Have you seen any frost giants lately? QED.

 

[Thor 2]

Hasn't managed to yet. And it's been at it for centuries.

No, in the future we'll just have different religions, with some masquarading as science.

But science is advancing and religion retreating. Science will chase religion down and maybe not slaughter it, but at the least neuter it... eventually.
I'm one of those rare optimistic atheists.

I'm with Cheetah here and optimistic also.

A century or two ago the average dude did not have much knowledge of science to draw upon Belz. Mind you there are some of the religious today, who chose to ignore the knowledge the scientific method has given us, but these folk are not so common. Bill O'Reilly is one of the later, or perhaps rather than ignore, is just too ignorant to know much. Awestruck was the best way to describe my feeling, when he displayed zero comprehension about the cause of tidal movement.

 

[dann]

The rather unique road of the USA to non-religion:

No rich country prays nearly as much as the U.S, and no country that prays as much as the U.S. is nearly as rich.
America’s unique synthesis of wealth and worship has puzzled international observers and foiled their grandest theories of a global secular takeover.
(...)
But in the early 1990s, the historical tether between American identity and faith snapped. Religious non-affiliation in the U.S. started to rise—and rise, and rise. Three Decades Ago, America Lost Its Religion. Why? (The Atlantic, Sep. 26, 2019)

 

[dejudge]

Religion has made many super rich. People are making millions of tax free dollars by simply reading the Bible and preaching about belief in gods.

Religion will not be eradicated when it is probably the easiest way to make lots of tax free money.

 

[rjh01]

Religion has made many super rich. People are making millions of tax free dollars by simply reading the Bible and preaching about belief in gods.

Religion will not be eradicated when it is probably the easiest way to make lots of tax free money.

Correction. A few organisations, like the Catholic church, are making millions of tax free dollars by their slaves preaching about belief in god or gods.