When will Religions die?

[Moloch]

Religion is dying out in America: Just 18% of people 60 and younger attend church and less than 50% believe in God
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3497755/Religion-dying-New-study-finds-just-18-percent-people-60-younger-attend-church-50-believe-God.html

Religious affiliation and belief in God has dropped in developed countries
It was thought that US was an exception, but data reveals this isn't the case
New study shows each generation is less religious than the one before it

Around the world, people are beginning to turn their backs on religion.
For some time, researchers have observed this trend as it ripples through developed countries, with the United States standing out as the exception.
Now, a new study reveals this is no longer the case; with each passing generation, Americans too are steadily becoming less religious.
... (click link for more) ...

[Hasbro27]

Religions made a lot of damage to human beings and our world in general. I'm not talking only about Islam, but every kind of religion, more or less, caused lots of problems.

I'm sure they will end. They won't last forever. But how will they end?

Which could the scenario that leads to their disappearance?

I think it is not the religion that makes the damage but the actions of some people who do the destruction that bring their religion, because all religions teach the good and do not teach the damage. Religion is a guide to life after death, religion will disappear after doomsday

[Moloch]

Religions made a lot of damage to human beings and our world in general. I'm not talking only about Islam, but every kind of religion, more or less, caused lots of problems.

I'm sure they will end. They won't last forever. But how will they end?

Which could the scenario that leads to their disappearance?

I think it is not the religion that makes the damage but the actions of some people who do the destruction that bring their religion, because all religions teach the good and do not teach the damage. Religion is a guide to life after death, religion will disappear after doomsday

All religion have a mixture of both in their holy books...

The Old Testament is full of murder, rape, genocide, pillaging... all done in the name of god... god commands it... and if read by a random person, they might get the wrong idea

http://www.evilbible.com/evil-bible-home-page/murder-in-the-bible/

Exodus 21:15 - Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death.
Exodus 22:17 - You should not let a sorceress live.
Leviticus 20:10 - If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death.
Leviticus 20:13 - If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives.
Deuteronomy 17:12 - Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death.  Such evil must be purged from Israel.
Zechariah 13:3 - If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say to him, “You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord.”  When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall thrust him through.
...

The list goes on and on... this is some rather abhorrent behavior... anyone reading this stuff could go on a murdering rampage thinking god commanded it...

The bible is a dangerous book to leave laying around where children might read it!

[CoinCube]

Nearly 50% are of no religion – but has UK hit ‘peak secular’?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/13/uk-losing-faith-religion-young-reject-parents-beliefs

The secularisation of Britain has been thrown into sharp focus by new research showing that for every person brought up in a non-religious household who becomes a churchgoer, 26 people raised as Christians now identify as non-believers.
...
It paints a picture of a Britain in which Christianity has seen a dramatic decline – although figures suggest a recent bottoming out in recent years. The avowedly non-religious – sometimes known as “nones” – now make up 48.6% of the British population. Anglicans account for 17.1%, Catholics 8.7%, other Christian denominations 17.2% and non-Christian religions 8.4%.

But, the “growth of no religion may have stalled”. After consistent decline, in the past few years the proportion of nones appears to have stabilised. “Younger people tend to be more non-religious, so you’d expect it to keep going – but it hasn’t. The steady growth of non-Christian religions is a contributing factor, but I wonder if everyone who is going to give up their Anglican affiliation has done so by now? We’ve seen a vast shedding of nominal Christianity, and perhaps it’s now down to its hardcore.”
...
Bullivant identifies a generational shift in terms of education and religious affiliation. Among older nones, a high proportion had degree-level education. But the nones’ above-average levels of higher education fade further down the age groups. Thus the non-religious have the lowest levels of degree-level education among 25- to 34-year-olds and 35- to 44-year-olds. (The proportion of graduates is highest among Catholics and the ​non-Christian religions, he notes.)
...
Although religious affiliation is declining in western Europe and north America, there is significant growth in other parts of the world. Islam is expected to become the world’s largest religion by 2075, and Christianity is booming in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and China.

[Franky00]

Religions in the modern world are no longer so important as they were before, and I think that they will soon disappear. Now much is explained by science and people simply do not need religion.

[Avametra]

Religions in the modern world are no longer so important as they were before, and I think that they will soon disappear. Now much is explained by science and people simply do not need religion.

There are so many people who believe in religion. And these people will always be. It's just such a mentality for some people. It is very important for them to believe in something. They like to strive for something just because religion approves of it

[Casabrandy]

Religions in the modern world are no longer so important as they were before, and I think that they will soon disappear. Now much is explained by science and people simply do not need religion.

There are so many people who believe in religion. And these people will always be. It's just such a mentality for some people. It is very important for them to believe in something. They like to strive for something just because religion approves of it

Religion is a belief. Just like investing on bitcoin and hope that it will inflate price in the future. Having a purpose and goal life is the best way to really live. Money can't buy happiness that we can get by serving GOD. Don't be too obsessed on money.

[CoinCube]

Christianity Not Dying Out, but Atheism Is in Danger
http://www.christianpost.com/news/christianity-not-dying-out-but-atheism-is-in-danger-due-to-contraception-study-reveals-177551/

A new study has countered some perceptions that Christianity around the world is on the decline and could be dying out, by pointing out that religious people are having more children than atheists.

The study, titled "The Future of Secularism: a Biologically Informed Theory Supplemented with Cross-Cultural Evidence" specifically tackled perceptions among social scientists that religious belief is on the decline.

Researchers from the U.S. and Malaysia studied over 4,000 students, asking them about their religious beliefs and how many siblings they had, and found that Malaysian atheists had 1.5 fewer siblings than the average, though in the U.S. the gap was narrower.

The experts found that non-religious children from the U.S. came on average from parents who had 3.04 children, compared with the 3.2 in the general population.

The findings, published in the Evolutionary Psychological Science international journal, correlated with other studies which found that Muslims are the most fertile and religious group. Christianity and almost all other religions had a positive association with parental fertility as well, however.

"While cross-sectional in nature, when our results are combined with evidence that both religiosity and fertility are substantially heritable traits, findings are consistent with view that earlier trends toward secularization (due to science education surrounding advancements in science) are currently being counter-balanced by genetic and reproductive forces," the study explained.

It also foresees a decline in secularism, due to the reliance on contraception contributing to lower birth rates, which it traced back to industrial developments.

"By the mid-19th century, scientific discoveries had moved to a point that human reproduction was sufficiently well understood that fertility rates began to be impacted, especially in the emerging industrial countries," it read.

The researchers predicted that "secularism is likely to undergo a decline throughout the remainder of the 21st century, including Europe and other industrial societies."

"It is ironical that effective birth control methods were developed primarily by secularists, and that these methods are serving to slowly diminish the proportional representation of secularists in forthcoming generations," they added.

The Independent reports that some might argue that having religious parents doesn't necessarily mean that their children will grow up with the same beliefs, but other studies have shown that religion is indeed heritable to an extent.

[kevinn669]

Religions in the modern world are no longer so important as they were before, and I think that they will soon disappear. Now much is explained by science and people simply do not need religion.

There are so many people who believe in religion. And these people will always be. It's just such a mentality for some people. It is very important for them to believe in something. They like to strive for something just because religion approves of it

Religion is a belief. Just like investing on bitcoin and hope that it will inflate price in the future. Having a purpose and goal life is the best way to really live. Money can't buy happiness that we can get by serving GOD. Don't be too obsessed on money.

Do not be obsessed with money? But how? God will not pay my bills, he will not buy me food and will not give my children clothes. We live in a society where the extraction of money has become a very important part of life. Maybe this can be called a religion. Religions will never die, they will just update and change

[sometag4lifer]

It's hard for a religion to end, people will always believe in something therefore they finish with our own existence.

[BitcoinMarshal]

It's hard for a religion to end, people will always believe in something therefore they finish with our own existence.

You are right its not going to end because without this we are not to exist-est its helping humans in many ways and its also killing many peoples need to talk about this on table 

[Okurkabinladin]

Christianity Not Dying Out, but Atheism Is in Danger
http://www.christianpost.com/news/christianity-not-dying-out-but-atheism-is-in-danger-due-to-contraception-study-reveals-177551/

A new study has countered some perceptions that Christianity around the world is on the decline and could be dying out, by pointing out that religious people are having more children than atheists.

The study, titled "The Future of Secularism: a Biologically Informed Theory Supplemented with Cross-Cultural Evidence" specifically tackled perceptions among social scientists that religious belief is on the decline.

Researchers from the U.S. and Malaysia studied over 4,000 students, asking them about their religious beliefs and how many siblings they had, and found that Malaysian atheists had 1.5 fewer siblings than the average, though in the U.S. the gap was narrower.

The experts found that non-religious children from the U.S. came on average from parents who had 3.04 children, compared with the 3.2 in the general population.

The findings, published in the Evolutionary Psychological Science international journal, correlated with other studies which found that Muslims are the most fertile and religious group. Christianity and almost all other religions had a positive association with parental fertility as well, however.

"While cross-sectional in nature, when our results are combined with evidence that both religiosity and fertility are substantially heritable traits, findings are consistent with view that earlier trends toward secularization (due to science education surrounding advancements in science) are currently being counter-balanced by genetic and reproductive forces," the study explained.

It also foresees a decline in secularism, due to the reliance on contraception contributing to lower birth rates, which it traced back to industrial developments.

"By the mid-19th century, scientific discoveries had moved to a point that human reproduction was sufficiently well understood that fertility rates began to be impacted, especially in the emerging industrial countries," it read.

The researchers predicted that "secularism is likely to undergo a decline throughout the remainder of the 21st century, including Europe and other industrial societies."

"It is ironical that effective birth control methods were developed primarily by secularists, and that these methods are serving to slowly diminish the proportional representation of secularists in forthcoming generations," they added.

The Independent reports that some might argue that having religious parents doesn't necessarily mean that their children will grow up with the same beliefs, but other studies have shown that religion is indeed heritable to an extent.

Thank you CoinCube for the voice of reason.

So many of these so called atheists refuse to even look at hard numbers and try to argue merely from the point of their feelings.

I can also recommend work of Eric Kaufmann (himself an agnostic), who did a lot of research on the subject, concluding that the world is in fact undergoing DEsecularization since atleast 1990. Perhaps, thats why we have so many hateful people on bitcointalk. Their gut feeling tells them, that the world they took for granted is slowly changing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/shall-the-religious-inherit-the-earth-by-eric-kaufmann-1939316.html

[crypto1010]

The religions are already dying a natural death. Look at the western nations. A majority of the population is either atheist, agnostic or non-religious. Even in the oriental nations such as China and Japan, the situation is the same.

maybe its safe to say these are the end of days, something extra ordinary needs to happen to restore peoples faith

[bitblackred]

I think, Religions won't ever disappear, they will just evolve as society grows and changes

[CoinCube]

God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics
http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/book_20110701_1.htm

One way in which to confront the challenges posed to religion by Richard Dawkins et al is via sheer metaphysics; another is to claim a future demographic victory in which the religious will outnumber the non-religious worldwide, as The Economist journalists, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge did recently in their riposte, God is Back. However, it is also worth looking in detail at the political impact of religion past and present. Is religion a force for good or evil in the world, a cause of political problems or part of the solution to the challenges and conflicts societies face? The authors of God’s Century (that is this one!) attempt to answer this question. All three are young, American, political scientists who refute any lingering notion that religion is a spent force, insisting rather that ‘over the past four decades religion’s influence on politics has reversed its decline and become more powerful on every continent and across every world religion’ (p. 3). They are keen to point out that ‘religious actors’ throughout the world now ‘enjoy a greater capacity for political influence than at any time in modern history’ (p. 40).

Duffy, Philpott and Shah provide a good overview of the history of religion–State relations with regard to all the major faith traditions: the renowned European 1648 Treaty of Westphalia; the Japanese Edo period from 1603 onwards, in which Buddhism developed as an instrument of state power; the relationship between Islam and political authority in post-1453 Ottoman Empire are all discussed. This is not a Eurocentric account. However, their main purpose is not to trace historical roots; ‘this is a book about global politics, written first and foremost for people interested in understanding the world’s present and future dynamics’ (p. 40). Nor are ‘global politics’ treated lightly as a single narrative. God’s Century is full of ‘case studies’ which examine the impact of religion in particular contemporary contexts and conflicts, such as in Afghanistan, India, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, offering insights often ignored in foreign policy analysis.

But behind their accounts is a thesis that the resurgence of religion is connected to its commitment to developing democracy and global communications: ‘pro democracy monks and mullahs, priests and patriarchs were everywhere – north and south, east and west, developed world and developing world… disproving the secular thesis in its latest, “neo atheist” version that militant religion and illiberal politics are conjoined twins’ (p. 95). Much good use is made of Jonathan Fox’s A World Survey of Religion and the State (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Based on the Freedom House Political Rights and Civil Liberties scores, the authors tabulate in detail the contributions of religions to the democratisation of individual countries, stressing that where religions have institutional independence their contribution is usually more positive: ‘religious communities are most likely to support democracy, peace and freedom for other faiths and least likely to take up the gun or form dictatorships, when governments allow them freedom to worship, practice and express their faith freely’ (p. 18). They also note that ‘at least 50% of the world’s population lived under political regimes that systematically restricted the right and capacity of religious organisations to influence society and politics at some point between 1917 and 1967’.

An excellent chapter on ‘Religious Civil Wars: Nasty, Brutish and Long’ focusing on Sudan, Chechnya, Sri Lanka and Tibet (noting that civil wars since 1950 have claimed over 16 million lives) leads into an analysis (again tabulated in detail) of the contribution of religions as ‘militants for peace and justice’. The role of the Catholic Church, for example, through organisations such as the Community of Sant’Egidio (especially in mediating in the conflict in Mozambique), is praised. We really underestimate, usually through political ignorance, the detailed mediating role of ‘religious actors’ in resolving national conflicts and introducing follow up ‘transitional justice’ (through instituting Truth Commissions, for example). As the authors put it, ‘Although almost every religious tradition has seen at least some prodemocratic activism, the fact is that religious actors from the Catholic tradition accounted for an overwhelming proportion of religious activism on behalf of democracy between 1972-2009’. The political facts spelt out here illustrate that positive contribution, one that is mentioned rarely even within the Church itself.

God’s Century closes with ten rules for the future, acknowledging that religious actors are here to stay and will not be confined to the private sphere; rather they will ‘enter public life and shape political outcomes’. They will have a larger and more pervasive role in this century (‘China by 2050 will be home to the world’s largest Muslim and the world’s largest Christian community’) and they will reinforce democratisation, peacemaking and reconciliation. Governments which ‘fail to respect the institutional independence of religious actors will encourage pathological forms of religious politics including religious based terrorism and religious related civil wars’. The key message is that governments need to appreciate the strategic value of religions in foreign policy and engage seriously with their beliefs and theologies. But in the end this political account of the religious contribution looks to the future on the basis of the American model of faith-State relations, which are under-examined.

God’s Century is not itself a work of ‘political theology’ but it does demonstrate that we who belong to religious traditions have too readily conceded that religions cannot make positive contributions to tackling the most seemingly intractable challenges and conflicts of our times. There is here plenty of real evidence of political hope.

[Sithara007]

The religions are already dying a natural death. Look at the western nations. A majority of the population is either atheist, agnostic or non-religious. Even in the oriental nations such as China and Japan, the situation is the same.

maybe its safe to say these are the end of days, something extra ordinary needs to happen to restore peoples faith

No. Nothing is going to happen. As the education level increases, more and more people are going to dump religion. Look at the most educated nations on the earth. They are all either atheist or secular.

[RedX]

religion will never die unless people lose the faith.

Yes religion relies on people who believe on God and if they lose their faith then eventually it will die. But on the question "will religion die?" then the the answer is no. Remember people always call God when they are in so much despair seeking for help.

[simplyAmetaGamer2]

Never ever. Ideas are always are supported by more than one people, so it's almost impossible.

[galestorm]

Religion is not the reason why humans kill and destroy eachother, its their own morality that makes them do it. The way they think is the reason why they provide so much casualties , they think that what they're doing is right when its actually wrong. Religion exists to provide us values, it serves as a guide to make the world a better place so i dont see the reason why religion is the driving force of humans to destroy eachother.

Religion wont die that easily, unless there is proof that a divine god does not exist. It'll continue on thriving for years to come.

[mk4]

Religion is not the reason why humans kill and destroy eachother, its their own morality that makes them do it. The way they think is the reason why they provide so much casualties , they think that what they're doing is right when its actually wrong. Religion exists to provide us values, it serves as a guide to make the world a better place so i dont see the reason why religion is the driving force of humans to destroy eachother.

Religion wont die that easily, unless there is proof that a divine god does not exist. It'll continue on thriving for years to come.

This. I said it in the past and I will say it again. Whatever religion or belief, be it islam, christianity, buddhism, theism, atheism, flying spaghetti monster society; if a person is immoral, he/she will be immoral regardless of belief.

Like it or not, believer or not, you can't deny how much religion made humanity become peaceful due to being a morally good person being a rule on almost all good regions.