Agree with the above? any comments?
Don’t know if there is much to comment here.
Are we supposed to feel concerned that there will be more religious, less atheist people by 2050? The poor we shall always have with us, that much is clear, and whether it is the religious or philosophical, people will adopt some form of consolation, some narrative that makes life worth the effort.
I used to think that the internet would lead to the decline of religion and would corrupt religious minds like city living would corrupt christian school girls. That has not happen in many ways. The internet is a tool that is used according to the preferences of the user. Muslims, Christians, Hindus, are now, in theory, insulated from information by the saturation of available information and the decline of one authoritative POV. People are now easily feed their own prejudice with a spice of rationality.
I would venture to say that by 2050 we will see even more insularity, both politically and religiously. As more people are denied opportunities, these self-serving searches will be more popular as a way of coping, in my opinion. Fringe thoughts will gain center stage. Standing in the way of this will be television and it’s liberal bias, but there is only so much that it can do.
So I agree with the overall idea that the trend is towards greater religiosity.
Well, life is supposed to get harder for people in the future, and studies show that when people are content they are less likely to be religious. But who knows shrug maybe all that hardship globally will make it more obvious that something else might be going on than religion. I mean, I just say “don’t contradict yourself”, that’s a good morality, and I’m not religious… maybe that will catch on in the future. I think in the future, people will be more likely to say “I just don’t know” at a minimum, sure you’ll have Muslims and Hindu’s and Christians etc… but they’ll more likely say, “I do this, but honestly, I don’t know if there is a God.” IMO. I think it’ll change more towards secularism as a prediction, because once more people start doing this… you have at a minimum, a dominance of agnosticism.
First, the underlying elements [XYZ] within the human DNA that is driving people to be religious and its continuum towards non-religiosity will not change for at least 10,000 years.
If we study the trend from the last 10,000 to the present, one will note there is a shift and rising trend from religiosity to less-religiosity. The slope of the trend at present is very gradual but soon or later the trend will inevitably have a steep surge towards non-theism.
Humanity is riding on a tidal wave of an exponential expansion of knowledge at present and when there is a paradigmatic discovery to deal with elements XYZ, religiosity will wane and taper towards positive spirituality.
Though it is mentioned in the report somewhere, I think Christianity will have a significant jump due to the China-factor. The material-chasing Chinese trend will peak and plateau soon and the average Chinese will look towards basic religiosity. As with South Korea as an example, Christianity [not malignant Islam] will be the answer to fill the religious vacuum in China within the next 30 years.
As for the predicted growth of Islam due to its rabbit-like production of babies, this can only mean more jihadists being catalyzed by the evil laden elements within its holy texts and ethos.
Due to this potential and serious threat, I believe humanity must wake up to curb the growth of Islamism.
So what you are saying is that the Atheists are losers.
I can certainly see why.
Just three years ago I had a very positive towards religion. I now understand that that is because I had never really been exposed to religion. I grew up one of the most non-religious countries in the world, in the statistically most non-religious part of that country, in a secular family. Over the past few years however I had the opportunity to live in one of the world’s most religious countries, the fourth most religious by some statistical interpretations and I now view the dissolution of religion, especially Islam, as one of the most important missions for humanity in the 21st-Century. Now I understand why religion has been hated, feared, and struggled against by the most sensitive and intelligent people throughout history. After reading the statistics in the OP I did some research myself and came up on other numbers, for instance, “Atheism to overtake religion by 2038”. It’s impossible to speculate into the future, but for the sake of humanity, I truly hope that the number of hard-line and orthodox religious people in the world will reduce. As a position loses foundation it tends to radicalize which is obviously what is happening today particularly with Islam. As you say omar, there is not only self-censoring at the search site, but also very strict laws in place that make it near impossible to have any frank or critical discussion about religion or atheism. Further laws prevent access to films and other media which would let in any light, and a reign of popularly imposed terror for fear of being beaten to death in the street of having one’s house invaded and burnt down polices at the local level. The sheer passion of people may decide this, in which case it is necessary for the tolerant and open-minded to hold great fortitude, exercise genius cunning, and the hardest determination if a world of intelligence and peace which is free of intolerant, ignorant, and brutal religion is ever to come to pass.
I do not have such a negative view of religion or such a positive view of atheism. In my opinion it is the character of the person that determines what kind of X he or she will be. The elimination of Islam will not affect a thing in the world if the problems that fuel islamic aggression are not resolved. ISIS did not become a threat because of their theology but because of the corruption of political leaders who failed to protect sunnis in the region, opening the door for ISIS to step into a desperate situation, where the people would appoint anyone who would protect them, regardless of their extremism.
Atheism develops in a different environment. Marx said that religion was the opium of the people and he was right. The increase in religion will have a lot to do with the desperation most suffer throughout the world. The poor do not turn to atheism but to theism to cope with their situation, and aggression, given God’s “blessing”, according to their religious leaders, follows a pattern that would still be valid in an atheistic worldview, that is, the improvement of this life by any means necessary.