The demographics of a lot of religious denominations have got to be painfully inverted pyramid for a lot of them, with ironically, immigration probably being the one thing keeping any inflow into the pews.
No, they don’t. They aren’t a group. They’re not anti-religion, they just aren’t yes. Just because you’re not for something doesn’t mean you’re against it for others.
The things people worship now, they don't call God. That doesn't always make them irreligious. I can think of more than one popular modern movement that is deistic, in that it fashions a god-like power out of some idea, a soul-like essence out of another. The church of the subreddit.
That take assumes there's some sort of religious vacuum, that if they don't worship a god then those desires will go into worshiping other things. It's naive in assuming their lack of desire to worship someone or something is a lie. There are many who actually feel no need to worship anything powerful and even some of them assume the powerful are doing well enough to not need worshiped.
I don't think it does. I think it simply poses an analogy between religious activity and the other belief-driven activities that people constantly engage in, even when they are not actively attaching themself to a metaphysics and an afterlife.
Ants outnumber both groups ... although global ant mass is only one fifth the dry weight of all humans.
Addendum: No response to why it matters that christians outnumber others then?
FWiW in Australia Christianity has been a matter of increasing indifference my entire life, it's mainly popular with those over 55 (moreso the over 70's) of European descent.
In the US, it matters a lot that Christians are, collectively, a majority, because of voting. Christians are not a unified voting bloc, but we have one political party that explicitly supports Christianity. It often uses Christianity as the basis of its decisions, to the detriment of non-Christians.
It's not as simple as a tyranny-of-the-majority by Christians. There are also some nonbelievers who support them, in a way that baffles many observers because they're often explicitly voting against their own best interests.
And there are some Christians opposed to this, though they should be able to use Christianity to support that choice and they don't. This further bolsters the nominally-Christian political party in forcing their version of Christianity on others.
Sorry, very late responding here. I never said it matters to me! I just pointed out the headline is false, unless you split up 'Christian' into separate denominations.
But to answer your question anyway, it's obvious why people are interested in this kind of statistic: because billions of people follow a variety of different religions, which disagree on everything from how the world was created to how one is supposed to spend their free time, and these disagreements continue to cause a lot of violence.
That's a grouping meaningful to Christians themselves, but meaningless to non-Christians, which means it's not a good way for this survey to be grouped.
To group things for statistics, pick the grouping level that is meaningful to all the entries in that same list.
> "Within the Nones, however, atheists and agnostics are more likely to be politically and civically engaged, whereas those who responded that their religion is 'nothing in particular' are far less likely to vote."
> "Pew also found that, overall, Nones are less likely to volunteer in their local communities than religiously affiliated adults."
> "Most Nones believe in God or another higher power, but very few attend any kind of religious service."
I'm getting quite a different picture of these "Nones". Rather than being atheist or agnostic, they believe in God, but just don't care about any kind of group or group activities.
Almost like they have checked out from social public life.
“they believe in God, but just don't care about any kind of group or group activities.“
Is that an American thing? I might be projecting, but over here in Europe (or just Germany?) my impression is that many see some good in organized religion for the community aspects and historical continuity, but all that despite being quite certain that no god actually exists.
I don't need to believe that god exists to consider it nice that our cathedrals and village churches aren't just museums, but living museums. Where professionals do give solace to people in need. Even many (most?) of those professionals seem to consider themselves more as custodians of an idea that does not have to be true to be good than as representatives of truth. They certainly don't go around declaring god is dead, but they certainly appear prepared to more on shared nature of belief than assumed truthfulness.
>my impression is that many see some good in organized religion for the community aspects and historical continuity, but all that despite being quite certain that no god actually exists
Americans don't have a lot of respect for, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses - just look at all the jokes about them knocking on doors.
Same here, but they are not seen as as example of organized religion at all. More as an example of how religion could be, if the established organizations did not exist.
Perhaps it's a particularly lucky situation here in Germany with its almost perfect 50:50 split of Christians between Catholics and Lutherans, which makes neither a fringe group. Fringe groups all too often end up being a little (sometimes a lot) self-radicalizing.
It's an interesting observation for sure, regarding differences in attitude to religion.
It sounds like the lack of toxicity of your religious ones there is on par with the lack of toxicity of non-religious there. Here in the US, religious toxicity seems to have increased non-religious toxicity. I suspect that's the case.
As a previous resident of Southcentral US and currently Southeastern US, I concur. Organized religion is the most potent socio-cultural poison in modern times in the US. Sadder than that, what we're mentioning in tandem is but a small portion of the larger inter-and-intra religious conflicts occurring worldwide, as well, or geo-political conflicts aided by them, which are almost equivalent. Even worse, in some respects.
I'll forever miss you, Hitchens. Until we become worm food again, that is.
This is an obtuse thing to say. Religion is simply being used as a cover to exact the will of people. You can remove religion, they’ll find a different rallying point and organize around it. And they have.
In this day and age, we ought to know better than to blame religion for what are ultimately negative actions done by people who have mental problems.
Religious apologists have used this excuse for ages to try to invalidate those who criticize it but it's a really naive take to say that religion has no manipulative influence on people whatsoever. And in a different conversation, the religious are generally sure to admit that it has had manipulative influence on them.
I think the point being made is that a religion is just an idea a bunch of people have. It doesn't have a mind of its own, Religion writ large doesn't either,. To blame religion is to take away the agency, and the accountability, of the people who actually do take action on these ideas.
I think you missed my point. Many religious people would say that their religion provides agency for them and you can't deny it, in itself, isn't an agent of forces, for better or worse.
> a religion is just an idea a bunch of people have. It doesn't have a mind of its own, Religion writ large doesn't either,
it literally does and that’s the point of it as a memetic complex. It is quite literally the “mind of its own” that ensures its memetic survival.
lmao @ the concept that large masses of everyday people all independently choose to not wear mixed fabric because they each performed a reasoned analysis of the facts and determined that poly-cotton blends are a threat to a 20th century society. Like that’s just facially ridiculous as a concept - of course religions have a mind of their own.
This isn’t an empty point either, when religions make “yeah, it’s good to stone people to death for having sex with other men” as a tenent in their holy books then you are going to see that show up in people’s belief structures. It’s not just a one-way street from people’s personal feelings into the religion, the religion itself has a significant if not majority influence for deep believers. And while some people will buck the holy book (“the Old Testament doesn’t count” etc) - the reality is that most people will not, because that’s apostasy. Or at most they will abandon a few key precepts and keep the rest (“the gays can live, but marriage is still an inherently religious institution” etc).
Go around a church and ask people and you will find the overwhelming majority believe in the overwhelming majority of their religion’s precepts. Because that’s why they’re there in the pews.
It’s as ridiculous as claiming the US government “doesn’t have a mind of its own” - we have elections of course, so in principle people get the government they want, but it also doesn’t mean it doesn’t have things where it’s completely out of step (drug policy etc) and it certainly doesn’t change the fact that if J Edgar Hoover is coming after you (read: vigorously enforcing the legally ratified will of the people’s duly-elected representatives) that it’s gonna feel a whole lot like the USG has a mind of its own.
The whole point of governments and corporations and religions is precisely that they have a will of their own. They are living creatures - self-executing colony organisms. Memes and systems of rules instead of genes. That’s why they exist and why they work and why they hold real power in the world.
However I disagree that our problems are caused by people who have mental problems, or some other distinct group. I blame human nature, which while capable of social behavior is at root selfish and hypocritical.
Religions do adapt to the times, but they aren’t simply reflecting the current will of the people. Current pork prohibitions for example date back thousands of years.
The only way they could simply reflect the will of the people is if they had no influence whatsoever.
To show you some contrast, I'm in California, and I think the lack of religion is the single biggest destructor of our current society. From the destruction of women/the family, to simple gluttony, sloth, and even pride.
Also in California, I was alone and unhappy until following Jesus. Since then I’ve met a ton of like minded youth in my area and we engage in all sorts of good and fun activities. It is without a doubt the best choice I’ve ever made (modulo Calvinist objections).
I’d highly recommend anyone feeling unsatisfied by the social norms of the day to try visiting a few local churches of various denominations with an open mind.
Ya, I think watching most of my exgfs age into their mid and late 30s single or just into the next 0.5-1 year relationship, makes me think something is wrong. I wouldn't really know it was a problem if every single one of them didn't cry in front of me at some point during or after our relationship about being upset they have to work forever, feel like they might miss out on kids, that guys don't want to settle down anymore, and so on. Obviously the guys are at fault too. We were all clueless in our teens and 20s and not told what we should have been. I suppose parents could tell you, or friends, but they haven't been. The church for the most part is still trying.
I don't think religion is the major factor there. Losing religion is lagging behind these social changes. I mean, anecdotally, I'm not religious and my wife is fiercely anti-religions and we have 3 kids and she doesn't work. We just decided to step outside the rat race we felt we were in and lose some of the lifestyle people seemed to think was so important - moved away from the city, only had one car, didn't take overseas holidays.
There are quite a few people in the area I'm in who have made the same choices, some are religious, some are not. And we're still in touch with plenty of folks who match what you describe and they don't want to give up the career/city/car/lifestyle. Again, some of those people are religious and some are not.
You could make broad strokes about the relationship between religion and social culture but I think in your comment you have the relationship inverted. When you have religious freedom religions are an expression of the social culture of their members, they are not an enforcement of the social culture on their members.
It's that there's no community cohesion. Atheists don't gather every Sunday to meet with each other and be friends and get to know each other even if they don't particularly like each other. There's no atheist pastor that meets with everyone and proactively does couples counseling and group therapy. There's no atheist diplomat peacemaker to mend things after there's been a fight. there's no central thing that everyone can come together and agree on.
Yes, organized religion goes too far and gets perverted and it's bad. but we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in abandoning it.
And instead there's people coming together under other banners. And just because people don't come together isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unity as a society creates tyranny for those who don't follow. Dis-unity of society creates freedom for those who are happily different, more agility to think more freely and go more freely.
You want it one way but many others are happy with what you don't like.
It sure sounds like you're ascribing religious values or the lack thereof as the source of what you believe is wrong with the world. The thing is, what is wrong with the world has often been derived from religion and the burden it places upon the weak or disadvantaged, and the way in which it has held women down. Modern research is very clear on the topic, removing religion does not remove core values that benefit society, and in fact its quite the contrary, removing religion removes stigma and dogma whilst key values of humanity stay on.
How many millions of people did Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot kill? They were all atheists. Communist parties like the CCP require all members to be atheists.
I think the loss of belief in some sort of ultimate judgment did give a certain type of person who is restrained by a fear of punishment rather than any ethical commitment or sympathies, more of a free rein.
If there is a moral code regarding killing in which atheism comes out as the stronger, more compassionate philosophical system, it would be the one that points this fact out, without an afterlife or any sort of reincarnation this existence is the only one you've got.
And to deprive someone therefore of a meagre 90 or 100 years, the only glimpse they'll have out of potentially hundreds of billions of years underscores the preciousness of life and why it should not be taken.
That's a nice hypothesis but it breaks down when you historically look at just how many people were killed in the name of religiuos jihads, crusades, witch trials (including all the individual people killed for rather benign reasons but against religious doctrine). The religious are just as guilty of using fear to kill others.
I will give you that there are surely some who can say fear of gods kept them from killing but in fairness surely there are some who were set free from those gods and realized they didn't have to persecute others just because a religious doctrine says, even if their sympathies said otherwise to the doctrine.
"the decree". There is no single decree in atheism, that was my point. By definition it's many nebulous people with nebulous beliefs in many different places.
Theism tends to be the default in general society so by nature, it is a more congealed group vs the rest. And when we use taxonomy to classify groups, casually in this case and by will of the group, we naturally define a commonality. Having "beef" with a defined group is more sensible than having "beef" with some nebulous other so no, I don't consider your assertions true that these are the same "beefs", if that's what you're implying.
In the case you pointed out, the only thing those atheists had in common with other atheists then and now, in general, is just a name. There is no shared doctrine(s), it is defined by a lack of. I'd argue the converse, that it is much harder to be of toxic nature when your whole belief system, or lack thereof, is defined by a lacking as opposed to the what can be the insistence of the ones who posit beliefs.
Religion has existed far longer and caused more harm than a handful of unaffiliated dictators. In fact it's quite a popular tool for dictators and strong men to manipulate people.
> the single most destructive force in our society
I have no faith to speak of, but more and more I think we sorely need the role of a church to provide fellowship, reflection, community, and reinforce shared values. I certainly don’t believe any of the major religions are perfect at these tasks, but losing these as focal points or objectives has been a great loss to society.
There's a lovely sci-fi book series Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota where one of the speculative fiction aspects is that there had been some awful world war iii fought over religion, and the world decided to outlaw organized religion.
Religion is allowed, but it's between you and your "sensayer" and they're not allowed to preach or tell you what to believe. It allows search & exploration, but everything has been set up to prevent organization.
If you've read Sanderson's Mistborn, there's maybe some parallel to the Keeper Sazed, who inventories religions/beliefs & tries to help folks find beliefs that suit them.
really comes down to strong ideology of any kind that rejects or censors other opinions that go against their ideology.
The Soviets rejected Mendelian genetics and modern agriculture because it came from a monk and went against communist ideology. Lysenkoism killed 50 million+ in China and Russia as a result of the famines it created
Funny that the word is the same as the 9th "canonical hour," Nones, which is what I thought at first. Probably because I'm reading a book set in the 15th century.
Polls like this are always interesting to me because there's so much that can go into a person's answer to any of these questions.
For instance, per the article most of these "Nones" still believe in God or Gods but don't subscribe to a particular religion. They're definitely not atheists as you might expect from the label.
On the flip side, I know some people who would probably answer this poll as Catholic even though they don't attend church, don't believe that any miracles in the bible literally happened etc.
To add to this even more, there is the lumper/splitter problem of which groups we count as one. As others have pointed out, Christians would outnumber the Nones if they were all put in the same group. But how we decide to slice things up can affect how the results look.
>For instance, per the article most of these "Nones" still believe in God or Gods but don't subscribe to a particular religion. They're definitely not atheists as you might expect from the label.
As an atheist, not that it makes me special in any way, since we're all born tabula rasas, it does work in favor of the slow elimination of blind faith due to the dilution of the importance of strongest way of dissemination of that poison. Personal faith has the capability to dissolve organized religion into nothingness. That is the ultimate succession toward worldwide secularism and hopefully, secular humanism.
Lots of anti-religious sentiment being echoed here.
Marx said the right thing for the wrong reason when he described religion as “the opium of the people/masses”. I definitely believe that religion can be effectively misused to pacify people who are suffering injustice. I would imagine in all major religions there are “clergy” (I hate both the word and the concept it represents) who tell people “it’s OK if you’re oppressed and poor while bad people literally get away with murder, everything will be righted in the next life”. Or, even worse, they use religion to whip people up into a frenzy and justify religious wars and genocide. All while amassing wealth and influence for themselves.
However, as a practicing, fairly conservative Muslim, I know first-hand there are many religious scholars who live very modest, even impoverished lives while being a force for good and fighting against all forms of injustice. In fact, I would say the majority of dedicated scholars are not wealthy and not OK with injustice.
The problem isn’t organized religion, it’s that we live in a time, perhaps unprecedented in history, when the world is generally rotten. The existence of charlatans and hypocrites is a reflection of that reality, and the ones who ally themselves with dictators and corrupt politicians are the loudest and most visible.
I had the impression his point was that religion distracts people from improving this world, not that he had a substitute.
> we live in a time, perhaps unprecedented in history, when the world is generally rotten
It has been argued - I forget by who - that this was the normal view of history across cultures for thousands of years, that there was a golden age before writing now fallen into decay, until Western progressivism became a prominent ideology.
It seems to me there is a lot of religious scripture in support of the idea that history is a cycle of decline, corruption, false prophets, and indiscriminate punishment from God.
>The problem isn’t organized religion, it’s that we live in a time, perhaps unprecedented in history, when the world is generally rotten
I'm a Christian. One belief that I hold to is that all of creation is broken and needs to be fixed - and can only be fixed by the Creator God. Until that happens, we will continue to see people do bad things
Unfortunately, many of those Christians are among the reasons the world is so generally rotten. In some cases, it's directly connected: they feel that God is going to fix it for them, momentarily, and nothing they do matters.
I do not blame Christians in general. People of both faith and lack-of-faith do rotten things, and fail to do beneficial things.
But I would very much like to see Christians do a better job at holding each other to account. There are too many situations where Christians use their Christianity to make the world a worse place, and I will not stand for "God'll fix it!" as an excuse. Neither should other Christians.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 175 ms ] threadhttps://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/religious-no...
But how do you organise a disparate group whose only common characteristic is that they don't believe in imaginary deities?
I don’t think I’m actually joking.
[0]: https://thenetworkstate.com/
So basically exactly the opposite of what you said: They specifically do not want to organize.
Ants outnumber both groups ... although global ant mass is only one fifth the dry weight of all humans.
Addendum: No response to why it matters that christians outnumber others then?
FWiW in Australia Christianity has been a matter of increasing indifference my entire life, it's mainly popular with those over 55 (moreso the over 70's) of European descent.
https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/religious-affiliation-austra...
It's not as simple as a tyranny-of-the-majority by Christians. There are also some nonbelievers who support them, in a way that baffles many observers because they're often explicitly voting against their own best interests.
And there are some Christians opposed to this, though they should be able to use Christianity to support that choice and they don't. This further bolsters the nominally-Christian political party in forcing their version of Christianity on others.
But to answer your question anyway, it's obvious why people are interested in this kind of statistic: because billions of people follow a variety of different religions, which disagree on everything from how the world was created to how one is supposed to spend their free time, and these disagreements continue to cause a lot of violence.
To group things for statistics, pick the grouping level that is meaningful to all the entries in that same list.
The Religious "Nones": https://youtu.be/tSVlZDnu-Uw?si=fBDGw_f_cFk-tgRO
The Rise of the "Nones": https://youtu.be/pG2mtELrxkg?si=ffxZjscRHKx5hJ8d
"Looking for the Nones": https://youtu.be/tuQq3nn15ZE?si=a2xlPemMAl6xbSJl
Signs of Hope with the "Nones": https://youtu.be/Pa_1GQHaGq4?si=oD520IccFaFy1paI
"Nones" Rediscovering the Bible: https://youtu.be/llYrTb4zqFQ?si=weh6iwCY6rlfL-NP
Ironically his ministry really took off thanks to the New Atheists back when they were gaining steam with Hitchens and his gang.
As a side note I loved Hitchens as well even if I disagree with his arguments myself. If I had a pick a favourite Atheist it would be him.
> "Pew also found that, overall, Nones are less likely to volunteer in their local communities than religiously affiliated adults."
> "Most Nones believe in God or another higher power, but very few attend any kind of religious service."
I'm getting quite a different picture of these "Nones". Rather than being atheist or agnostic, they believe in God, but just don't care about any kind of group or group activities.
Almost like they have checked out from social public life.
This also connects with surveys about 25% of Gen Z (virtually the same percent as these Nones) are not having sex: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-03/young-ad...
31% of Gen Z live with parents: https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/poverty/4405595...
There's also huge declines in people going out. (Although not the 25% that matches the other numbers.)
To me this all paints a picture of people who are just tired, depressed, don't care, etc.
I would very interested to know if these groups are all the same people, or if it's just a random 25% of any survey that doesn't care much.
Is that an American thing? I might be projecting, but over here in Europe (or just Germany?) my impression is that many see some good in organized religion for the community aspects and historical continuity, but all that despite being quite certain that no god actually exists.
I don't need to believe that god exists to consider it nice that our cathedrals and village churches aren't just museums, but living museums. Where professionals do give solace to people in need. Even many (most?) of those professionals seem to consider themselves more as custodians of an idea that does not have to be true to be good than as representatives of truth. They certainly don't go around declaring god is dead, but they certainly appear prepared to more on shared nature of belief than assumed truthfulness.
Americans don't have a lot of respect for, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses - just look at all the jokes about them knocking on doors.
Perhaps it's a particularly lucky situation here in Germany with its almost perfect 50:50 split of Christians between Catholics and Lutherans, which makes neither a fringe group. Fringe groups all too often end up being a little (sometimes a lot) self-radicalizing.
It's an interesting observation for sure, regarding differences in attitude to religion.
I'll forever miss you, Hitchens. Until we become worm food again, that is.
In this day and age, we ought to know better than to blame religion for what are ultimately negative actions done by people who have mental problems.
it literally does and that’s the point of it as a memetic complex. It is quite literally the “mind of its own” that ensures its memetic survival.
lmao @ the concept that large masses of everyday people all independently choose to not wear mixed fabric because they each performed a reasoned analysis of the facts and determined that poly-cotton blends are a threat to a 20th century society. Like that’s just facially ridiculous as a concept - of course religions have a mind of their own.
This isn’t an empty point either, when religions make “yeah, it’s good to stone people to death for having sex with other men” as a tenent in their holy books then you are going to see that show up in people’s belief structures. It’s not just a one-way street from people’s personal feelings into the religion, the religion itself has a significant if not majority influence for deep believers. And while some people will buck the holy book (“the Old Testament doesn’t count” etc) - the reality is that most people will not, because that’s apostasy. Or at most they will abandon a few key precepts and keep the rest (“the gays can live, but marriage is still an inherently religious institution” etc).
Go around a church and ask people and you will find the overwhelming majority believe in the overwhelming majority of their religion’s precepts. Because that’s why they’re there in the pews.
It’s as ridiculous as claiming the US government “doesn’t have a mind of its own” - we have elections of course, so in principle people get the government they want, but it also doesn’t mean it doesn’t have things where it’s completely out of step (drug policy etc) and it certainly doesn’t change the fact that if J Edgar Hoover is coming after you (read: vigorously enforcing the legally ratified will of the people’s duly-elected representatives) that it’s gonna feel a whole lot like the USG has a mind of its own.
The whole point of governments and corporations and religions is precisely that they have a will of their own. They are living creatures - self-executing colony organisms. Memes and systems of rules instead of genes. That’s why they exist and why they work and why they hold real power in the world.
However I disagree that our problems are caused by people who have mental problems, or some other distinct group. I blame human nature, which while capable of social behavior is at root selfish and hypocritical.
The only way they could simply reflect the will of the people is if they had no influence whatsoever.
I’d highly recommend anyone feeling unsatisfied by the social norms of the day to try visiting a few local churches of various denominations with an open mind.
There are quite a few people in the area I'm in who have made the same choices, some are religious, some are not. And we're still in touch with plenty of folks who match what you describe and they don't want to give up the career/city/car/lifestyle. Again, some of those people are religious and some are not.
You could make broad strokes about the relationship between religion and social culture but I think in your comment you have the relationship inverted. When you have religious freedom religions are an expression of the social culture of their members, they are not an enforcement of the social culture on their members.
Yes, organized religion goes too far and gets perverted and it's bad. but we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in abandoning it.
You want it one way but many others are happy with what you don't like.
And to deprive someone therefore of a meagre 90 or 100 years, the only glimpse they'll have out of potentially hundreds of billions of years underscores the preciousness of life and why it should not be taken.
I will give you that there are surely some who can say fear of gods kept them from killing but in fairness surely there are some who were set free from those gods and realized they didn't have to persecute others just because a religious doctrine says, even if their sympathies said otherwise to the doctrine.
This is false. They most certainly were under the "decree of atheism."
e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti-religious_campaign_(...
By this definition, then, you have no beef with most religions
Additionally, it sure looks like atheism as the state religion and exterminating the unbelievers was decreed by the Soviet authorities.
In the case you pointed out, the only thing those atheists had in common with other atheists then and now, in general, is just a name. There is no shared doctrine(s), it is defined by a lack of. I'd argue the converse, that it is much harder to be of toxic nature when your whole belief system, or lack thereof, is defined by a lacking as opposed to the what can be the insistence of the ones who posit beliefs.
If that claim was true, than these monsters who caused the most harm would have been part of organized religion.
I have no faith to speak of, but more and more I think we sorely need the role of a church to provide fellowship, reflection, community, and reinforce shared values. I certainly don’t believe any of the major religions are perfect at these tasks, but losing these as focal points or objectives has been a great loss to society.
Religion is allowed, but it's between you and your "sensayer" and they're not allowed to preach or tell you what to believe. It allows search & exploration, but everything has been set up to prevent organization.
If you've read Sanderson's Mistborn, there's maybe some parallel to the Keeper Sazed, who inventories religions/beliefs & tries to help folks find beliefs that suit them.
The Soviets rejected Mendelian genetics and modern agriculture because it came from a monk and went against communist ideology. Lysenkoism killed 50 million+ in China and Russia as a result of the famines it created
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
For instance, per the article most of these "Nones" still believe in God or Gods but don't subscribe to a particular religion. They're definitely not atheists as you might expect from the label.
On the flip side, I know some people who would probably answer this poll as Catholic even though they don't attend church, don't believe that any miracles in the bible literally happened etc.
To add to this even more, there is the lumper/splitter problem of which groups we count as one. As others have pointed out, Christians would outnumber the Nones if they were all put in the same group. But how we decide to slice things up can affect how the results look.
As an atheist, not that it makes me special in any way, since we're all born tabula rasas, it does work in favor of the slow elimination of blind faith due to the dilution of the importance of strongest way of dissemination of that poison. Personal faith has the capability to dissolve organized religion into nothingness. That is the ultimate succession toward worldwide secularism and hopefully, secular humanism.
Marx said the right thing for the wrong reason when he described religion as “the opium of the people/masses”. I definitely believe that religion can be effectively misused to pacify people who are suffering injustice. I would imagine in all major religions there are “clergy” (I hate both the word and the concept it represents) who tell people “it’s OK if you’re oppressed and poor while bad people literally get away with murder, everything will be righted in the next life”. Or, even worse, they use religion to whip people up into a frenzy and justify religious wars and genocide. All while amassing wealth and influence for themselves.
However, as a practicing, fairly conservative Muslim, I know first-hand there are many religious scholars who live very modest, even impoverished lives while being a force for good and fighting against all forms of injustice. In fact, I would say the majority of dedicated scholars are not wealthy and not OK with injustice.
The problem isn’t organized religion, it’s that we live in a time, perhaps unprecedented in history, when the world is generally rotten. The existence of charlatans and hypocrites is a reflection of that reality, and the ones who ally themselves with dictators and corrupt politicians are the loudest and most visible.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
I had the impression his point was that religion distracts people from improving this world, not that he had a substitute.
> we live in a time, perhaps unprecedented in history, when the world is generally rotten
It has been argued - I forget by who - that this was the normal view of history across cultures for thousands of years, that there was a golden age before writing now fallen into decay, until Western progressivism became a prominent ideology.
It seems to me there is a lot of religious scripture in support of the idea that history is a cycle of decline, corruption, false prophets, and indiscriminate punishment from God.
I'm a Christian. One belief that I hold to is that all of creation is broken and needs to be fixed - and can only be fixed by the Creator God. Until that happens, we will continue to see people do bad things
I do not blame Christians in general. People of both faith and lack-of-faith do rotten things, and fail to do beneficial things.
But I would very much like to see Christians do a better job at holding each other to account. There are too many situations where Christians use their Christianity to make the world a worse place, and I will not stand for "God'll fix it!" as an excuse. Neither should other Christians.