This covers a lot of my beliefs of Religion, Mathematics, and Science

Externus I'm reading through your posts, and all of the things you're using as proof are either:
-Slightly mistranslated from Arabic to assist the meaning you're trying to convey (I'm a native speaker), you probably didn't mean it though since you're probably not fluent in the language
-Very vague statements that can convey multiple meanings, Texas sharp shooter fallacy.
-Were already known knowledge at the time even 14 centuries ago, or were copied from other texts at the time.
-Entirely wrong.

Here's a pretty nice summary of the reasons many people, including me, left the belief:
http://memd.cf/100ReasonsILeftIslam.html
This is pretty long but it's a good read. Obviously doesn't cover everything, has some things I don't agree with, and can be improved. There's other even deeper reasons than only these to me at least.

Quote from Ash

There's always been ebbs and flows in the tide of religious sentiment. In the enlightment, there was a period of time when atheism became popular amoung great thinkers. The same thing happened in the 20th century, with greats like Bertrand Russel.

In the past 20 years, however, especially since the publication of The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins) and God is Not Great (Christopher Hitchens), atheism (or at least general irreligion) has become not just intellectual vogue, but a common position.

Why is this happening? Is religion on it's way out? Or are we going to see some sort of bounceback in the coming decade?

Post your thoughts.

As far as I can tell the bounceback is already happening, and has been going on at least for a decade. In fact, it seems to me that religious intellectualism is becoming very vogue, with several academics attempting to marry a sort of diffuse god-concept with their given field of study, one example being the Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben.

Furthermore, pretty much every religion has been steadily growing at least from 2000 - 2010, and I have not bee able to dig up any noticeable change in the past 5 years. Christianity and Islam had an annual growth rate of 1.31 and 1.86 respectively in the years 2000 - 2010, whereas atheism in the same period had an annual growth rate of 0.05, and agnosticism's rate was 0,32. Compare this to the annual growth rate of atheism in the years 1910 - 2000, a staggering 6.54, and you see that the growth of atheism is actually dwindling. Christianity, on the other hand, had an annual growth of 1.32 in the same period; in the past 100 years, the growth of christianity has been stable. http://media.johnwiley.com.au/product_data/excerpt/47/04706745/0470674547-196.pdf

This graph shows the projected growth of different religions towards 2050. As you can see, christianity is projected to continue steadily, having a much larger number of followers in 2050, but the same percentage of global population.


in short, religion is not dying.

Good read. Also hey there, been a while since I've seen you around.

Quote from alive

As far as I can tell the bounceback is already happening, and has been going on at least for a decade. In fact, it seems to me that religious intellectualism is becoming very vogue, with several academics attempting to marry a sort of diffuse god-concept with their given field of study, one example being the Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben.

Furthermore, pretty much every religion has been steadily growing at least from 2000 - 2010, and I have not bee able to dig up any noticeable change in the past 5 years. Christianity and Islam had an annual growth rate of 1.31 and 1.86 respectively in the years 2000 - 2010, whereas atheism in the same period had an annual growth rate of 0.05, and agnosticism's rate was 0,32. Compare this to the annual growth rate of atheism in the years 1910 - 2000, a staggering 6.54, and you see that the growth of atheism is actually dwindling. Christianity, on the other hand, had an annual growth of 1.32 in the same period; in the past 100 years, the growth of christianity has been stable. http://media.johnwiley.com.au/product_data/excerpt/47/04706745/0470674547-196.pdf

This graph shows the projected growth of different religions towards 2050. As you can see, christianity is projected to continue steadily, having a much larger number of followers in 2050, but the same percentage of global population.


in short, religion is not dying.

The main reason Islam is growing is due to high fertility and expected numbers and such. There's no gurantee whether or not these kids will grow up and remain religious. And this doesn't even begin to take into account the fact that despite people labeling themselves as belonging to a faith, they're what is reffered to as cultural. They're not as religious as the previous generation was, which in time will lead to the belief either being largely altered under the same label or just fading away. There's also a significantly large minority of people who left Islam, or have very liberal or secular views regarding it, but are living in the closet due to the implications coming out would have. An example being myself.
Obviously I don't know much about Christianity, but I assume it's a similar situation? Correct me if I'm wrong.

You would be correct about the Christian faith, as I too have become one of what you describe. To me however, there is a large difference between following a religion and being religious. That may seem crazy, but just follow. Someone religious will follow their customs and pertain to their guidelines. In Christianity, that means going to church every Sunday, praying every night, sacrificing the lamb, and whatnot.

Now, following a religion is an entirely different thing. When you follow a religion, you believe in their ethics and theories and beliefs. I am and follower of the Christian faith. I might not go to church every Sunday. I might not pray every night. I might swear a little too much. Nevertheless, I believe God created the universe and every living thing in it, I believe Jesus was born to bring hope and died for our sins. When you refer to people being not as religious, I believe you may refer to many people following a religion but not being religious.

Here's a better example. Buddhism. Buddhism is an ideology, and a religion. Many Buddhists are religious, and pertain to their rules and actions, but some follow the religion simply because of its ethics. It's a peaceful and Meditative practice, that's why people love to follow it, but not always religious.

Now the real question is, do followers count as the general population of religious people? Well, I suppose that's a matter of opinion

I think that religion will continue to decline for a few more years, maybe even a decade, and then resurge.

The reason I think that people will turn to religion more is that atheism requires you to be philosophically adept (rationalizing how their cannot be any divine beings, and also rationally accepting a the fact that your life is pointless, in a sense, with becoming suicidal) or either exceptionally small minded (you cannot comprehend how something could be divine, and you don't care to either, so you will go along your ignorant little way).

Anyone who does not fit those qualifiers will not be able to rectify the deeper issues of life for which atheism offers no solution. Thus, they will have to turn to a religion.

Additionally, you will still have some of the people who DO fit those categories still turn to religion, since there are excellent philosophical defenses for the existence of God, and since you can be small minded in the since that you cannot comprehend a world without God, and don't want to try to bother figuring it out, either.

My sarcasm aside, the point is that Atheism is not easy to believe in, and even those who COULD make themselves believe in it often don't. Hence why religion will never actually end, but instead experience a resurgence.

I must admit I am a terribly lazy Christian, but I still identify as a christian nonetheless.

I was baptised catholic. So my ass was saved before I could walk. I also keep a bible handy.