Oh dear, how sad, too bad, never mind
"Religious disaffiliation is rising. Is there a path back to the fold?
Whatβs driving religiously unaffiliated Americans away from organized religion? And what can bring them back?"
"The result stunned me.
For the first time, the religiously unaffiliated were the same size as both Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants, the two largest religious groups in the United States."
There are also two new factors driving religious scepticism - space and biochemistry.
Not just the physical exploration of space by robots, but also the physics of space and time.
Meanwhile, biochemistry is "creating" simple life forms, modifying organisms to produce desirable waste, such as altering the DNA of yeast to produce petroleum and creating vaccines "to order" by programming a machine.
@Petter
My younger son's major subjects in his third year university are biochemistry, physics, chemistry and other. Thankfully enough for him, he was not brainwashed by any religion from birth
He gives all sorts of reasons, but not the real one. With the widespread use of mass communication and improving education, there has been an increase in people's ability to independently reason.
Hence, from only 1.8% of people saying there is no god 20 years ago, now there is 6% - that is a tripling in just 20 years. If that 6% triples in the next 20 years there will be 18% of Americans saying so.
Extrapolating further - 3 times 18% makes 54% of Americans denying the existence of any god by 2060.
ROLL ON THE FUTURE!!
I have seen a lot of these, Christians reporting on their own decline articles over the years, and they never do get it right.
We need to increase the rate of change
@Fernapple Exactly, because they started from the assumption that people are wrong to leave, not that they have done something wrong to have people leave.
This is of course all based on the gruesome old chestnut that their system comes from an infallible god and so CANNOT be flawed.
Pure hubris.
Churches :You will want what we offer, or you will burn in Hell
Cults : We will offer what you want and charge you handsomely for it, pay up
Atheism: Here is reality take it or leave it.
People: I'll take the cult thanks ££$$££%%%
@LenHazell53 That's it perfectly. I left it at that, because I could not think of a way of putting it quite so neatly. My other thought was about how similar they are to political figures like Putin, and the orange thing. Declaring that they want and are going to make their countries great again, without ever realizing that it is people like them and their policies that are stopping it becoming great again.
Actually I like your line so much, that I think I will quote you in the quotes group. Hoping you don't mind.
It's always seemed to me that with virtually any religious claims of divinely revealed knowledge through so-called sacred scripture, the proper response is definitely, "Sounds like bullshit to me." And that goes for all the dogma and doctrines associated with it.
wise words
@LenHazell53 - it's like when someone is trying to sell you on their mythology.
I reply,
"I don't necessarily know what the right answer is... but that ain't it."