Minoriteeburg wrote:Okay, I wanted to do a thread like this without it coming off as flamebait. So I want a nice adult discussion/debate here.
I am not a religious person, and although I have no issue with anyone being religious, but with church attendance falling in the US
http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html, and in other parts of the world
http://www.whychurch.org.uk/trends.php, are we going to see a great decline in the number of people who are religious in the world?
Now I know that the sources I posted were Christian, so here are some others
http://www.examiner.com/article/european-mosque-attendance-declining, and
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/united_synagogue_turns_inward.
Now I am sure that all of the corruption coming to light (especially in the Christian community) is not helping matters much, but the real question I wish to ask is, have we evolved as a society to the point where religion is no longer necessary?
Science is probably not helping the religious community as well. Atheism is becoming more and more popular as of late (source:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2012/0815/Atheism-on-the-rise-around-the-globe) due to people turning to science and reason over faith. Now is this a sign of we as a global society evolving past our old way of life? I personally believe that yes this is the case
I myself was raised Catholic, and although I never really attended church on a regular basis, stayed with my faith until about high school when I started getting into the idea of applying reason instead of faith into my everyday life. And sooner than later my love for science drew me away from my faith, and now I am an full fledged Athiest.
But even though my faith dissipated, I never lost my respect for religion. I still see the good it can do, and the good it still does. But it just stopped doing anything for me.
Now again this thread is not an attack on anyone who is religious, nor is it me telling anyone who is religious that their beliefs are wrong, but I would really like the opinions of everyone on NSG both religious and not on what they think about the decline in religion in our society.
Please once again, I want a fair and nice debate on this.
Your thoughts, NSG?