Is peace and prosperity is the quicksand in which Religion sinks?

The question I pose is-is religion harmed by peace and prosperity? Does it thrive on peace and prosperity or does it thrive on misery and pain? Or can it do just as well with either or?

My two cents.

When calamity strikes, regardless of when or where, the religious talking heads will declare that it is God’s wrath, a punishment for some crime we’ve committed. And the reason why they do this is because death, misery and destruction are the best marketing tools religion has ever had. Religion thrives on fear, people assume it’s faith but faith is nothing more than an enabler, a blanket that hides one from whatever it is they fear. Example: I’m going to die and that is scary but I have faith I will live forever in heaven after I die.

Destruction is a big fear because it tends to come from major disastrous events like volcanoes, earth quakes, floods and war. Damage to a city, country or entire culture on a large scale is obviously something to be feared but it also serves another purpose for religion which is to maintain misery. Misery is to be feared, perhaps not for the people who loved the monster that was Mother Teresa but for the rest of us misery is no way to live one’s life. In fact religions biggest benefit from misery, especially misery caused by destruction, is a person who has no access to information or the time or ability to learn from it. Ignorance is the path to credulity, credulity is the path to religion. Misery is also certainly no way to spend eternity after you die which brings us to death. Death has always been the biggest fear for obvious reasons and remains so to this day.

But what happens when there is peace? What happens when the people share in the prosperity of their country? What happens when people have the time to gather information, to acquire knowledge, to learn? What happens is religion declines and when religion declines the powers that be get nervous and when they get nervous they try to make sure their people are afraid. Gays! Muslims! Abortion! Birth control! America is a sinful place that is moving away from God! Etc. But something’s happening now that never happened before. The days of William Tyndale have long since passed, the cat is out of the bag, the information is readily available, the knowledge is learned and so the fear is no longer as contagious. Instead it has the opposite effect, like knowing the symptoms of drug abuse its once strange appeal is replaced with repulsion. Suddenly even the religious want nothing to do with their religion so they tweak it and tweak it until it looks a little less like religion and a little more like secularism. Each generation taking one step farther away.

How many theists on these forums today support a version of their religion that would have earned them the title of heretic and a one way ticket to hell by the very people they support with their arguments about the validity of said religion? The ultimate truth apparently becomes truer the farther away it gets from itself. To any reasonable person this should draw into question the claim of said truth.

Right now religion is trying to reimagine itself, it’s trying to make up the massive ground it has lost to secularism but the truth of its morality lies in the fact that its best hope is destruction, misery and death on a massive scale. Only such devastation could undo the knowledge we have obtained both intellectually and morally. Fanaticism in the Middle East is a product of destruction, misery and death whereas here in America the fanatics are docile by comparison because the standard of living is higher, education is better and the access to information is remarkable.

What we see on these forums and in the political arena is religion drowning in the quicksand of peace and prosperity. If religion does the smart thing and relaxes or if it chooses to struggle against the sinking sand the result will be the same, it will drown and I say good riddance. If its greatest ally is destruction, misery and death, and history has certainly made the case for that, it deserves to die.

 

Yawn, people have been predicting what you wish for for 2,000 years. Actually, Christianity is projected to grow 50% between 2000 and 2050, just not in the dying West.

 

Links please

 

It will grow rapidly as the African population grows (doubling by 2050, quadrupling by 2100 to 50% of the global population). Even countries like South Korea are witnessing an increase in conversion to Christianity.

When leftists such as the thread starter claim religion is the root of all their ills, I just have to laugh.

Communism- the most anti-religious ideology on the face of this planet. It was by far the most radical and laughably impractical. Go back 90 years and the Communists were abolishing inheritance, setting up "hate speech laws", trying hard to destroy the family (and failed) and make the State the parent of all children, boarded up all the Churches and tried to repress Islam in Central Asia (and gave up by the late 50's). They exterminated the intellectual classes, landowners and aristocrats in virtually any country they have ever gotten their hands on. Pol Pot even put the intellectuals to work in the fields alongside the peasants- and Gough Whitlam, whose picture is the profile avatar of one of the above posters, was most supportive of him. That was, until the Khmer Rouge wiped out two million within four years and Australia's leftists like him, Cairns and Kerr looked as stupid as ever. Even the US intelligence claimed Whitlam was a security threat to Australia and pushed for his removal.

By the early 1980's perestroika was set in motion and the Soviet Union was already moderate if not somewhat right-wing. The leftist policies were being rapidly abandoned, and Communism- the epitome of leftist foolishness- had to go altogether once its underlying principles had been rejected after decades of failure. China has undergone the same transition without the turbulence. Walmart, KFC and everything else capitalist- whether good or bad- can be found all across their "Communist" nation.

The bitter irony is that social leftism thrives only in the developed nations where the foolish inhabitants take everything they have for granted. As it destroys society's foundations by eroding customs, family as a building block, national borders, birth rates, educational standards and ultimately law and order, religion and all else that leftists hate, takes root once again.

 

I couldn't find the estimate from 2000, but here's one saying from 2010 to 2050 Christianity will grow 35% globally. This is about the rate of population growth, but Christianity certainly isn't disappearing as you imagine. Note religiously unaffiliated are projected to decline in that period.

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/

 

You can call them Leftist Policies,of course.
But it is really Feminism, which turns a successful society into a broken house of patriarchy as matriarchy replaces it.

 

But the seven headed east returned in the Renaissance.
And the culture of sexual promiscuity was revived throughout what had been 1000 years of monastic sexual morality in the West.

 

The OP makes a very interesting and valid observation, unfortunately I don't think that the elimination of religion will cease this struggle.


I'm beginning to believe based on the neurological research being done on ideology, that this is an inherent part of the human condition. Those who identify themselves as conservative have an aversion to ambiguity and require a more rigid system in which to operate. Whether it is religion or something else, they will find an institution to house their ideological bias.

See:
[h=1]Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are…Conservative[/h]

 

Thanks for this. There's a lot to digest.

 

you mean the 'dying' west in which you live? in preference to living in a third world country (with more god)?

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it will disappear from the west, and be concentrated in the developing world.

 

the problem is teasing out whether it IS an inherent part of the human condition, or whether it's indoctrinated in. even the need for a rigid authority can be indoctrinated in, so who knows how this will play out longer term, once cross-generational brainwashing falls well below 'replacement' levels. this isn't far off in America, and has already happened in much of the west. we are seeing, in these places, less conservatism, so you can't help wonder if we're actually breeding it out.

 

I don't think you can realistically have both world peace and global prosperity at the same time. Inequality is what gets ditches dug. People who dig ditches grow discontent with their lack of prosperity.

 

Populations have always grown more superstitious as uncertainty rises around.

I think you have a valid argument as to why that is.

 

1) How do you read the OP and assume the question I pose is whether or not religion will die?

2) Your response however does point to the actual purpose of the OP despite it being by complete accident.

Where is religion thriving? Where will it grow? Where is it trending downward?

Would you like to discuss the OP now or start a new thread?

 

Is China part of the developing world? I mean, considering that Christianity is rapidly growing there.

 

These statistics support my OP.

If I take away your biased revisionism the only thing I have left is that dogmatic ideologies are the root of all our ills so why exactly are you laughing? Communism isn't atheism and only did the damage it did because it acted too much like a religion not the other way around. The purveyors of Communism didn’t arrive at disbelief through rational thought, reasoned analysis, or scientific rumination. Rather, they promulgated disbelief in order to subvert the most powerful opposing institution to the State: the Church. If you can tell me the role the church played in Stalinist Russia in a less biased manner perhaps I'll take you more seriously. Until then I have to assume you're just another theist who has distorted history for their own gains.

Ok now I'm laughing, perhaps I could bring up Nazism as the epitome of rightist foolisness? Never mind the fact that both assertions are truly two sides of the same extreme statism coin. Walmart and KFC? If that is what our troops have been fighting and dying for we should all go into a dark room and die of shame.

Interesting take, it kind of makes cockroaches sound worthy of worship.

 

Eliminating religion wasn't what I posited in the OP anyway. I was simply measuring it's merit or lack thereof.

Condoning the owing of slaves was once an inherent part of the human condition as well. The echos of which live on in the American religious right-wing today. Tradition, family values, these ideas bring warm thoughts to some and are a warning of living nightmares to others who understand the human experience doesn't begin with their birth and end with their death. The irony of the religious right is that if Christianity was so virtuous, America would have never existed.

 

And the anti-slavery movement began in the Christian West and no place else.

For the devastation the breakdown of the family brings, see US inner cities.

The US slave system would have never begun had people listened to the Bible, both the OT and NT condemn slave trading, or kidnapping people for profit. The US economic powerhouse was always the North, where slavery either didn't exist or was a minor factor.

 

I was responding to someone on this thread commenting on religion in decline. Globally speaking, that is a common but false theme around here. Christianity aside, Islam is projected to grow tremendously, although mainly through high birthrates and forced 'conversions'.

It is trending downward where ever man decides to reject God, often for the cause of sexual anarchy, just as apostate OT Israel often did. They were punished with what we are going through now, drought and the sword. In one such passage in the OT it describes Israel being punished with young incapable rulers, ahem......

 

1) you do understand, I hope, that 'forced conversion' is the reason Christianity has survived? it was not 'chosen' by 99.99% of adherents, in its 1700 year history. when you take away the compulsion to participate, vast numbers of people immediately stop participating. those taking up the faith in the east are from cultures which practices parental authority veneration - so indoctrination is very effective. it only requires one generation of converts to ensure several generations of practitioners. but just like everything else they adopt from the west, this veneration of parental authority is loosing it's grip. most likely within those several generations, kids will start dumping Christianity in their teens or early adulthood.

2) do you seriously think people shed religion for sexual reasons? are Christians the most sex-obsessed people on earth?

 

Nonsense, that was never a part of Christ's teaching, and is done nowhere today. What is happening is attempts to force people to stop being Christians, in Islam today, and atheistic communism last century, which killed an estimated 25,000,000 Christians. I saw a statistic that said Christianity has more voluntary conversions every year than all other religions combined, about equal to the population of Texas annually. Both my parents and wife became Christians later in life, nobody forced them.

Don't you mean 2,000 years? Who forced the disciples to become Christians? Are you not aware of the tremendous pressure they got to abandon their faith? The same is going on in too many places today.

I could say the same for atheism, lots of people grow up in religiously ignorant homes and no doubt become de facto atheists.

Except in places like China and in Islamic countries, Christian conversion goes against parental authority, with many converts being disowned.

Howso when Christianity is projected to grow 35% between 2010 and 2050, with religiously unaffiliated dropping in that period?

Wanna bet?

Skeptics seem to be, just watch the reaction when a Christian states they believe homosexual activity to be immoral.

 

Peace and prosperity seems to end with women's suffrage laments about the distribution of the riches and relaxation men acquire when successful.
Together, they use sexual power in their choices of male partners acquire Cultural Power, using Political Correctness to subvert normal law making procedures.

In the end, Religions rise up against he Gay and Feminist immorality which their Bibles condemn.
That is why we see these people so active in end times.

 

Interesting since you are the first person to respond to this thread and I quote; "Yawn, people have been predicting what you wish for for 2,000 years. Actually, Christianity is projected to grow 50% between 2000 and 2050, just not in the dying West." Either this "someone" you were responding to can only be seen by you or you're mistaken. Ironically this kind of sums up the entire religious debate.

Ahh the subjectivity of religion. "No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master."

 

When you say the Christian West what exactly are you referring to? Secularism was the catalyst for slavery's demise and though we can point to religious peoples like Quaker John Woolman you cannot deny the secular nature of denying the bibles explicit condoning of slavery. Ok well you can but you will simply expose your bias on the matter.

Tradition and family values caused the devastation in the inner cities and many other places around the country and world. It's tradition and family values that cause the millions of people in the LGBT community strife today.

 

To summarize religious affiliation will increase in the least prosperous and Sucessful nations and decline in the wealthy, developed countries.