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Somewhere along the way, a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., which might have been one more polite dialogue between science and religion, began to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told.
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With a few notable exceptions, he said, the viewpoints have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?
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Just a strange story, all in all. Worth reading for that alone.
I find that, despite my philosophical position not having changed much, I'm no longer such an extremist on this issue. I'm certainly not looking for a fight with the moderates.
I'm pretty much in agreement with Dawkins philosophically, however, like his critics, I find his intolerance of religion pragmatically counterproductive. While it would be great if we could somehow wipe religion from the face of the earth, that's not going to happen, and if we can't maintain a civil and productive relationship with the semi-rational moderates, we'll be overrun by the religious fundamentalists.
While it strikes me as true that the moderates protect and give credibility to the religious fundamentalists, it's also true that they protect and give credibility to the rational extremists. Getting rid of the moderates would lead to direct conflict, and there are some on both sides who are spoiling for a fight, but I don't think that's a good way to go.
I get the sense that overtime, religion will simply go away. In our day and age, it only seems that religion is strong because the Internet allows small groups to have a louder voice.
Consider the fact that it wasn't too long ago EVERYBODY on Earth held a religious belief, but now, atheists and agnostics are the majority.
Religious groups are becoming desperate. They see their numbers dwindling. They see their followers starting to question their beliefs. They are desperate, and are resorting to desperate measure to keep "believers".
Consider the fact that it wasn't too long ago EVERYBODY on Earth held a religious belief, but now, atheists and agnostics are the majority.
I certainly enjoy living and working in a culture where religion is not a significant factor (I'm a research scientist, and I have a hard time thinking of a colleague who suffers from these contagious superstitions), but I don't think you can say that agnostics are in the majority outside of certain specialized niches.
Church attendance figures, to the extent that such statistics mean anything, are down, but most people still identify themselves with some form of organized religion, and even those who do not, usually manifest some sort of irrational magical thinking they'll refer to as 'spirituality.'
Overall, church attendance is down, but the denominations that are losing people are the larger mainline denominations such as the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church, the Lutherans and the Presbyterians.
The evangelical denominations are growing, however, they can't replace the losses of the mainline denominations. The surprising thing to me about the 2001 census was that the Pentecostal church was down 15% over 10 years.
Unfortunately, outside of the Baptists, Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada and the Christian & Missionary Alliance, the census doesn't show what kind of growth other evangelical groups are experiencing (especially third-wave groups which I suspect poached from the Pentecostal numbers).
I know that the C&MA is up to 80,000 members these days, but haven't heard recent numbers on the EMCC, though my specific church has gained about 2000 people since the beginning of the year (our growth is faster than most other churches).
I know that our new members are evenly split between refugees from mainline denominations and non-religious people.
Judging by some of the recent articles I have read on demographics, it appears that religion is far from dying in the west. Islam is rising.
I know that the C&MA is up to 80,000 members these days, but haven't heard recent numbers on the EMCC, though my specific church has gained about 2000 people since the beginning of the year (our growth is faster than most other churches).
I know that our new members are evenly split between refugees from mainline denominations and non-religious people.
Judging by some of the recent articles I have read on demographics, it appears that religion is far from dying in the west. Islam is rising.
Wait a sec... look at those numbers. By those numbers those identifying themselves with a religion are WAY down. Even with the seemingly large percentage growth for evangelicals the overall numbers are down (ie. United Church losing 800 000 members)
Belief in personal God 1914 1933 1998
Personal belief................... 27.7 15 7.0
Personal disbelief............... 52.7 68 72.2
Doubt or agnosticism......... 20.9 17 20.8
Sir The question of religious belief among US scientists has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever almost total.
Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 "greater" scientists within his sample [1]. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively [2].
In 1996, we repeated Leuba's 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature [3]. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba's 1914 survey to gauge belief among "greater" scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever a mere 7% of respondents.
Quite frankly I'm glad to see some activism against the nonsense in BushCo, Kansas and in the schools.
The churches as apolitical gathering places serve a role that secular organizations have not yet replaced well in dealing with the human elements of birth and death and support.
Drama and ecstacy have a role in our psyche.....but not as a replacement for intelligent, reasoned action and thought in a world that requires more of it...not less.
Religion is irrelevant for many , dangerous for too many.
But that applies to other dangerous memes as well.
Most don't get coddled, go unchallenged when they err and get tax free status.
Time for change.
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Wait a sec... look at those numbers. By those numbers those identifying themselves with a religion are WAY down. Even with the seemingly large percentage growth for evangelicals the overall numbers are down (ie. United Church losing 800 000 members)
That is what I said in the first two paragraphs of my post.
edit: Now that I am home and have a chance to reread your post I see where you are coming from. The links at the end of my post were to back up what I said earlier in the post, not my comments about the growth of Islam. We had discussed that in a previous thread and I didn't link to them again.
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